News

STEVE DAVID has thrown his goal-scoring support behind the Veteran Footballers Association of Trinidad and Tobago. 

STEVE “Smell” DAVID speaking to the Veteran Footballers Association at Butcher’s Skating Rink in Barataria

To many Steve “Smell” David is considered one of the greatest footballers to grace the soccer fields of Trinidad and Tobago.

The former Police and Trinidad and Tobago forward David, through his prominence in the American Soccer League, won loud raves from one of the world’s most attacking and exciting footballers, the late Irishman George Best.

Best in his heyday alongside Bobby Charlton for Manchester United turned their magical moves to great success.

In the 1970s Best witnessed David’s double success as America’s Most Valuable Player against world greats who represented New York Cosmos, like Pele, Carlos Alberto, Chinaglia, Gerd Mueller and Franz Beckenbauer, among others.

Best was reported in an American sports magazine as saying, “The greatest footballer he has ever seen is Steve David from somewhere in the Caribbean as he outwitted the world’s greatest players for two years in the American Soccer League.”

In David’s vision for rescuing the pitted standard of Trinidad and Tobago football he said that “a very serious look must be taken at the administration of the game.

“Trinidad and Tobago football must go back to the strong competitive community leagues like the SFA, SFL, AFL and POSFL and we must commence as soon as possible with the Peewee League of the National Under-10,” he stressed.

Morales - Sports is the Forum for Integration

Sports is the best way of engaging every human being. It’s a way of integrating our people.” Bolivia President Evo Morales lives by this testament and yesterday urged his 33 Heads of Government counterparts at the Fifth Summit of the Americas that sports and youth were the catalyst that integrated the world, when all else had failed. His admission came at a news press conference yesterday at the International Financial Centre, Port-of-Spain, after he was asked by a foreign journalist what message he had for the Summit and for the youth. Sports is the best way of engaging every human being. It’s a way of integrating our people.” Bolivia President Evo Morales lives by this testament and yesterday urged his 33 Heads of Government counterparts at the Fifth Summit of the Americas that sports and youth were the catalyst that integrated the world, when all else had failed. His admission came at a news press conference yesterday at the International Financial Centre, Port-of-Spain, after he was asked by a foreign journalist what message he had for the Summit and for the youth. 

Strenghtening our will power

“There has been altogether too much talk about the secret of success. Success has no secret. Her voice is forever ringing through the marketplace and crying in the wilderness, and the burden of her cry is one word—will. Any person who hears and heeds that cry is equipped fully to climb to the very heights of life. (Dr Russell H Conwell, founder of Temple University and author of Acres of Diamonds.)

During Lent many of us fasted, made self-sacrifices and gave alms. The purpose behind these acts was to bring our will in line to what God wants of us. Our late president, Noor Hassanali often pointed out that the fasting and other observances of the Month of Ramadan was to make Muslims “amenable to the will of Almighty God.” It is our will which eventually determines how we act in any given situation.

Throughout history philosophers and serious thinkers have emphasised the importance of the will. For example, Greek philosopher, Epictetus, pointed out “there is nothing good or evil save in the will.” And Confucius stated, “You can capture the conmmander-in-chief of three armies but you cannot overcome a private man’s will.” Most of us know that our own mind is the only thing we can control completely, and our will plays an important role in using our mind. It is said our desires propel us to our achievements, which is true, but it is through our will that we achieve any particular desire.

Author Mack R Douglas holds that there are three types of people. Firstly there are the majority who merely follow the crowd, psychologically dependent people, like sheep without a shepherd. Secondly there are the psychologically independent individuals, rebellious in nature, hostile to any form of control. Such people may start new movements but are so psychologically undeveloped that when others join their movements, they will soon leave it and start another.

Thirdly, there are the independent thinkers who remain steadfast to their convictions regardless to what anyone else says, does or thinks. These are the people who have mastered their will. Douglas puts Abraham Lincoln and General Dwight MacArthur in this third category. Frank Haddock suggests the following four steps in exercising our will. (1) We have in our minds something to be done. (2) We create motives or reasons for acting on our thought. (3) We increase in our minds the motives and reasons for acting on our thought. (4) We create in our mind a volition corresponding to the reasons and motives we have created.

 Exercise Keeps Your Body Young

Think back to when you were 15; do you remember joking with your friends and telling them that people between 40-50 years of age were really old? As a matter of fact, when you heard that someone was 50 years old, you automatically remarked: “He ain’t dead yet?"

