“Simple questions about water,” The Colorado Springs Business Journal, July 20 - 26, 2012, 19.

WATERWORKS

As the Waldo Canyon Fire made abundantly clear, we need to think about water in the arid high desert in which we live. To the question “How much water consumption do we have in CS?,” Mark Murphy, of CSU’s Public Affairs Division, responded: “Our average annual consumption in recent years has been about 27 billion gallons/83,000 acre-feet.”

Gary Bostrom, who is the Chief Water Services Officer at CSU, refused to answer any questions regarding water consumption or conservation. It took two weeks to move from one department to the other to get simple answers to simple questions. Is this the most efficient manner to respond to public inquiries?

Perhaps CSU needs to justify its bloated Public Affairs Division’s budget. How many employees does it take for Mr. Murphy to respond? One is tempted to throw in a joke about screwing a light bulb, but perhaps this would hit too close to home. Did CEO Forte or the big boss, Mr. Hente, the chairman of the CSU board, gave such orders to make sure no one knows what is done at CSU. Circling the Wagons?

Apparently, efficiency and transparency are not on their agenda. No, this is not picking on anyone in particular, just pointing out a culture of waste that probably will be shoved under the rug now that the big fire consumes all our attention. Isn’t it petty to pick at CSU when CS is burning? On the contrary, it’s what should be done.

Do we have enough reserves, long term contracts, or is this an annual matter? According to CSU’s spokesperson, “We currently have about two years of demand in storage, which we feel is adequate. We typically do not lease water from other sources other than our yield from the Fryingpan-Arkansas Project, which is an annual purchase; all our water is yield from the many water rights the city owns. We have on occasion purchased water from other providers, but those have been on a spot market basis and not long-term arrangements.”

How much does CSU charge (in the aggregate) for water, and how much does it pay for it? Answer: “As a not-for-profit, municipal utility, our goal is to recover only the cost of service and keep rates as low as possible.” But what are the numbers? Why bother asking if CSU refuses to answer those who are actually paying? It didn’t seem like a tricky question. Perhaps as users we should just trust CSU. Really?

What conservation efforts have you undertaken lately? A lengthy answer here: “State drought conditions have increased customer awareness for the value of water.  Additionally, we offer a number of free resources - from xeriscape classes to online conservation tools. Our customers may also qualify for money-saving rebates for installing or upgrading irrigation equipment and efficient appliances (http://www.csu.org/residential/water/Pages/waterefficiency.aspx).

Of note, we continue to help the Colorado Springs Parks, Recreation and Cultural Services Department modernize its irrigation systems and update [its] water efficiency practices for sustainable water savings. Our staff members have conducted water audits, made landscape changes and system upgrades, such as installing more efficient sprinkler heads, rain sensors and irrigation controllers to help save water while benefiting our community. These improvements, along with a water conservation rate applied to more than 130 parks, ha[ve] resulted in healthier turf and a decrease in parks water use by nearly 20 percent.

Our customers continue to conserve. The combination of ongoing customer information, rebates, and tiered water pricing based on use has resulted in a 21.5 percent decrease in water use per person compared to 2001.”

And, finally, is there a correlation between rate increase and decrease in consumption? What's the tipping point? The answer: “There is a price for essential indoor use, a moderate price for typical outdoor use and a higher price for excess use. Calculations are based on monthly use.  One cubic foot (CF) equals 7.48 gallons. Up to 999 CF 2.51 cents/CF; 1,000 to 2,499 CF 4.68 cents/CF; More than 2,500 CF 6.91 cents/CF. Average monthly water use is 1,100 cubic feet (8,228 gallons), resulting in a bill of $46.08. This is equal to about six-tenths of a cent per gallon.” No answer to the question at hand.

This trend is in line with an article titled “Residential water use trends in North America” (2011) that concludes: “when controlling for weather and other variables, the evident decline in residential use was pervasive among the national and regional components of the study. A household in the 2008 billing year used 11,678 gallons less water annually than an identical household di in 1978.”

Except for PR silliness, the Water Department is on board with the rest of the country. It therefore seems reasonable to follow Denver’s lead and keep it, while selling the rest of CSU.

Raphael Sassower is professor of philosophy at UCCS. He can be reached at rsassower@gmail.com See previous articles at sassower.blogspot.com

 

“Consider a paradigm shift,” The Colorado Springs Business Journal, July 13 - 19, 2012, 19.

PARADIGM SHIFT

It used to be called a paradigm shift. This happens in scientific circles when we move from one framework where our assumptions and methods can no longer solve problems to another where they can. The shift occurs because the old paradigm can no longer accommodate new variables or solve new problems. We must change some assumptions, even our methods of inquiry.

It’s still a mystery when exactly such shifts take place. At times, there is an obvious observation that contradicts old ideas—think of Galileo and his telescope confirming a heliocentric worldview away from the geocentric one. He was considered a heretic by the Catholic Church not because of his observations, but because they shattered a Biblical view about the earth being at the center of the universe.

