99. “Super” stupid

Dear Gerard

I understand your disappointment with politicians and the media, as you say, they do not tell the truth. Politicians want to spin stories to get more voters and the media wants to sell more newspapers and so the truth does not matter. To quote my colleague: the world is just as barbaric as it was 3,000 years ago, we just pretend this is not so. However, you only need to look at the situation in Iraq, Syria, Ukraine, or Russia to see this. The Dutch situation is admittedly a softer example of this, but essentially not much different. I will illustrate this by considering two topical issues. As a fervent supporter of the free market economy and thus of competition, which keeps companies alert and requires companies to continually improve themselves, cartel prohibitions are necessary. Once there is some degree of co-operation by companies to divide up the market, there are many authorities whose role is to address this and penalize the offenders. However, the biggest cartel on the world stage, the oil cartel (OPEC) is accepted by politicians and the media without any form of criticism. How is this possible? Why not intervene here? This has to do with big money or the so-called energy stability policy that would be compromised without the cartel. What would have happened if this cartel had also been banned? I think the oil price fluctuations that we see today would have been bigger and this would have led to more people choosing alternative energy sources such as wind and solar energy, which would then have been developed faster. Of course, the oil-producing countries and major oil companies consider this to be an undesirable development, but if we want a more sustainable world, not switching more quickly to alternative sources is “super” stupid.

Another phenomenon, which is indirectly linked to the above, is a big drop in oil prices leading to deflation, particularly in Western European countries. The politicians and media shout the loudest that deflation cannot be allowed, because deflation leads to the postponement of purchasing decisions and hence to further economic contraction. However, does a drop in petrol prices lead to less consumption? In my opinion the opposite is true, the public will have more purchasing power and will just spend more. Look what happened in the US, the price per gallon (about 3 litres) fell from a high of $3.50 and started heading towards $2.50 and the US economy is stronger than ever before and I do not think that people are driving lower mileage than before. What can we learn from this as entrepreneurs? We must not be distracted by the so-called experts and politicians. Make sure your organization can respond flexibly to government measures and, above all, use common sense. Not reading newspapers anymore is not the answer in my opinion, but reading with the necessary scepticism is, of course, a must.

Sincerely,

Jan Stam