Father Time has been cruel, because you are now 50! You are now asking yourself, where did time go? It seems as if just four or five Carnivals ago you were in your 20’s. Unfortunately, we all age; but that does not necessarily mean that we must look like crap.  The good news is that there is a fountain of youth and it is called exercise.

Have you ever noticed that there are some young men in their 20’s already sporting pot bellies, and some young women with enough cellulite on the back of their legs to start a cottage cheese factory? This is the result of neglecting their bodies. On the other hand, there are some men and women in their 50’s that look like they should be on the cover of GQ or Cosmopolitan magazine. Their bodies look great. Look at Bruce Willis, 54, or Angela Bassett, 51; they have better bodies than most people half their age.

Benefits of exercise

Regular exercise:
• Helps to improve your strength so you can remain independent.
• Prevents or delays some ailments like heart disease, diabetes, osteoporosis, breast cancer, etc.
• Makes you feel young and confident.
• Increases energy levels so you can remain active.
• Makes you look so good, young people will wish to look like you when they reach your age.

Age-appropriate exercises
OK, so mountain climbing or bungee jumping may not necessarily be on your agenda; but that does not mean you can’t benefit from a wide variety of other exercises. To get the benefits of physical activity, look for exercises that incorporate the components of endurance, strength, flexibility and balance. This may require that you cross train. It will also serve to keep you from getting bored.

The following disciplines offer a wide variety of benefits:
• Martial arts—Flexibility, speed, co-ordination, balance and kick-butt ability.
• Biking and running—Endurance and stress relief
• Swimming—Endurance and good muscle tone.
• Weight training—Great body shape, strong muscles, bones and joints.
• Yoga and Pilates—Stress relief, flexibility and muscle tone.

Nutrition
You are not 15 anymore and when you eat badly, your body is going to show its disapproval by placing bulges at areas not very flattering to your physique. Eating healthy does not have to be boring. Once you have a clear understanding of which protein sources carry bad fats, you can then use the Glycemic Index to select appropriate carbs with a low GI rating that will complement the protein source on your plate. Looking good for your age does not happen by sheer luck; it is a science that has to be studied.

Keep Training.

THE ART AND SCIENCE OF SUCCESSFUL MARKETING

LOK JACK GSB

SHERRY ANN SINGH

Good marketing starts and ends with the numbers. It is certainly possible to market without paying much attention to the numbers but that amounts to playing a hit and missing game; you’re never really sure what you’re going after, how much you need to do to get it, nor even when you’ve reached your target, as none may have been set in the first place.

Since the ultimate aim of marketing is to grow your bottom line, not doing the math does not make much business sense. Number crunching, therefore, is an essential function of the professional marketer.

In determining the ideal marketing mix, marketers must ask themselves some fundamental questions to inform their product, pricing, promotion and placement decisions.

The old adage “you must be able to measure it to manage it” holds just as true for marketing as for any other discipline.

The marketer’s job hinges on measurement at every stage of the marketing cycle. To begin with, marketers must seek out answers.

What is the size of the market that I’m in?

What is my current market share?

What is my competitor’s?

How much more must I sell to grow my market share by ten per cent to become the market leader?

Is my promotional budget sufficient? Do I have the resources to do it or will it cost me too much?

Can I achieve the same objective by growing my margins?

If I increase the price of my product by 15 per cent, how many customers do I stand to lose?

Are there products I should discontinue?

New ones I should produce?

Marketers grapple with these questions every day and it is only by breaking down the problem scientifically and running the numbers that they can justify to their CEOs why certain decisions should me made.

The starting point of all marketing is research. Before a company decides to produce a product it must survey the market to establish that demand exists (or is likely to exist) and estimate at what level demand is likely to be. Then it must decide what percentage of the potential market to go after. These are not easy decisions.

Many entrepreneurs and small business owners will rely strongly on tradition, guesses, hunches, instinct, etc, when making such decisions. They may not hire expensive market researchers, but the vast majority of them are also engaged in “informal” market research.

They talk to other business people, they talk to customers, they walk around the neighbourhood, they observe consumer and supplier behaviour. They go about investigating their environment, trying to identify problems (for them, opportunities) and potential solutions (goods or services) in much the same way as a scientist would. Their instruments may not be as sharp and readings may not be exact, but they instinctively know when they’ve struck gold.

