Reflections on Yom Kippur

As I fast and reflect on Yom Kippur, couple of thoughts came to my mind I would like to share.

I did not vote for Obama in the last elections – so at least I do not have to worry about this sin – but those who did, should ask for double forgiveness.

If anyone had doubts that we elected an incompetent leftist ideolog for President, should have no doubt any more.  Putin Checkmated Obama and Kerry over Syria, U.S. was humiliated and embarrassed thanks to those two nincompoops.  I guess our community organizer learned that peddling dirty politics in Chicago and playing the race card does not make him qualified to play on the world stage with ex-KGB agents.  The only sad thing is that there are still many Americans who just do not pay attention enough, naïve enough, or just stupid enough to believe that Obama did well.

It has been 40 years since Yom Kippur war and 20 years since the signing of the Oslo Accords that brought the Palestinian terror organization into Israel.  The political and military leaders who botched the Yom Kippur war and betrayed their people were rightfully held responsible by the Agranat Commission in Israel, and were thrown out of office.  The leaders who were responsible for the failed Oslo Accords – those leaders who equally betrayed their people with poor judgment and misinformation were not held responsible – no commission has ever been formed.  The main gang leader of the Oslo Accords – Shimon Peres – is now holding the honorary post of President of Israel.   This reminds me of the old adage that God works in mysterious ways – one more thing to ponder during Yom Kippur.

Gmar Chatima Tova – May you be inscribed (in the Book of Life) for Good!

Thoughts for Passover

Passover is a Jewish holiday that symbolizes freedom.  Jews came to Egypt on their own free will and prospered for many years, but then their fortunes turned, and they were enslaved by the Pharaohs.  It took a strong leader, Moses, with the help of God to gain their freedom.  This is indeed a powerful story. 

Unfortunately, our nation had experienced many times the loss of freedom and even risk of annihilation.  The Spanish Inquisition, the pogroms in Russia, the Nazi Holocaust, the refusal of the Soviets to let Jews exit the Soviet Union (the last struggle experienced by my family and many of our friends). 

When I was preparing to conduct the Seder this year, few thoughts came to mind.  We celebrate Passover every year to remember our national history and to pass these lessons to our children.  But given the fact that our nation experienced these problems repeatedly throughout our history; did this mean that our traditions of celebrating Passover were not successful?  Were we not successful in avoiding the same mistakes when we did not follow our traditions and forgot these lessons?  Or perhaps we celebrated Passover too mechanically without making the effort to understand its true meaning.

Now that we have our own nation, Israel, does this protect us from the faith of our ancestors?  Indeed, prior to the establishment of the state of Israel, many times Jews became comfortable in foreign lands (Spain, Germany, Russia, etc.), and felt protected them from the same faith of Jews in Egypt.  Only after the Holocaust and the second exodus (exodus from Europe to re-establish the state of Israel) that the Jews applied some of the lessons of Passover.  However, we cannot rest on our laurels since threats to our Jewish nation did not disappear.  Many threats to our existence exist today -- from the threat of Arab/Muslim terrorism to threat of annihilation from a potential Iranian atomic weapon. We must stay vigilant.

Those of us who live in United States of America feel that no harm can come to us in this great nation that was build on Jewish values – values of freedom.  Founding fathers of United States of America understood the true meaning of freedom and the balance between religion and the rights of individual.  They understood the power of economic freedom and the balance between the responsibilities of the individual to the state versus their right to make their own economic choices.  America’s founding fathers understood the balance between our obligation to support the less fortunate and the loss of freedoms by the state taking away hard earnings of its people to serve its own purpose. 

Recent history showed that even those freedoms are not guaranteed in America.  New administration came to power that has a different interpretation of the American core values and does not understand these core values.  Our economic freedoms are threatened by high taxes, high budget deficits, and income redistribution policies.  These new government bureaucrats seek to enslave us economically by taking away an unfair share of our earnings and our wealth.  They believe that others are entitled to share in our success without making the same effort to earn it.  They pass laws and make policies that make it harder and harder for honest people to succeed and for others to be more dependent on the graces of their government and its handouts.  As it happened in Egypt, our freedoms are slowly lost without us even noticing.  Even more surprisingly, this is done with support of some of us that for good intentions or by simply for being foolish and allowing themselves to be influenced by the popular media. 

