My First Business

I was talking to a friend about something related, then I remembered -- I actually created my own business in 4th or 5th grade... I forgot when exactly.. I think 5th, anyways here's my story.

My sister taught me how to make these awesome origami ninja stars, the material was pretty easy, basically 8 squares... could be any size, -- that was part of the awesomeness it was easily scalable. However they were only suitable for throwing at a small size, too large and it became floppy and not firm enough . Anyways I naturally showed off my ninja stars to my friends and they were a complete hit =D. Oh I forgot to mention you could "transform" them into octagonal discs... but they weren't as cool but that functionality was pretty awesome.

So you guessed it, I got the idea to start selling these little gems for 1$ a piece, for a 5th grader that was quite a bit of chump change. Paper was essentially free... just needed to cut, fold, combine, sell. A nearly 99% gross margin business, I guess there was also time, however I just did this during math lessons 'cuz I was way ahead of the curve anyways, so the opportunity costs were small as well. Eventually I was looking to expand so I hired some friends to help make and sell these ninja stars to their friends and family, and by hire I would give them a cut I suppose -- I don't recall ever handling out money to them tho lol... but my best guess is they just took the money themselves or something.

So what caused my downfall? Well it was actually a confluence of factors. First we severely lacked any competitive advantage... all that was required was paper, scissors, time, and knowledge of how to fold and combine the paper. So guess what happened? Some other boys in the class bought one and basically reverse engineered the product *cough* future Microsoft employees? *cough*. Competition... so what's left.. we're forced to compete on cost, and to be honest these other boys were more popular.. so if anything THEY had the competitive advantage ='(. So thus margins were dwindling. Second, as this was happening, there was a severe lack of sales, I saw this was happening so I took some preemptive measures to start deleveraging. I had to fire 2 of my 4 friends. So I did.. and guess what... I was accused of racism! I kid you not, in 5th grade.. accused of racism in firing. TBH I just picked my friends who I knew were the smartest/good kids like me... and I guess they were closer to me too.. so If anything I was doing nepotism not racism -- I swear! But b/c of this one of my other friends left too ='(, My empire was falling apart! Third, our teachers caught wind of these competing business' and the um... healthy competition... that was going on between them, I overhead this cuz I had to stay after school one time for doing something wrong.. insulting this taller girl who annoyed me I believe -- she insulted me back so we were both there. Anyways I was stereotypical "good" kid back then so I didn't want to get in further trouble so I decided to close shop and quit. I think this was a poor decision on the teachers' part as they should encourage/foster creativity and entrepreneurship =X. But anyways I was getting quite bored of it, and the market was becoming quickly saturated as these little ninja stars were easily reusable. The other "company" was also having problems and wanted my leadership by "merging" and so me and the other head would be "Co-Presidents", I declined, he offered me a position on top, I also declined... I just basically lost interest and didn't think there was any more money to be made, I never kept count how much we sold.. prob less than <30, but that was good money back then. And so ended my first foray into business.

Obama's Nobel Peace Prize: A Defense

By now we have all heard the news,

The Norwegian Nobel Committee said it gave the prize to Obama for his "efforts to strengthen international diplomacy," his "vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons" and for inspiring hope and creating "a new climate in international politics." -- from CNN

Now critics have pointed out, validly, that he hasn't actually achieved any results to warrant such an award except possibly a bunch of speeches. I would argue that his speeches and words are the result, and his critics discount too highly the value of words, tone, and communication.

In fact a significant amount of peace is achieved by diplomacy. But what is diplomacy essentially? At it's foundational bases, diplomacy is also just words. Of course they are words arranged in such a way so that when parsed by friends and enemies are meant to achieve some lasting affect on the psychology of those who hear it.

So perhaps a significant end result hasn't been achieved, but to say Obama has not achieved anything is a tremendous understatement. One shouldn't discount the value of the inspiration that was the soul of his campaign. It motivated the constituents of his campaign to act voraciously on his behalf. That motivation helped propelled him to the presidency -- certainly a significant achievement personally, unless you think winning the presidency is easy. His speech in Cairo was widely praised. To have parts of the Muslim world give rousing applause to an American President is a significant step in achieving lasting peace in the middle east as well as home here domestically. One may argue that anyone can do that by pandering to the audience, but if you actually hear it, you will hear criticisms of both Israel and the Muslim world. Pushing against Israeli settlements is also a big step, one can not seem impartial allowing Israel to settle more land in the West Bank. Obama's speech to Europe was also very motivating and cooperative. Once against it wasn't one sided pandering, but a critical acknowledgment of mistakes done by both sides. Of course if you don't agree with these viewpoints, you will discount the value of these speeches, however I think the arguments he has made can be supported heavily.

So yes, no end results, but before we get to the end, we must travel in between. I personally feel Obama has made many strides toward that end of peace, progressing 50% on 4 projects can be more successful than just finishing one project all the way. Mohamed ElBaradei(a former nobel peace prize winner himself) has said that Obama "has done in nine months what many people would take a generation to do."

Perhaps Obama can't compete with previous winners who have certainly achieve significant results toward world peace, but he wasn't competing with them, he was competing against everyone else/organization who hasn't won an award, perhaps the competition wasn't up to par this year? I haven't really read about who the critics would've awarded instead.