The good business person, however, does not stop there. Because no matter how small, how unschooled, or how unsophisticated he/she may be in his approach, it always comes down to the bottom line impact.

A business person may act on an initial hunch, but if the numbers don’t add up soon enough, that hunch will have a very short lifespan. And so science and art do a delicate dance, feeding back and forth into the process to ensure at the end of the day that the right goods and services get delivered to the right people at the right time, in the right place.

But good marketing is much more than a numbers game. Marketing guru, Phillip Kotler, defines marketing as an organisational function and a set of processes for creating, communicating and delivering value to customers and for managing customer relationships in ways that benefit the organisation and its stakeholders.

Kotler was firmly of the view that marketing is both art and science. The science will provide you with the recipe for success, but it’s in the execution that the art of marketing takes over.

A Porsche is not just a well-built car. Beyond speed and performance, it’s a beauty to look at and drive. It has a powerful appeal to the senses. To illustrate further, consider the example of low cost airline EasyJet. When this carrier was first launched, it was because the numbers indicated there was high enough demand for a low cost, no frills airline service. But it was a brilliant, breakthrough idea from someone who thought out of the box—art as it were—that resulted in direct internet booking of flights, eliminated the need for travel agents and therefore saved the carrier substantial sums from the non-payment of third party agent fees. So it was inspiration as much as intelligence, that led to the success of this business model.

The entire communications aspect of marketing is driven by something greater than numbers. Numbers may, of course, drive the overall objective of a promotional campaign (a 30 per cent increase in sales, for example) and sales will be measured before and after the campaign, but the numbers are peripheral to the campaign itself. It is the imagination, the foresight, the creativity and the artistic flair of the copywriters that breathes life into the campaign and ensures it is pitched correctly, is executed flawlessly and packs enough of an emotional punch to persuade consumers to go out and buy more of your product.

To conclude, successful marketing requires a delicate blend of both art and science. Skillful marketers know how to draw on the strengths of each discipline to ensure customer needs and wants can be satisfied profitably.

There is much science involved at the research stage of marketing which is usually, though not always, the starting point of all marketing activity. At other times, it may simply be a burst of inspiration that creates the next hottest product innovation.

Sherry Ann Singh is a communications manager at the Arthur Lok Jack Graduate School of Business. s.singh@gsb.tt

Marketing is both art and science. The science will provide you with the recipe for success, but it’s in the execution that the art of marketing takes over.

I AM NOT MY SKIN

I am not my hair, I am not this skin, I am the soul that lives within - India Arie

Recently, while discussing the issue of colourism with a friend, who like me, is of light complexion, I was accosted by a young woman who brusquely schooled me on the harsh realities that darker people, like herself, face on a day-to-day basis. As far as she was concerned, light-skinned women simply had life easier.

All are not equal
At the time I took her statement as a personal affront. Not that I’m blind to the fact that colourism, the preference for white/light-skinned people (emerging from the Colonial society/Indian caste system) is still alive and well today; and that people who look like me are automatically attributed positive characteristics such as beauty, intelligence, and wealth; whereas darker-hued people are labelled as stupid, poor, dishonest or lazy.

I have enjoyed the automatic privileges—no matter how unwelcome/unwanted—that come with being red and female. I always get selected first by male taxi-drivers on a crowded stand; I get better treatment from Indian store-owners and salespeople; I’m never stopped or questioned by police; and I always get attention from the opposite sex, even if I’m with another, darker-complexioned female who I consider to be more attractive than myself.

But I wanted her to understand that colourism has two faces and they’re both ugly. Although there is overwhelming evidence to the contrary, light-skinned women do not necessarily have life easier than dark-skinned women…we’re simply on opposite sides of the same coin. I’ll speak from my own experiences…

Still black
Being a “conscious” light-skinned black woman is like being stuck between a rock and a hard place when it comes to expressing my deep love and appreciation for my African heritage. Years ago, I was nominated by a former supervisor to participate in the company’s much-anticipated Emancipation Queen Show. At the orientation, however, I was shunned by the other women who took no pains to show me that I shouldn’t be there since I wasn’t dark-skinned as they were, and therefore not “African” enough. Hello! I’m still black.

If you not red
I’ve also had black men of all colours and descriptions try to pursue relations with me because they valued my light skin and its perceived status, more than they valued my integrity, character, intelligence or humour.