The same powerful administration also makes foreign policies that weaken both our host nation – America – and our homeland – Israel – and make both more vulnerable to attack by our enemies.  They foolishly believe that modern day Pharaohs can be and should be appeased rather than confronted.   They go through the motions of celebrating our cherished Passover holiday for political reasons without bothering to understand its true meaning.  These people confuse good will with weakness, and they do not believe in the righteousness of the values of American founding fathers.

So lessons of Passover are as relevant as they have been for ages.  When we celebrate Seder this year, it is important not only to mechanically read the Haggadah, but also reflect on its meaning and its implications to our lives today.   We need to seek strong truthful leaders who are capable of leading us to freedom and avoid slavery and defeat.   I am not sure these leaders exists today both in United States as well as Israel, but I stay optimistic that, God willing, they will be found!

The Zen of Mountain Biking and Political Expressions

One of my favorite pastimes is mountain biking.   My mountain biking companion is Mansi (my dog).  Yesterday, we went to one of our favorite local places – the Marsh Creek Lake Park. 


My loyal mountain biking partner, Mansi, next to my Cannondale MTB



My favorite playground -- Marsh Creek Lake Park
 

I was flying down a single track trail on a nice fall day with the landscape around me presenting the beautiful fall colors of north east Pennsylvania. Mansi was running ahead or next to me (except for real quick down hills) effortlessly showing a muscular body of a magnificent looking animal full of confident strength. I enjoy watching Mansi’s muscles displaying a symphony of purpose during a full speed gallop and fast trots reminding videos of wolves during a hunt.

On a single track mountain biking trail one has to occasionally overcome obstacles. I typically scale fallen tree branches or negotiate my way over larger rocks. The technique scaling larger branches has to be fairly precise – getting enough speed, I lift my front wheel barely hitting the branch and then pull up on my pedals just in time for the rear wheel to go over the branch. This way I almost jump over the branch with minimum impact (or ideally no impact, but I am not that good).

Yesterday, however, it took me some time to warm up and perfect my technique. Jumping over first couple of tree branches my timing was off, and I hit the branches with my wheels harder than I hopped. My Cannondale Lefty’s shocks did their work and I stayed on the bike. Every time this happened I thought to myself “well this was not optimum need to improve next time.”

After thinking this in my head, I instantly remembered the same expression Obama used as a response to Jon Stewart: “Here is what I will say, if four Americans get killed it is not optimal.” Really?! I thought. Even if I really mess up on the next obstacle and take a fall, I would not call this “not optimum,” I would think something like “this was really bad”or “shit, I hope I was not hurt too badly.”

Obama’s use of this word to describe the death of four Americans in the hands of Jihadists was not only a bad use of words; it was a window into his thought process. The same time he said “you did not build it”referring to people who built their own businesses. Well Mr. President, their deaths was not only“not optimal”, their death was a result of your attitude towards the war on Jihadists Islam and terrorism – of course, you do not recognize that there is war and this is a big part of the problem. The attack on the Benghazi consulate did not fit the Obama administration campaign narrative, so they tried to cover it up and make excuses. Now there is a growing mountains of evidence that they even refused to provide help to the attacked consulate in a hope that this is just a minor skirmish not wanting to attract attention.

So let’s hope that this incident was more than “not optimal” for the Obama campaign. That as the American people learn more facts, they conclude that Obama not only failed in his domestic economic policies, but in his handling of foreign affairs and our security as well, and in November the American people send this President permanently packing to his home in Chicago. Let’s elect someone who is capable of handling our economy and foreign policy more optimally, while preserving the American values.

Shocking New Revelation of "The Uniter In Chief"

Not long ago I had a discussion with one of my relatives.  She told me that she is leaning to vote for Obama again because he seems as a nice and intelligent person and that anyway no one can do anything to improve the current economy -- so the logic goes, if Romney cannot do anything anyway, then why not vote for a person that seems nice.  Obviously, I disagree with her.  I know that her opinion is based on lack of understanding of the differences between Romney’s principles and Obama’s in managing the economy and that there is plenty of historic evidence that point to assured success of those economic principles that Romney/Ryan advocate.  I have no doubt that once Romney is elected, the economy will significantly improve and United States will return to its glory both from economic and international affairs perspectives within several years.  But this is not the subject of this message (I will do what I can to educate this person on why conservative principles were and will be more successful for our well-being in America).  I would like to address the premise that Obama is a nice person.