We don’t hear much about paradigm shifts anymore. Instead, we hear about something being a “game-changer” that eventually becomes a “new normal.” Paradigm seems too archaic and cumbersome a term, especially as the person most credited with its coinage, Thomas Kuhn, was accused of having more than thirty five definitions for it.

As the Waldo Canyon Fire recedes into our collective history—a horrific natural disaster whose price will be paid for months and years—it can be seen as a game-changer for us as a community. It has forced us to rethink who we are and what we value. Solidarity isn’t a term we might have used before, but one we can use now; government assistance is something some have dreaded, but was essential to save lives and property.

The fire will be remembered by Americans across the land, making them more reluctant to come as tourists. So, tourism as we have known it in the cool and dry summers of Colorado may change as well. Our new normal may look quite differently from what it has looked in the past, especially when the state boasted that in 2011 we claimed 2.7% of the US travel market.

The total spending on overnight trips during 2011 was $10.76 billion, hosting a record 57.9 million travelers. Of them, 29 million were overnight visitors. The Colorado Tourism Office’s budget for 2011 was $13.3 million. Not a bad return on investment!

Our local economy is diversified enough that we aren’t as reliant on tourism as, say, Breckenridge, Vail, or Aspen. But we should revitalize our own Convention & Visitors Bureau—finding young and creative leaders rather than hiring outsiders who come to retire here.

One can see this kind of transformation or paradigm shift in San Miguel de Allende. Narco-trade has given Mexico such a terrible reputation around the world that tourism has dropped perceptibly. A desired destination for Canadian and American tourists and host to about 10,000 expats (out of a population of 70,000), San Miguel suffers from many empty restaurants and galleries.

A city founded in 1542, San Miguel is old and magnificent, with cobbled streets and three-meter walls, colorful and quiet, perched on hills some 250 kilometers north of Mexico City. Its European ambience is sophisticated the way the old world has always been, knowingly avoiding the latest trends to assure the continuity of tradition. Yes, they do have televisions and Internet connectivity. But the cuisine remains seasonal.

As tourism declined in the past few years, and as money transfers from Mexicans working in the US has shrunk (estimates put the annual amount around $20 billion), San Miguel’s largest industry remains strong: dairy. The new normal there has lowered real-estate speculation, because foreigners are not flocking there as they used to. The recent rigged election of the PRI isn’t helping in assuring Americans Mexico is their favored destination.

Just as San Miguel had to adjust because of circumstances not of its own doing, so will Colorado Springs have to adjust as well. We may have to rethink our tourism industry and promote cycling, for example, more than ever. Likewise, we’ll have to rethink our dependence on national defense budgets, and develop related high-tech industries that have broader applications.

The fire has definitely been a game-changer for us: we learned what it means to be a community (despite some ugly manifestations to the contrary among burglars and thieves). Coming together we can even try and change our national image of a silly conservative holdout that refuses to invest in its infrastructure. We may not become liberals in any sense of the term, yet we can be republicans.

When Michael Sandel urges us to recall our republican heritage, he suggests we consider having a “public philosophy” that stresses building virtues among the citizenry the way our founding father envisioned them. This doesn’t mean choosing specific ends, but recognizing ourselves as members of a community that cares.

Raphael Sassower is professor of philosophy at UCCS. He can be reached at rsassower@gmail.com See previous articles at sassower.blogspot.com

“Fires and human nature,” The Colorado Springs Business Journal, July 6 - 12, 2012, 17.

HUMAN FIRES

The great Waldo Canyon fires affecting Colorado Springs is different from other wild fires in the west because of its proximity to a large metropolitan area. And this fact brings to light human generosity in the face of disasters.

Western traditions have held to one of three competing views of human nature: we are either good by nature, bad, or neither (clean slate, tabula rasa). Obviously, each view of human nature spun a set of ideas about who we are and how we should interact with each other.

If all humans are good by nature, rules and regulations are superfluous, because we’d be nice to each other whenever possible. Jean Jacque Rousseau suggested that in addition to our survival instincts we are endowed with compassion or pity, and therefore would agree to enter into a social contract.

According to one interpretation, Roman Catholics who believe in Original Sin set up numerous injunctions to ensure peaceful coexistence among us. If we are evil by nature, a police state (in addition to God) can potentially guarantee safety.

Those who assume that we are by nature a clean slate believe that we can steer people to do the right thing (nature vs. nurture). The Enlightenment ideals about education eventually made their way to contemporary culture. Prison reform is based on this view of human nature.

Business-people still want to know: why bother with three alternative views, when one will do? Knowing our nature can help organize corporate structures and incentives, help in marketing goods and services, and justify a whole range of attitudes about competition, greed, and success.

Beyond business interest, there is a broader interest in human nature as it relates to the debate between rugged individualism and communitarian collaboration. Sometimes this debate is couched in terms of minimal government intervention, at others as the nuisance of taxation.

