I believe success is all about empowering people. The more people you empower, the more money and power one acquires in addition to having an ever increasing impact on his/her constituency. Empowering people is in fact and in my opinion better than education and management hierarchy combined.

The Key question then becomes: How do you truly empower people?

I believe there are several ways to do it. Empowering is really like fueling them with the guns they need to shoot. Here are some ways:

1. Build a culture. Empowerment will not happen if there is a culture that doesn’t back it. A culture where challenges are thrown at people and their perspective is accepted, appreciated in handling the challenge. Form a team that helps , supports in getting team members do things. Let them realize that what they are doing is good even if they fail. Help them do things that are one step ahead and not in their job roles.

For More: About Empowering People

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I am often asked what are the key industries that are positioned to be today the most disruptive ones out there and which we at Blackhawk Partners would be very keen on taking a real close look at.

So I thought of sharing some of them with you in the hope of catching your attention and sharing feedback.

1. Natural Gas:

I believe Natural gas is still in the very early stages of general adoption, and that there is a huge potential in the making in here … at least to become a more self-sufficient energy focused nation. Though natural gas engines currently comprise 3 percent of truck engines, I predict that penetration will rise to 10 or 15 percent by 2020–allowing investors to capitalize on “niche truck and bus applications.”

For More: How Disruptive Is your Investment Model?

Austrian Economics is a school of economic thought that is based on methodological individualism. It originated in late-19th and early-20th century Vienna with the work of Carl Menger, Eugen von Bohm-Bawerk and others…

Some of the key principles of the Austrian school include but are not limited to:

1. Individualism. First and foremost, Austrians are believers in individualism, as opposed to forced government collectivism. The most efficient economies are free economies because they tap into people’s unique, innate incentive structures. Government involvement in economies stifles individual incentive because they take capital from all and reallocate it to some, creating an inequality and inefficiency which undermines the natural free incentive structure. Individualism does not mean selfishness, it literally just means the freedom for individuals to choose for themselves. People are naturally motivated to provide for other people, including their families, communities, and causes they believe in. Rather than ‘donating’ their income to the government, Austrians believe that under truly free market economies prosper and that greater wealth both improves the general standard of living and allows privately funded charities to prosper as well.

For More: Austrian v/s Mainstream Economics

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“Anyone who believes in indefinite growth in anything physical, on a physically finite planet, is either mad or an economist.”
― Kenneth E. Boulding

Yes it is always easy to poke fun at economic forecasts, especially because they usually turn out to be wrong, often by a large margin. However, before laughing them off, think about what is being asked of those forecasts and the economists making them by considering the below analogy.

I presume that most of you reading this own a car and have a license to drive it. The license certifies you to be minimally competent drivers, sort of the way a Ph.D. certifies an economist to have a minimal command of economics. Nonetheless, it is very easy to prove that you are all incompetent fools who know nothing about how a car works or how to drive it and thus to prove that drivers’ licenses are a big joke.

For More: About Those Mad Egomaniacs We Call Economists

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Well this encapsulates the American psyche to the letter for people who are still trying to figure out what American Power really means.

While I don’t approve of the American Global Empire, I respect the intelligence and drive of those tasked with maintaining and expanding it–and they number in the millions.

Bottom Line: There is only one nation-state which can project hard power today and it is the U.S.  A missile is not power-projection, because it exerts control over nothing; it is deterrence or threat, but not power that can be projected. Only aircraft carrier groups and the ability to transport an army by sea and air to any locale in the world is power projection.

It is a fact to everyone today that the U.S. is the only great power with true power projection because it alone has hegemony over the world’s reserve currency. The U.S. skims a stupendous arbitrage profit from creating dollars and exporting them in exchange for real goods.

For More: The US Global Geopolitical Future

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The horrendous attacks on Charlie Hebdo and a kosher market excited the entire world.  No matter what President Obama said, the attackers did not  “randomly shoot a bunch of folks in a deli in Paris.” There was a very deliberate plan in place. The targets were obvious: a magazine that made fun of the Prophet Mohammed and Jews. However, there was a target that was not so obvious. The Kouachi brothers fled Paris to a printing shop in a nearby industrial park.  This was not just a panic escape; it was deliberate and a pre-planned destination. It is that part of the plan that attracted the attention of many intelligence analysts.

The shop was seven miles from Charles de Gaulle International Airport and along major flight paths. The brothers were carrying an M72 anti-tank rocket launcher or the Yugoslav copy of that weapon. The range for both is 3300 ft.  We now know that the brother’s plan included an attack on aircraft along the flight path. Keeping the attention on the smaller attacks was deliberate so as not to cause panic as the French police and intelligence services sought out others who may be part of this larger, and more dangerous, plan. Statements by the brothers made it plain that they had brought the war by ISL to Europe

For More:  We are at War With a Very Islamic Global Terror Network. Like it or Not

The recent collapse in oil prices has arguably been the most startling and far-reaching market development since the Global Financial Crisis. It has also and again shifted the world’s eyes towards OPEC – The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries – an organization established in Baghdad, Iraq in September 1960 and headquartered in Vienna.

For those not familiar with OPEC, the organization’s mandate is to “coordinate and unify the petroleum policies” of its members and to “ensure the stabilization of oil markets in order to secure an efficient, economic and regular supply of petroleum to consumers, a steady income to producers, and a fair return on capital for those investing in the petroleum industry.

In 2014 OPEC comprised twelve members: Algeria, Angola, Ecuador, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Venezuela.

For More: OPEC – Facts v/s Fiction

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it is a sad fact today that most people starting with students are financially illiterate.

Here are some sobering facts:

• The average score on a freshman “financial literacy exam” was 59%, according to the JumpStart Coalition.
• The average student has roughly $23,000 in student loans, $4,000 in credit card debt and four credit cards.
• An average of 7% percent of graduates default on their student loans within the first few years.

Here’s what students are begging to understand:

• 84% say they need more education on financial management, according to Sallie Mae.
• 62% say their knowledge of credit reports is either fair or poor, according to the Consumer Federation of America.
• 60% have only a vague understanding of their debt, according to The Free Library.com.

So what can we – as parents, activists and educators do?

For More: Why Financial Education?
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Following up on my blog of July 15, 2010 entitled “Why Reshaping the Federal Reserve is today an Absolute Must”  I thought I’d share these thoughts with you, demonstrating the Federal Reserve’s true agenda in the economy today, and why reshaping the Fed is again needed more than ever at this juncture of our country’s economic history.

In fact, contrary to popular belief, I frankly believe that the Fed has spent the last two decades creating the illusory “wealth effect” in people’s minds; knowing very well that what they do has no direct effect on the economy. If you can drive the market up 50 percent, people feel richer…and happier.

The Fed basically wants us to go out there and buy stocks, which are overpriced because bonds they have manipulated into being even less attractive. So, we’re being forced to choose between two overpriced assets. Plain and simple.

For More: The Federal Reserve’s True Agenda and how to deal with it

Thank you,