I would like to bring your attention to the recent uncovered video by The Daily Caller of Obama’s speech at Hampton University in Virginia, where Barack Obama gave a speech to an audience of predominately black ministers INCLUDING his pastor of twenty years, Rev. Jeremiah Wright.  The video which captured his pronouncements is stunning for two reasons: 1) It shows Obama (fake accent and all) stirring racial unrest, and 2) It proves that the media won't cover the real Barack Obama. In this video then-presidential candidate Barack Obama tells an audience of black ministers that the U.S. government shortchanged Hurricane Katrina victims because of racism!  The racially charged and at times angry speech undermines Obama's carefully-crafted image as a leader eager to build bridges between ethnic groups. For nearly 40 minutes, using an accent he almost never adopts in public, Obama describes a racist, zero-sum society, in which the white majority profits by exploiting black America. The mostly black audience shouts in agreement. The effect is closer to an Al Sharpton rally than a conventional campaign event.  I highly recommend to refer to the following link for a full story which includes the link to the full video: http://www.gopusa.com/theloft/2012/10/03/shocking-video-reveals-the-real-barack-obama/?subscriber=1

So, Barack Obama is not such a “nice guy” as my relative, and many other naive people think.  Barack Obama is the most divisive President in the recent U.S. history.  Many experts say that he is a great politician.  I do not agree that he is a great politician.  A good politician (Democrat or Republican) would have the skills to unite the nation around him.  A good politician would know how to compromise for the benefit of the nation.  Barak Obama may be a great dirty politician in a sense of knowing how to lie, deceive, and use divisiveness to promote his far left ideology.

Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are two honest people that have the best plan to save this nation.  But if you think that Barack Obama is a “nice guy” – you better think again.  Anyone would be a better president than Barak Obama. 

Thank you President Obama!

Yes, I know what you are thinking, the economy is in shambles, billions of our tax dollars were wasted, and EPA and many other government agencies are enacting nonsensical business regulations that further suffocate the economy. Our President does not seem to understand the American values that worked for this land for so many years, and instead of being a unifying force is a divider pitting those who were successful against those who were not, blacks against whites, etc.  So, what is there to thank him for?  The answer is related to my family history.

After we struggled for many years to leave the Soviet Union, my family finally succeeded to immigrate to Israel in 1971.  My grandfather was a very special man.  He was a natural entrepreneur, and he has done very well financially in Russia, but he wanted us to live where we could be free – to live in our homeland – Israel (but this is an interesting subject for another series of blogs or a book).

Israel in the 1970s was a socialist country still influenced by the Jewish socialist ideology that established it.  Taxes were high; the government bureaucracy was unbearable; healthcare was free, but in order to get quality care, people needed to go to private doctors. In order to create jobs, the Israeli government invested in industries that did not make much economic sense – textile and orange plantations.  As a result, the country was stuck in anemic growth.  My grandfather wrote many newspaper articles about the power of free enterprise. He wrote about how limiting the role of government in the economy and unleashing the Israeli ingenuity and creativity will create an economic miracle (and indeed when Netanyahu deregulated the economy in the late 80’s Israel has experienced this economic miracle and became the most innovative economy in the world).

In the late 70s my father had a successful dental practice, but he was frustrated with the high taxes and with the mentality that if you were successful, the Israeli government would pursue and harass you (Israeli IRS was constantly harassing my father at the time).  My father had a dream of building a business, which was very hard to do at the time in Israel.  My grandfather suggested that he go to America.  America was the only country in the world with a free economy.  United States of America had a tradition of true freedoms that were embedded in its DNA since its founding. 

Following my grandfather’s advice, my parents came to United States in 1981.  But American was not itself at the time.  After almost four years of Carter administration, the American economy was savaged by out of control government spending with low growth and high inflation.  It was a hard start.  Luckily Ronald Reagan was elected in 1981 and brought United States back to its greatness both economically and in foreign affairs.  Upon completing my military service in Israel, I joined my parents in the US in 1982.

I guess I took for granted the greatness of the American values, the genius of those American founding fathers that founded the greatest nation on earth, the sacrifice of so many Americans who gave their life to guard these freedoms and these principles. 

This is what I thank President Obama for – for reminding me what my grandfather understood many years ago.  Since President Obama took office, the contrast between his ideology and policies and traditional American values has become so clear.  The values that my family and I, as many other immigrants, came to United States for.  It reminded me the America in decline during the Carter years – except now the risks are even greater and the stakes are higher.  Obama made me appreciate again the greatness of these American core values that founded this great nation.