No woman (light/dark) wants to be loved for anything other than herself and I am completely saddened by the fact that our men have been so deep-conditioned by society into thinking that lighter is more desirable that they may be staring a good woman in the face and not really see her.

In another instance, my would-be manager and his colleague proceeded to jibe—right in front of me —on the fact that if hired, I would look good behind the desk and that my “redness” would undoubtedly “brighten up” the company’s reception area and attract more males inside.

It was quite insulting for me to be considered not for my wit, my efficiency or qualifications but for my apparent ability to perform the same service as a fluorescent lamp. I’ve also been called derogatory names, been discriminated against by dark-skinned strangers and even members of my own family who feel I am loved more because of my complexion. I have found myself the subject of vicious gossip when offered positions/promotions over people who were (by coincidence or not) darker than myself.

People also seem remarkably surprised when they speak to me and realise that I’m quite a down-to-earth person, especially in light of the view that some light-skinned people suffer from either superiority complexes or arrogance.

Wrong is wrong
I could go on and on but the issue is not about who’s more affected by colourism. The real issue is that it still exists and people on both sides of the colour spectrum are deeply damaged or affected by it, more so because it is expressed internally (by members of our own race).

Instead of walking around feeling angry, dejected or playing the blame game, we should be coming together to discuss it and deal with it for what it really is…another from of racism.

Ignore Injuries At Your Peril

One of the things that would help many athletes avoid spending time in the clinic addressing injuries and more time in training sessions despite the existence of certain injuries, is a proper understanding of how the human body repairs itself in tandem with seeking basic guidance from qualified professionals. Get these two things, and the injured athlete will have a stronger chance of a quick recovery. Inexplicably there is a common misconception that if we ignore our injuries that they would eventually disappear — just rest it, and once the pain is gone everything will return to normal. Then, there is the other group of extremists who believe that fighting through the pain will bring them the reward of recovery. The truth is that neither option is accurate. Resting simply reduces the likelihood of further irritation, while fighting through an injury and ignoring the pain is like breaking a red light! Another common misconception is that overcoming injuries is “so easy, even a caveman can do it.” Many have had to learn the hard way that this is not always the case and their self diagnosis based on what happened to someone else they know who “had the same thing happen to them” followed by their own rehabilitation programme based on something they got off the internet could very easily worsen their case. The fitness enthusiast and parents are especially guilty of such behaviour patterns and what could have easily been a few days or weeks out of full-go training, can lead to months of rehabilitation and/or possibly surgery.

For instance, the use of laser therapy is becoming increasingly common in T&T. Unfortunately, it is currently not being used in conjunction with rehabilitation protocols by its service providers (whom currently are not rehabilitation specialists). Laser can easily create the delusion that the individual is healed because it is very effective in reducing pain and irritation (depending on the nature and seriousness of the injury) however, without some re-education to the musculoskeletal or neuromuscular systems, as is required, the injured individual who is in fact still injured, returns to the activity with the notion that they can perform at 100 per cent. Such individuals come to realise that only one part of the problem had been taken care of and that they needed more guidance on how to slowly bring themselves back to a place both physically and mentally, to cope with the demands of strenuous activity. The foam roller is another piece of equipment used in rehabilitation that, when applied correctly, can be very effective but applied incorrectly will cause the individual to worsen their condition. For instance, as has been mentioned in previous columns, muscle guarding is a natural response to injury, regardless of whether the injury is muscular, skeletal or neural. Once pain is present, the body’s muscles will react to protect that area by naturally creating a brace around it to reduce the possibility of excessive movement and inflammation. As a spin-off from this, the muscle feels tense and tight to the individual.

While gentle stretching can be prescribed in such instances (again everything is relative to the injury involved) massaging the area is definitely a contra-indication and this is one of the primary functions of the foam roller – to massage the muscle. For the unacquainted reader, just as the name implies, foam rollers are cylindrical shaped foam pieces that can range in size and density. The roller is placed on the floor, with the individual lying on top of the roller with muscle or area to be massage in primary contact. As the individual relaxes his/her body weight on the foam roller, they push and pull their body along the floor to give them a massage that can be as gentle or intense as they so desire. The high density roller is the more common roller of choice and as such, there have been instances of avid fitness enthusiasts, in an effort to work on their own injury, using such apparatus to massage the tight area, thinking they are doing the muscle good. Depending on the stage of healing the tissue is at, what can actually be happening is a complete break down of any clotting or tissue formation that may have started to develop. As a general rule, whenever injured, ‘if it hurts to do it, then do not do it!’ If after resting, icing, compressing and elevating the injury for three days to a week, there are no noted improvements, it is time to seek professional assistance, which could start with a therapist or a sports physician. Once committed to receiving therapy, be sure to follow all restriction guidelines so that the therapist can acquire a clear understanding of how the body is responding to therapy and whether it is having a positive effect or not.