We may never lay to rest this debate or many others that are rooted in our views of human nature. Edward O. Wilson, the famed Harvard socio-biologist who specializes in the study of ants, recently suggested that human evolution happens both on the individual and the social level, thus bridging many differences in evolutionary theory.

For him, a multi-level selection is in place or what he calls a “gene-culture coevolution.” This means that just as natural selection on the genetic level continues to remain operational from one generation to another, there is also a cultural selection where groups ward off enemies and ensure the survival of group members, retaining certain cultural traits over others.

This discussion matters especially when catastrophes come about. New Yorkers with a national reputation of rudeness and selfishness, competition and greed, distrust and fear behaved quite differently as the Twin Towers fell on 9/11. Was it their true nature? Or were they pretending to be nice in front of television cameras?

The shock of the attack made people realize that what they had in common was much more important than their differences. They came together as residents of a great city and not as individuals fighting each other. It took 9/11 to remind them of these simple but profound facts of life.

The same can be said of the Waldo Canyon fires here. The instinctive and natural responses have been quite remarkable. Perhaps these responses say much more about human nature than many textbooks can: when under fire, people seek each other’s comfort and help, and acts of selfless generosity are bound to surface.

More importantly, it becomes clear that those wanting to eliminate all government agencies or starve their funding out of existence are mistaken. They may score points at some conservative think tanks or among those listening to some radio shows. But in the real world, a world that brings about wild fires and flash floods, individual heroism goes only so far.

Only with a well-trained and well-funded Fire Department can a city like ours afford to coordinate fighting fires, evacuating residents, and rescuing those trapped in a bad situation. You can sing the praises of rugged individualism all day long, you can flaunt your handgun to protect your home, but without a unionized fire force, you’d be out of luck, overwhelmed by forces greater than yours.

And guess what? To maintain a standing force, you must pay taxes. This ensures funding that hopefully will never be used, but when needed, will be readily available. Contributions pour in during emergencies—but without prior planning and coordination, without policies and procedures in place, chaos ensues.

The Lesson of the day is that it’s not about more government or none at all, but about the optimal size that is required to maintain our social contract. May we never have to test its effectiveness.

Raphael Sassower is professor of philosophy at UCCS. He can be reached at rsassower@gmail.com See previous articles at sassower.blogspot.com

“10 ideas that could change our city,” The Colorado Springs Business Journal, June 29 – July 5, 2012, 25.

CITY MANIFESTO

Cities are built by visionaries or economic necessities (trade routes, ports). Ours has a history of great men, from General Palmer to Stratton and Penrose, who have thought of making our town a better place to live for future generations. We don’t need a gold rush to have a vision, only some dedication and goodwill.

While the Mayor is busy cleaning up city administration after decades of benign neglect bordering on fiduciary delinquency, and City Council is figuring out its job description after changes in the city charter, let me dare dream.

First, as part of the city structural cleanup, we should divest ourselves from any and all entities that are not essential to our operation. Sell or lease Memorial Hospital, Utilities, and the Airport. There is a twofold urgency for this: ridding ourselves of entities we cannot manage efficiently or oversee responsibly, and providing funds to pay for all the ideas listed below. Lease revenues (or outright sale) should be set aside in a special account for long-term projects and initiatives without the need of additional taxes or fees.

Second, we should build on the presence of the USOC and focus on athletic activities. We cannot expect professional teams to move here, so instead we should become the center of handicap/special tournaments (including veterans). A downtown complex (perhaps in place of the Drake power plant) would revitalize the city and draw tourists from across America. Every major city (see Denver) has realized this fact.

Third, if indeed University of Colorado Health System takes over Memorial and opens a branch at UCCS, we should ask for it to become dedicated to sports medicine—training, nutrition, treatment. The synergy between USOC, UCCS, and MHS could become a national model. This is not about money but about an execution of ideas in the most efficient way, using the talent we have and responding to community needs.

Fourth, given the many veterans that we have in town, we should integrate them into the previous two ideas, whatever the conditions under which they are discharged. The military has some resources that could be part of what the city plans to do. Whether as participants or fans, veterans should be made to feel as part of the city. They cannot be heroes abroad and pariahs at home.

Fifth, get the business community more involved in education (K-12). Our very own Steve Schuck spearheaded the school voucher initiative that brought about charter schools around the state. The Chamber of Commerce should follow this lead and ensure that graduation rates from our school districts are no longer an embarrassment. School reform should be local (rather than the disastrous federal mandate of No Child Left Behind), but to be meaningful it requires local pressure so as to change entrenched attitudes.

Sixth, we have the bright light of an expanding UCCS, an engine of economic development that can produce new innovations. The Silicon Valley in California proves that academic centers are the foundations of business prosperity. Let our own Digital Rockies serve this role here.

Seventh, as we focus on our indigenous talents and brain-power, we should also take advantage of the natural beauty that surrounds us. Perhaps the leadership of local tourism should be placed in the hands of thirty-something that can generate the kind of excitement the future of our town can enjoy.