Obama is an ideologue – the problem is that his ideology is a one of resentment of American values.  He does not understand that what made America the greatest nation on earth are the values of limited government, of individual success, the Judeo-Christian moral values, that the federal government has an important but limited role in its citizens’ success, that basic individual freedoms and responsibilities of our constitution are so centric to our greatness, the values of celebrating success of others rather envying and taxing this success, and that we are proud of our exceptionalism not apologize for it.  Many of us also cherish the values instilled in us by our fathers and grandfathers, but we came to this great land to fulfill and celebrate those values – not to be ashamed of and change them.

Now is the time to rebuild the United States of America.  It is time to go back to principles and values that made this nation great, and it is time to elect a leader that understands these values so that this United States of American stays the greatest nation on earth!

Holocaust or Bad Economy -- Is This a Choice?!

If you have been following the news lately, you could not have missed the pressure that the Obama administration has been applying lately on Israel not to attack Iran. 

Obama administration failed to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, engaging in a direct war against the U.S. interests (the publicized assassination attempts in U.S.) and the Jewish people (bombing in Argentina), and spreading terror through its proxies Hezbollah and Hamas. Obama failed to capitalize on the opportunity to support the Iranian opposition to overthrow or severely weaken the Ayatollah regime. Clearly, the Obama concept of engagement with Iran (and the Muslim world in general) failed. 

Now they are putting pressure on Israel to abrogate its right and obligation to defend the Jewish state against what most experts believe is an existential risk to Israel and a grave danger to the entire free world – Iran armed with nuclear weapons. Iran already has rocket technology capable of delivering nuclear payloads as far as Europe, and they are rapidly improving their delivery systems to reach as far as United States. But the real danger is not even of Iran sending a ballistic missile armed with a nuclear warhead in an act of Jihad against the non-believers. The real danger is that Iran, through its terror proxies, will place a nuclear device in New York, Washington, Paris, Berlin, or anywhere else in the free world. 9/11 will pale in comparison. 

Iranian leaders are not driven by calculated political interests and logical actions. They are driven by deep religious convictions of following Mohamed’s directions to kill the non-believers and spread Islam at any cost. They are driven by the belief that any carnage in the name of Jihad is justified, and that they will be rewarded by Allah for doing so. Hitler was motivated by ambition of world dominance and the superiority of the Aryan race – Hitler too was not taken seriously by the western powers first. Iran leaders’ religious based ideology is even more extreme than Hitler’s. 

So, Mr. Panetta, when you warn Israel that attacking Iran’s nuclear installation may bring down the world economy – do you consider the alternative – a catastrophe on the scale of a second world war or worse?! In retrospective, would you have claimed that a bad economy in the 1930s would be a worse outcome than stopping Hitler and preventing a Holocaust? These warnings are ridiculous given the lessons we all should have learned from history.

Dear friends, do not just read this message and get frustrated. Do something about it. What can you do? It is true that contacting the administration may seem fruitless, but it is worth a try – they need to hear more people express their opposition to their clueless foreign policy. Even more important is contacting your congress people and insisting on their support for actions against Iran and in support of Israel – especially contacting your Democratic congress people (since most Republicans already support this cause). Contact your Jewish organizations. Many Jewish organizations pay lip service to lobbying for actions against Iran, but their lobbying is too diplomatic and not aggressive enough. All Americans need to be concerned and demand action!

The Benefits of ERP Software for Small or Medium Size Businesses (SMB)

Finally, a posting related to my professional experience! I am particularly excited about the Open Source CRM and ERP software because it open new competitive possibilities for the small and medium size businesses. 

 

If you are a typical stakeholder of a small or medium size business, you probably prefer to invest in assets that contribute directly to the growth and revenue of your business (for example, tools for making your product, machines to expand capacity, people to design and sell your product, etc.). You know that information technology and business software is important, but you avoid spending capital in this area, as long as you can manage by using spreadsheets and other office software, and at most utilize the popular QuickBooks to manage your accounting, invoicing, and do very basic inventory management. 

 

You may have heard of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software that large companies use to run their businesses, but you think that you cannot afford this software anyway, and you are not sure what would be the real benefits of such an investment. This article is going to dispel some of these myths – ERP software has a real value for your business and it does not have to be expansive at all!

 

First, I would like to quickly define what ERP software does and how it works. ERP software has been around for at least 20 years and it was developed from a previous class of software called MRP (Material Requirement Planning) that existed at least 20 years before the emergence of ERP. ERP software was developed to manage most of the business related processes of a typical enterprise. ERP can be customized to fit many industries including general manufacturing, retail, CPG, Life Sciences, Process, distribution, and service industries. 