BIGGER BETTER DEVELOPMENT IN DALLAS

Full of hotels, shopping malls and skyscrapers, the city of Dallas brightens up at night.

By Sherwin Long

Everything is bigger in Texas.This old adage speaks volumes in Dallas as the north Texas city is dominated by multilayered skyscrapers, 500-room hotels and mammoth shopping malls.

Even the food confirms the “everything is bigger” maxim as stuffed potatoes and even heftier steaks are the order of the day.

On the city’s highways, scores of pick-up trucks and gas-guzzling SUVs swarm the roads, zipping past each other identical to busy insects.

Dallas is a city on the go.

And while it is an established home for both business and luxury, its waistlines are expanding.

Like Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, downtown Dallas is undergoing a makeover.

When the Business Guardian visited the city, construction was in full swing.

Cranes dot the already-crowded skyline and 18 wheelers constantly shuttled building materials across the city’s highway network.

Unlike T&T, though, their construction boom is fuelled by the private sector.

Kilynn Sommer, public relations specialist for Dallas’ Convention and Visitors Bureau, said US$10 billion in new developments was to be spent over the next six months.

“Downtown is really blossoming. Just take a look around. You have an arts district taking off, more hotels and a lot of new real estate developments,” she pointed out.

Sommer said in the past five years, developers spent $95 million restoring in the Main Street area, adding new loft apartments and condominiums.

Drawing a link between commerce and travel, she predicted an increase in expansion and economic activity.

In July, the Dallas Fort Worth International Airport doubled its capacity to 250 gates by adding a new terminal.

Sommer noted that this would increase the amount of visitors to Dallas and, simultaneously, help fuel more businesses.

Sommer said Dallas had more shopping centres per capita than any other US city and was also a hub for convention tourism.

Texas Throwback

It is easy to get caught up in the new developments sprouting up in downtown Dallas and the break neck pace of commerce.

In the town of GrapeVine, however, hustle and bustle takes a back seat.

GrapeVine seems to be a million miles away from the madding crowd.

The town is a throwback to the simpler pleasures of dining and entertainment packaged into a tourist product.

Paul Corliss, GrapeVine’s media relations manager, said the town was going through a resurgence as during the 80s recession it had become run down and dilapidated.

He added that in the early 1990s, a group local businessmen decided to restore GrapeVine and promote the town as a relic from a past era.

GrapeVine has its own restored 1896 steam engine which runs for 21 miles.

All the town’s buildings are designed in uniformed red clay block harmony.

Tolbert’s, one of the town’s 200 restaurants located on Main Street, serves a burning yet tasty chilli.

The infamous bank robbing duo, Bonnie and Clyde even robbed a GrapeVine bank during their spree.

The bank is now a jewelry store.

Apart from all this history, Corliss was quick to point out that GrapeVine’s tastes were not the Texas stereotype.

While Texas is known as a beer town, Corliss dispelled this preconception.

“In GrapeVine wine was always here, you had people making their own blends from their grapes but during Prohibition the US Government shut it down,” he recounted. “I am not being funny but the wine industry was squashed.

Today, in spite of past obstacles, GrapeVine has a thriving wine industry with its own GrapeFest wine festival drawing over a quarter million visitors every September.

Beyond the glitz of downtown Dallas and the southern comfort of GrapeVine some of Dallas’ lower and middle-class residents are still coming to terms with the city’s changing face.

From America’s southwest, Texas is the beginning of the Bible belt, an area where socially conservative evangelic Protestantism holds sway.

But, according to security guard Bobby Taylor, the people of Texas need to do more soul reaching and focus on true spirituality.

Dressed in khaki slacks and a cream shirt, he ranted about the lack of true brotherhood in his city.

His six-foot four-inch frame shook as he shared his perspective.

“This is the Bible belt. People could recite from the book of God, but they don’t really know of God. That spiritual relationship is not there. It is easier to stand in church and recite than actually touch a man to give him a helping hand.”

Taylor’s alienation was shared by at least one other Dallas native.