Eighth, since attracting tourists and newcomers is still our vision of growth, let’s stop urban or suburban sprawl and focus on the center of town. If you visit any great city in America, you begin with downtown, and not some faraway development. Urban “filling” would also reduce the pressure on our inadequate infrastructure—from sewage lines to fire and police stations.

Ninth, in order to combat the impression that we are religious extremists, let’s emphasize religious diversity and harmony, agreeing on some common religious principles. UCCS’s Center for Religious Diversity and Public Life is only a starting point; the city should foster such initiatives to foster tolerance.

Tenth, if we agree to adopt any of the above initiatives and change our mindset as an emerging mid-size city rather than a small town below Pike’s Peak, we need to promote civility among all stakeholders, from the Mayor to City Council, all the way to every department head and city employee, and the rest of us. We need to learn to exchange ideas passionately but respectfully.

If we execute only half of these ideas in the next year or two, it’ll be amazing. If we execute them all, we would become a model city rather than a national laughing stock of religious fanatics and narrow-minded conservatives. We deserve a better reputation than that. But we must earn it first.

Raphael Sassower is professor of philosophy at UCCS. He can be reached at rsassower@gmail.com See previous articles at sassower.blogspot.com

“Let’s use common sense,” The Colorado Springs Business Journal, June 22 - 28, 2012, 19.

COMMON SENSE

Even the greatest logicians and scientists agree that the most sophisticated formulae can be explained in simple, common sense terms to anyone. If we agree that A is different from not A, or that if A leads to B, and B leads to C, that A therefore leads to C, we can communicate with each other. According to Laplace, “the theory of probabilities is at bottom nothing but common sense reduced to calculus.”

Communication between business partners or between the Mayor and Council is then something that can be achieved. In simple terms, without the aid of experts and specialists, any two people can exchange views and respond to those of others, even when disagreeing with each other.

This was the central idea that governed the writing of our founding fathers in regards to political life conducted by farmers and merchants. Benjamin Franklin warned against paying high salaries to congressional representatives so as not to attract professional politicians.

A farmer can understand the logic of an argument and see through its fallacies; a housewife knows do discern marketing fraud just as well as any expert; and the local retailer figures out quite easily if local politicians are bamboozling him or her. It’s really not that complicated, if you pay attention to common sense.

When esteemed colleagues in the academy tell me that what they work on is too complex to explain to someone like myself, I always encourage them to try. I can only imagine what they say to their unsuspecting students. And when they actually try, two things commonly happen.

Either their explanations make perfect sense; I then understand exactly what they are working on, because they indeed know their “stuff.” Or they fumble terribly, confusing themselves along the way, and ending up so frustrated that they give up. At this point I know they are full of it, and really camouflage their own pretenses with fancy words or formulae. Where is their common sense?

What’s true of the stuffy academic world is true of the public sphere as well. When economists fail to give a simple answer to the question: what should be done to stimulate the economy?, they only prove that theirs is indeed the dismal science or not a science at all. They are clueless, despite fancy computer programs that process mounds of data.

When politicians give similar vague answers to questions, such as: should we intervene in Syria now?, they betray their own insincerities. Of course geopolitical variables come into play: what about the Russians and the Chinese? What about Turkey and Iran? Can we afford a military engagement in another theater? But the complexity of the situation alone doesn’t justify not giving an answer at all.

What common sense forces us to do is get beyond the fancy wordings of our arguments and dissertations, and simply convey the values that guide us. Common sense can tease them out from the complex double-talk politicians have mastered over the years. Just tell us that you believe in personal responsibility and therefore want no government intervention, and we can get it.

But common sense also exacts a price: you must be consistent. You can’t say that you want the government off your back but then ask it to handle your retirement in the form of Social Security and Medicare. When Bush tried to privatize Social Security, even his fellow Republicans were not pleased (because of their constituents of senior citizens), and he had to give up on his initiative.

In some bizarre ways, no American president has been able to be consistent in the application of his ideology—compromises abound. So, why harp on local politicians and their inadequacies? Why chide the Council president, for example, who wonders why I don’t like him. Guess what, Mr. Hente, I don’t know you well enough to form a personal opinion about you. My complaint is always philosophical, that is, one rooted in the common sense idea of a Social Contract. Have you used it lately in your dealings with CSU?

Common sense tells me that there ought to be a division of labor between the Mayor and Council; it also tells me that each ought to be responsible for overseeing various government entities. That’s simple enough. What’s not so simple is how they perform their oversight jobs. No, expertise isn’t essential, but knowing what you vote on is: read the documents before you vote! As one can observe from CSU’s board meetings, unanimous votes are routine. Should they be?

Perhaps Emerson was right when he lamented that “common sense is not so common.” Let’s prove him wrong and find common ground in common sense for responsible governance.

Raphael Sassower is professor of philosophy at UCCS who teaches the use of common sense. He can be reached at rsassower@gmail.com See previous articles at sassower.blogspot.com

“Let’s talk about blue gold,” The Colorado Springs Business Journal, June 15 - 21, 2012, 19.