 

The main benefit of ERP software is that it integrates the flow of information between various business processes and integrates business transactions with company’s financial system in real time. ERP enables improved business decisions by making information from various parts of the business available to throughout your business operations in real-time. It posts relevant business transactions to company’s general ledger and other financial systems allowing management to see financial implications in real time. ERP typically covers all processes starting from sales order entry, shipping/delivery, product pricing, warehousing and inventory, procurement, production, invoicing (both A/P and A/R), service, financials, and many others.

 

For example, when entering a sales order, customer service person (or your web based client) can see the available inventory for this sales order in the various warehouse locations. If no inventory is available at the time of the order, ERP system can allocate planned production or planned purchases, or estimate when a make-to-order could be completed by your manufacturing operations. ERP can also apply the proper pricing for the applicable customer, sales tax, and shipping charges, and determine promised delivery date. Once the order is entered, the system reserves the inventory to fulfill this order. The system then automatically plans the required production orders to replenish the sold inventory and related external purchases of raw material (or finished goods depending on whether you make the product in-house or buy it from supplier). Please note that this is just one example of a typical ERP process – ERP transactions can be adapted to a large variety of industry and process requirements.

 

ERP contains critical master data for customers, vendors, products (some system refer to items or materials), bill of materials (BOMs), manufacturing work processes and routings, assets, and many other master records. Maintaining these master records would help your company to improve consistency and work from the same set of data.

 

Many small companies may be able to get by using office tools such as spreadsheets and simple accounting software (e.g., QuickBooks or Peachtree), while most of the work is done by company owners and the number of employees is small (although, some SMBs have complex business processes that require ERP almost from the start). However, as your revenue and employee grow, the lack of proper integrated business software will start impact your business results in real ways that impact your bottom line such as lost orders, poor planning, inventory shortages, missed shipments, missed invoicing, and general lack of control. 

 

ERP software have many real business benefits including –

•  Improved overall management visibility to business operations
• Improved visibility to company’s financial performance in real-time
• Improved sales performance 
• Improved inventory control and planning
• Consistent business policies and processes throughout your company improving customer service and profitability
• Improved on-time delivery
• Reduced procurement cost
• Reduced work-in-process inventory
• Reduced labor costs (for both office operations and manufacturing)
• Reduced overall waste

 

….and many more. ERP benefits should be identified and documented for your specific business.

 

The availability of user-friendly QuickBooks software provided a good stop-gap solution for many small businesses, but with all the advancement of QuickBooks functionality, it is still far from being integrated ERP software with proper controls, auditing, and scalability required to support end-to-end business operations. Features that make QuickBooks user friendly (such as ability to reverse transactions), make it a terrible software for controlling a growing business with growing number of employees. SMBs should consider upgrading QuickBooks to ERP as soon as they grow beyond five to ten employees and over $5 million in annual revenue (this is just a general rule of thumb). Many companies should consider implementing ERP light software from the start to avoid migration and re-training efforts.

 

SMBs have as complex business processes and need as large corporations. Large corporations invested millions in implementing state-of-the-art ERP software packages, but can SMBs afford ERP? It is clear that there are many business benefits to justify investment in this critical software, but as stated in the beginning of this article, SMBs are sensitive to cash outlays. The good news is that the emergence of Open Source ERP software substantially reduced the cost of ERP.

 

Open Source software existed for many years. Many have heard of the Open Source Linux operating system. Open Source software is developed by a community of developers that have no commercial interest in the software they develop. Therefore, in its pure form, Open Source software is free! In the case of Open Source ERP, however, it is not entirely free; because Open Source ERP ISVs (independent software vendors) typically have a basic free version and then offer a more capable version that contains close source code or charge required support and maintenance fees. However, the cost of Open Source ERP software license is still about 10 times lower than the cost of traditional close source ERP software. In recent years, Open Source ERP considerably advanced from a functional perspective becoming a viable alternative to traditional ERP software.

 

Leveraging Open Source ERP software, small and medium size businesses (SMBs) can now afford to implement enterprise class software that was available up until recently only to large corporations. They can scale and grow beyond QuickBooks and Peachtree at a very low investment cost, or implement from the start scalable ERP light solution. Since ERP is such an important enabler of business success, SMBs cannot afford to overlook this opportunity.