Nineteen-year-old Demaray Griffin said there was a clear difference between the real image of Dallas and what was presented to tourists.

He explained there was an underlying tension between Dallas’ black youth and the police.

“Young black folks get harassed everyday by the police. Racial profiling is real. I am a working man. I ain’t no gangster. But still the cops stop me every chance they get,” he said.

Griffin, who lives in the Pleasant Grove neighbourhood, admitted there was a question mark between Dallas’ wealth and whether it trickles to the majority of the city’s residents.

“I don’t like the way they treat poor people here,” he said. “It’s like they look over you. They look at you like if you’re nothing. Honestly, I don’t see a future here if I stay.”

Twenty-four-year-old Kenneth Agnew was more hopeful.

He said Dallas’ economic rise could only be good for the youth of the city.

Agnew looked past any lingering legacy of racist Jim Crow rule in his city.

“I see things happening and I feel I could be part of that,” he said. “As far as problems with racial profiling or race in general, it will always be around, but not as bad as last year or the year before that. You can’t let that stop you from living your dream.”

One of the many construction sites in downtown Dallas.

Dallas is famous as the city where US President John F Kennedy was assassinated in 1963. Inside the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza, visitors glimpse from the window where Kennedy’s killer Lee Harvey Oswald was alleged to have shot the President from.

In the heart of the city, the Dallas Prison stands aloft.

In July, Terminal D of the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) was opened. The terminal was built to accommodate 32,000 passengers daily and American Airlines will occupy 19 of the terminal’s 28 gates. The airport is directly linked to Dallas’s wealth as the city has a thriving convention tourism industry.

Photos: Keith Matthews

No Short Way To Wealth

They say that a fool and his money are soon parted, and most fools spend money merely to impress others. Perhaps it replaces some basic insecurities or it creates friends. There are even lyrics that say money talks, but financial planners say that those who splash money, tend to splash borrowed money, or money that has come too easy. In fact, a lot of big cars and fancy buildings are borrowed from banks and enough empires have crashed for us to learn.

But empires also crash because of poor business ethics, and manipulating loopholes in the system. Remember Enron in 2001? Its founder and former chairman, Ken Lay faced fraud and conspiracy charges, revolving around future contracts.

Of course he pleaded not guilty and shifted blame to the finance chief and junior managers. Then he died of a heart attack. But the finance boss had struck a bargain with prosecutors, for a lesser sentence, and the former chief executive now faces the brunt.

Legislators then scrambled to close the loopholes and fill the gaps, passing the Sarbanes-Oxley Law.

Unethical behaviour

But some wise person also said that illegal compliance is unlikely to unleash moral imagination or commitment. The law does not generally seek to inspire human excellence or distinction. Those managers who define ethics as legal compliance are “implicitly” endorsing a code of moral mediocrity for their organisations—Lynn Shape Paine.

It would seem then, that poor ethics are truthfully the fault of senior management. Hence legislation in the making should punish the practice of implied consent to unethical behaviour and managements implicitly endorsing bad actions.

The recognition is based in the differentials between business law and business ethics. Business law encompasses trade regulations, contractual obligations, non-discrimination, sexual harassment, quality control, taxation, etc.

What business law does not cover are things like waste control standards, verbal abuse, intimidation of the workforce and manipulative sales practices. These come under the banner of business ethics.

Bottomless pit

At best, those involved in the scandals and corporate mischief will eventually falter on a legal point and be disgraced by virtue of man-made law. At worst, they keep up the charade and keep shifting the blame, or ship out just before they are caught.

But sooner or later, they will be brought to book by the universal laws of justice. In the meantime the investors get ripped off. So you have to protect yourself.

There is no short way to wealth and financial freedom. There is only astute money management and discipline. You cannot succeed with cutbacks and under-the-table manoeuvres.

As a consumer, you will always have a choice of behaviour. If the man in front of you drops a blue dollar bill, will you pocket the bill, or pick it up and return it to him? Will you step on the one who is falling?

Will you do business with someone whose offer is too good to be true—an unethical offer?

Will you choose to do business with someone who is cheating someone else out of his bread and butter?

Darwin’s theory of evolution was never proven. The law of the jungle does not honour the high status of man, his morality, his sense of justice nor his quality of mercy.

The intermediary, the man in the middle is just as gullible as the customer. And will the customer help a man who is falling down, or will he push him further into the bottomless of pit?

So is the customer always right? And what is the song that money sings?