BLUE GOLD

As the 2008 documentary “Blue Gold” suggests, there are bound to be world water wars in the next few decades, as the survival of our civilization will depend on scarce water resources. Just as we are fighting over oil resources now, so will we declare war around the globe to control water.

More than 70% of the surface of our planet is covered by water, admittedly mostly salty; our bodies are between 50-60% water, including our blood and brain-matter; and most of what we eat and drink includes high percentage of water (97% in beer).

It’s the process of evaporation, condensation, precipitation, surface runoff, and accumulation that eventually allows us to have enough water for agriculture and drinking. And as global warming engulfs us—despite deniers out there in wishful-thinking land—and a population growth of seven billion inhabitants, water is becoming more precious every day.

Colorado offers a unique set of conditions of what the future holds. Last year we had a record snowfall of 525 inches during the ski season; this year it’s reminiscent of the snow draught of the early 1980s; snowpack in the Colorado River basin is 44% of last year’s record level, and 63% of the annual average.

During the 2002 Hayman fire that consumed around 138,000 acres, I recall having to ration water to my restaurant customers: only when asked, could we offer water. A glass of water wastes another when washed. Cars couldn’t be washed with garden hoses, and lawns had to be watered on assigned days only.

When precipitation was zero this March, climatologists took little comfort in the relatively good reservoir levels we enjoy. Their worries are about a year from now, if warmer weather persists. We can perform rain dances, as some chiefs were asked to do for snow in Vail this past ski season; others have suggested magnetic air-spray Ion-generators as a means of forming rain clouds.

Can we bring market wisdom to water? First, local conditions: we live in the high desert, despite pretty lakes and snow-covered mountains. It’s dry here. Second, given limited supply and an ongoing increase in demand, prices should be going up. Third, since we despise government subsidies, let prices reflect the true cost of water.

So, if you insist on growing Kentucky-like grass in your backyard, you should pay full price for this Midwestern luxury. What happened to xeriscaping or xerogardening as ways to reduce or eliminate the need for supplemental water from irrigation? What happened to drip-irrigation systems (originally developed in Israel in the late 1960s)?

Our aesthetic addiction to green lawns may harken as far back to some European ancestors from England or Ireland; it may be more recently associated with transplants coming from the Midwest of East Coast where golf courses dot the landscape that was once farming land. Can our water supplies support fifteen golf courses around town?

The quality of our water is good enough not to warrant buying water bottles (see the 2012 “Drinking Water Quality Report”). Mayor Bloomberg admonished New Yorker not to waste on average $3,000 annually on bottled water and drink tap water which would cost them only $30 annually. His worry was about the city’s landfill, something we can ignore because our city doesn’t collect garbage.

As we plan the sale of CSU, and as we are bound to deal with our agreement with Pueblo in regards to stormwater controls and the Southern Delivery System, here is what we can do.

First, separate the Water Department from the rest of CSU. Outside of historical precedence, energy concerns are different from water issues, and should be treated as such. This would also protect water contracts and agreements for the long-term regardless of the power-plants’ sale.

Second, whatever the price of water today, it should be doubled as soon as possible. We should use market mechanisms not only to reflect today’s reality (costs) but encourage long-term planning that would ensure future water supplies. Conservation behavior will become a byproduct of this price increase, a much more effective tool than yet another set of regulations.

Third, until we begin to sell our natural gas to out of state customers (in the Midwest), and then buy their water (from the great lakes), we should cherish our shrinking water resources. It’s an asset we should protect.

And finally, when you brush your teeth or shave, turn off the water till you rinse; when you shower, make it as short as possible; and when you drink, refill your own bottle and sip slowly. It all makes financial sense, while being mindful of living in the desert. 

Raphael Sassower is professor of philosophy at UCCS who dreamed of ranching in the Negev but couldn’t afford to buy water. He can be reached at rsassower@gmail.com See previous articles at sassower.blogspot.com

“Laying a business, and dreams, to rest,” The Colorado Springs Business Journal, June 8 - 14, 2012, 19.

BUSINESS BURIALS

Shakespeare famous lines, “I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him,” came to mind as I boarded my flight to New York to celebrate the closing night of Mercat on Bond Street in Manhattan (after 5 years). An authentic Catalan restaurant next to one of the best Italian restaurants in New York and on one of the last cobble-stone streets in the city, Mercat has become a destination point for local and visiting Spaniards.

This where Lionel Messi has been watched on big-screen televisions for the past two years; this is where grandmother’s recipes find admiring customers; this is where celebrities knew they could hide from the paparazzi.

Almost half my age, my partner inspired me to think about the restaurant business not as something I did in the past, but as something I should still be doing. Having sold the Warehouse Restaurant and Gallery in 2007 (after 10 years), I thought I’d never be part of another restaurant ever again.

