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To: Hawkmoon who wrote (39190)	10/6/2003 6:00:00 AM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74559

Hawk, you are quite right that the services originated as added-value services, which evolved out of the need to manage product quality locally. One thing leads to the other. A bit like QUALCOMM started out as an OmniTRACS provider and leveraged the cash flow and technological talents into CDMA and then into mobile cyberspace and then into other things. The important point is to keep an eye on the bottom line and maximizing return on capital. Governments are rotten at doing that. Big companies are not that great either, which is why little ones keep on getting bigger and big ones gradually die off as they lose their original purposes and are unable to adapt their organisations to new opportunities. <Because customers want to ensure the quality of the product they're purchasing. They want to ensure BP isn't co-mingling #4 Fuel Oil into their #2 diesel. > Actually, on the contrary, [though generally true]. One of my biggest customers wanted us to mix fuel oil in with the diesel for their big earth moving equipment which was running day and night. Sulphur is okay, more or less, in engines provided the dew point isn't reached [which causes acidic condensation, oil additive depletion and corrosion]. That would save them a lot of money as their fuel bills were enormous. They could avoid diesel taxes by using cheap fuel oil. The waxiness wouldn't have mattered. The sulphur was no big deal. The engines were cheap compared with the fuel throughput. Well, you are right that the origins of the laboratory stemmed from the demand for oil and the need to manage quality, then provide added value services. But things change. BP Solar is becoming quite a big deal. In 50 years, the oil part of BP might be trivial compared with what they are doing in other spheres, perhaps totally unrelated to energy, let alone oil. In the 1970s, BP blew $billions on diversification, and conglomerate expansionism, but without the know-how to run the businesses. BP New Zealand got into fish farming, embryo transfers [in cows], forestry, chemicals, mining and other stuff. A bunch of duds! Duncan Simpson, who was the Lubricants Manager, [a business stream] was given FarmKey to run. He recounted hilarious stories about bidding at auction for cattle and having not a clue what the heck he was doing; about getting sperm out of bulls [using a decoy 'female' inside which was hiding a guy with a container] and other stuff. Diversification into other businesses is more than a matter of having money, tax lawyers and accountants. Companies are good at wasting money, but they are amateurs compared with governments. But both are producing GDP. Air New Zealand is a government business [Helengrad owning most of the shares anyway] and makes profits [thanks to Ralph Norris, the boss, who deserves admiration for rescuing the situation]. It's not just bridges which are productive. I'd have to think about how to separate civilians from Al Qaeda. I was just giving an example of how even the most basic government functions could be contracted out and be just another part of the GDP, showing that government does produce value - governments are not simply overhead and cost centre; that's just the way they are managed, unfortunately. But for a start, we could say that children under age 2 are more than likely civilians. Probably even those under age 10. There would need to be some sort of evidence of Al Qaeda activity to get the bonus payments. My point was the principle that things can be contracted out from government and the same functions achieved - usually even better. It's too late for me to figure out a contractual incentive and measurement system for military activity just now. It's zizzzo time. There must already be some sort of performance measurement. We could start with that. Shall we form a company and offer to bring peace, light, harmony, happiness, health, prosperity, longevity, fun and love to Earth? We could contract services to any country which needs us. There's certainly a lot of money involved in the industry. We could offer peace, light, harmony etc... at say $100 million per month that it continues, for small countries, and $10 billion per month for biggies like the USA. Cheap at the price! Mqurice