Not only did I become a partner in Mercat, I helped open a second location in Brooklyn. But as sure as we were that our warehouse conversion was perfectly timed with the gentrification of this Williamsburg neighborhood, we discovered that the Great Recession affected us, too.

Instead of economies of scale, preparing the food in one location and shipping it to the other, we were burdening one successful enterprise with a newly opened laggard. We even changed Mercat Negra (black market) with its Catalan cuisine to Tecalote (owl) which served high-end Mexican food. Within two years a dream was sold to another operator.

In the summer of 2010 a group of investors helped me renovate what became Il Postino. Within six months the Mining Exchange Hotel incorporated it into its overall operations, making it Springs Orleans. Here, too, the menu radically changed to Cajun/Creole and the restaurant is thriving.

Not all burials are the same, and some deserve praise, after all. Financially, there is never a proper compensation for the sweat equity that accompanies the actual money it takes to open the original restaurants. You are lucky to recoup some of your investment.

Emotionally, there is no clarity. You are sad because you failed to fulfill your dream: you had to close or sell it. It’s impossible to sugar-coat the fact that you failed. No matter the reason, you are no longer part of it.

Yet there is some profound pride that your labor is bearing fruits, even if for someone else. Your partners and you are the ones who had the vision, courage, and tenacity to take on massive renovations and open restaurants. And this feeling will never be taken away from you, even if most of the new customers have no idea about the history of the place.

None of these cases warrant the label of resurrection, since their reopening isn’t that profound or divinely inspired. But their resuscitation is still magical and astonishing, reassuring you that your own failure has been turned around.

The sadness of your failure gives way to a deep humility, having realized that someone else can better execute your dream. And perhaps this is what the business world is all about: measuring your success or failure against others.

As long as your ego isn’t entangled in this process, you can withstand public scrutiny. Your customers have a sense of “ownership,” and vote with their wallets. New York restaurants (numbering 4,500) are radically different from those in Colorado Springs (numbering 750). In NYC fierce competition and messy licensing processes are daunting; in CS, “Fast Food Nation” reigns supreme.

The harsh realities of different marketplaces ensure a level of transparency and honesty. You can tell whatever tales you want, but at the end of the day, you either can make it or not. If you can, you stay in the game, if you can’t, cook at home and serve your friends.

The lessons to be learned from the opening and closing of four restaurants are too many to recount here. Some have to do with partnerships and investors, some with banks and landlords; others have to do with permits and contractors, and still others with health and liquor licensing boards; and finally, many have to do with employees and customers.

Unless you think about the team that makes it possible for you to succeed, unless you think about the ambiance you are creating to invite your guests to dine and drink with you, don’t ever open a restaurant. It’s a labor of love, given the anemic profit margins of this industry (5% national average). And love is difficult to sustain when your counterpart is an amalgam of diverse people and their ideas of a perfect meal.

Raphael Sassower is professor of philosophy at UCCS. He can be reached at rsassower@gmail.com See previous articles at sassower.blogspot.com

“Belief in marketplace,” The Colorado Springs Business Journal, June 1 - 7, 2012, 17.

VIVA CHINA

One of the hallmarks of American capitalism is its faith in the efficiency of the marketplace. This means the setting of prices, the allocation of resources, and the distribution of labor across different industries. Inefficiencies are ruthlessly punished.

But how efficient is it when two companies producing the same product compete for market share? Isn’t there an overall inefficiency? Isn’t there a redundancy? Why waste resources rather than combine the two, ensuring economies of scale and overall cost reduction?

We allow redundancy in military operations: if A doesn’t work, B will, so that soldiers and pilots will not be at harm’s way without proper protection. With sufficient redundancy, safety is assured. It’s a balancing act in the marketplace between safety and efficiency.

The best place to ensure an efficient balancing act where the dynamics of free operations allow for immediate changes and adjustments. No company can survive without paying close attention to whatever market forces—the Invisible Hand—dictate.

Since the marketplace is somehow regulated by political forces, government agencies, Congressional mandates, and Presidential directives, it has been customary to assume that our democracy is up to the task: checks and balances as well as term limits and ongoing election cycles.

Between a dynamic political framework and a dynamic economic marketplace, it would seem that efficiency, productivity, and even creativity would be guaranteed. The balancing act found its home in the best of all worlds: a capitalist democracy.

Yet, a different story emerged when the Conference Board for the Business Council asked 70 CEOs to evaluate the political and economic climate. According to Gillian Tett of the Financial Times, “when this group was asked which global institutions they considered most competent and credible,” they put themselves in first place (90%).

Self-congratulation is a funny thing: you hear it more often than you expect, and it’s hard to argue with the one so earnestly declaring it. Isn’t this true, especially when the average compensation in 2011 for CEOs was $9.6 million (AP)? What can you say? Perhaps retell the story of Narcissus who was lured to a pool to look at his own beauty, and not realizing he was looking at an image of himself, was unable to stop looking at the image and died.

In second place they put central banks (80% of them), a reasonable choice if one considers their bailout plans as guarantors of last resort for failing commercial and investments banks. The CEOs seem to say that they can count on them to stabilize a faltering economy; this also entails counting on the politicians that oversee them.

Relying on central banks and government regulators and politicians who oversee them is akin to asking the Politburo to watch your back. Either you believe in the competitive capitalist powers of the marketplace or you believe in a socialist planned economy. Choosing the latter at your convenience to protect the former is ideologically dishonest.

The most astonishing result of this survey was the third place choice: the Chinese Communist party leadership (64%). The US president garnered a mere 33%, while the US Congress unsurprisingly came in at 5%. The justification was that unlike US politicians who think only about the short-term, the Chinese enact long-terms policies.

This way, the CEOs explained, they know what to expect. Unknown variables cannot be plugged into excel spreadsheets; nor can one plan investment strategies if one has no idea what government policies and regulations will be forthcoming. Risk mitigation is crucial for success; and our own government raises business risks as opposed to the totalitarian Chinese regime that is transparent and predictable (you know what to expect, even if you don’t like it).

So, while we may debate till the cows come home how superior we are in comparison to the Chinese, CEOs of global corporations leave such debates to television pundits and uninformed ideologues. They admire China’s proactive intervention, ensuring that the 2007 crisis was less disastrous than what the US and the EU have experienced to date.

In a bizarre way, corporate leaders admit that government intervention is necessary and welcome: they like rescue plans and coordinated operations; they like to know that they’ll be saved if they drown; they like to play like competitive warriors as long as the battlefield is rigged to ensure their victory.

Maybe they are rich enough to speak truth to power; maybe they can afford to question the presumptions of the capitalist marketplace. Their compensations don’t depend on their ideas or speeches, only on the compensation committee of their boards. And that committee is usually appointed by them—yes, they are all narcissists!

Raphael Sassower is professor of philosophy at UCCS who published Postcapitalism in 2009.  He can be reached at rsassower@gmail.com Previous articles can be found at sassower.blogspot.com

“Perry Sanders and shrewd dealing,” The Colorado Springs Business Journal, May 25 - 31, 2012, 21.

THE MINING EXCHANGE HOTEL

The latest debacle at J.P. Morgan, when $2 billion was lost because of misconceived trades that were supposed to hedge risks, is only the tip of a much bigger iceberg of silly activities that some consider entrepreneur-like; they are not.

Any kind of arbitrage, despite whatever justification made by Wall Street, ends up adding no value to the marketplace. It is defined as “the simultaneous purchase and sale of an asset in order to profit from a difference in the price. It is a trade that profits by exploiting price differences of identical or similar financial instruments, on different markets or in different forms.”

Wall Street insiders may argue about “market inefficiencies” that ought to be exploited to the fullest. But as long as the very concept of “fair value” is itself under greater scrutiny in light of Facebook’s Initial Public Offering, valuing the company at $100 billion, one must pause with incredulity. Remember the dot.com bubble?

There is nothing courageous about betting against one’s own stock, finding minimal deviations in prices—with the aid of sophisticated computer algorithms—in order to squeeze a daily profit. It’s not even risk-taking, unless you are clueless.

And then there are real entrepreneurs, like my dear friend Perry R. Sanders, Jr. I had a small part to play in this downtown saga, so I know what it took to make this dream come true. It was a labor of love that required a vision; and yes, it was and still is as risky as it gets, but he’s not betting someone else’s money.

Having gotten out of the toxic relationship with Landco , Perry was free from the apartment plans they originally agreed to. For him, a hotel was the best use of an existing building, because of parking concerns for residential units.

Perry’s vision was contagious, and I was swept up by it: Perry’s enthusiasm and rhetorical skills, his salesmanship and conviction, honed for years as one of the most successful trial attorneys in the country, came in handy in this project.

We started small with Il Postino—now Springs Orleans—and were gratified to see immediate positive response from the local community. The “bones” of these structures are so magnificent that they provide an aesthetic experience unlike anything else in this town—they take us back to the days of gold prosperity that endowed our city with great legacies.

When we parted ways as partners, we didn’t part ways as close friends. The rule of thumb in partnerships is that most fall apart because of rancor or personality conflict. This was not our case. I have been asked, since the hotel opened last week, if I have any regrets no longer being part of this success story.

There are three emotions that are wasteful, and definitely have no room in a rational business world: anger, jealousy, and regret. I recommend you train yourself to excise them from your emotional repertoire.

Anger is wasteful because, as Spinoza already noted in the 1600s, it merely expresses your own feelings. It’s not a response to someone else’s actions, because you have no control over them. When you yell or scream, you are simply emoting irrationally and finding an excuse to blame someone else for how you feel. Instead of “anger management” try anger elimination.

Jealousy is wasteful as well because it can’t change anything; no good comes out of eating your heart out trying to “keep up with the Joneses”. You should be happy that your friend succeeds, that you bear witness to this success, and that you were helpful in its achievement. There is plenty of room at the top—it’s not a zero-sum game.

Regret is similar to guilt insofar that it’s about what could or should have happened but didn’t. Unlike guilt which is justified if you willfully hurt someone (acted immorally), regret is victimless (you think you hurt yourself in some ways). Heraclitus said, “you can’t step twice in the same river”—what’s gone is forever gone (“water under the bridge”). It’s more productive to focus on the present. Buddhists call it mindfulness. Westerners call it intentionality.

As an entrepreneur, Perry teaches us to focuses on the tasks at hand and get them done. No obstacle is too large for him to circumvent: from bank loans to design and remodeling. His positive outlook and ready smile, his outpour of friendly chatter and tales from across the country, his love of music and people, all contributed to accomplish his dream of bringing a classy boutique hotel to downtown.

As fortunate recipients of his hard work, we should support his dream and make it our own. And whenever tempted, refuse to waste our emotional capital.

Raphael Sassower is professor of philosophy at UCCS. He can be reached at rsassower@gmail.com See previous articles at sassower.blogspot.com

“Is college worth it?,” The Colorado Springs Business Journal, May 18 – 24, 2012, 19.

DISTANCE LEARNING

As about 1,300 students will be graduating today from UCCS, the value of higher education remains controversial: is it worth the money?

According to the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, “57 percent of the 2,142 Americans surveyed claimed that the nation's higher education system does not offer adequate value in return for increasingly high costs, and 75 percent feel it is unaffordable for the average citizen.”

Graduating students owe about $1 trillion, more than all the mortgages and credit card debt combined. Colorado is ranked 49^th in the nation in per-capita support for higher education. The CU system receives about 5% of its budget from the state.

Tuition is rising annually to accommodate more students—at UCCS enrollment has tripled in the past twenty years—and a dismal labor market awaits them—less than half will be employed including unpaid internships. So, why bother?

According to the Pew Research Center, “the typical adult with a bachelor’s degree (but no further education) will earn $1.42 million over a 40-year career, compared with $770,000 for a typical high school graduate. “ Is the $650,000 difference worth the $18,704 investment at UCCS?

The obvious answer tells only a fraction of the story. Presumably, UCCS graduates would also have forty years of a more fulfilling job, even a career where their contributions are better appreciated. Can you quantify that?

A study from the University of Maryland found that “the rate of breakups within 10 years of marriage dropped by one-third among college-educated women while remaining stable among less-educated women.”

The Alliance for Excellent Education reports that “about 75 percent of America’s state prison inmates, almost 59 percent of federal inmates, and 69 percent of jail inmates did not complete high school.” Outside of high-profile white-collar crime of Wall Street insiders, college-educated citizens are less likely to end in prison.

A study by the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute suggests that “the relative health of people in more than 3,000 U.S. counties showed that those with more college-educated residents had fewer premature deaths and fewer reports of being in poor or fair health.” Need we continue?

There are many reasons why college education is good for the individual and for the nation as a whole. So, why is there persistence in criticizing college-bound students? What is it about college itself that irks so many?

Congressional wrangling over rate increases for some student loans is useful for political demagoguery but unimportant compared to other changes to Pell Grant qualification, for example. And all of this pales by comparison to European policies of subsidized higher education for their best students.

The issue then isn’t money as such but ideology: who should pay for college education? Should it be a personal investment? Should the state pay for college education? Or should it only guarantee student loans?

Let’s do some math: B-2 “spirit” bomber costs around $2.2 billion. Annual tuition at UCCS is $4,676. If we skipped buying one such bomber, 470,487 students could spend one year there, or 117,621 students could complete their entire 4-year education.

But how can you mix national security with education? In an age of drone-attacks and “smart bombs,” college-educated soldiers are more important than ever before. Our national security will always depend on smart people rather than raw physical strength. Even the Greeks figured this out, ensuring a healthy mind in a healthy warrior’s body.

Instead of thinking about higher education in terms of skill-acquisition or content accumulation, we need to appreciate our ability to think critically, to assess data collections, and to navigate a new era of digital information that may not resemble anything we have known in the past.

This is true not only for computer geeks and nerds whose genius surpasses the average student—they can skip college, but for the rest of us whose curiosity can be challenged at the university—those who slept through their high-school education.

Since no one wants to close K-12 education, we should remember that teachers are college-educated, and therefore the better their education the better the education of their young students. And what about having better-informed citizens?

Even if everyone agrees to keep higher education and subsidize it, the question still remains: can it be done more efficiently? Can’t it all be transmitted via the Internet?

This may be true for content transmission, even skill-acquisition, but what about education? As more studies show our social misbehavior in the virtual reality of social media, such as Facebook, leading in extreme cases to suicide, we need to socialize our youth to read body language and social cues.

Classroom experiences are about brain-storming and interactive critical thinking.  Especially in the Digital Age, we need more of this training rather than less.

Raphael Sassower is professor of philosophy at UCCS. He can be reached at rsassower@gmail.com See previous articles at sassower.blogspot.com