Daily Inspiration: “Stupid is not a strategy!”

“Stupid is not a strategy!” – #Futurist Jim Carroll

And so the trade war escalates.

I have a running folder with screenshots of headlines involving industries that have seen their exports plummet. Lumber exports to China collapsing. Soybean farmers in distress because of destruction of their overseas markets. Manufacturers beginning to lay people off because global sales opportunities are shrinking.

People always look for an easy way out of a complex situation, and choose a path that seems to offer that path, but is essentially stupid at best, unstably non-genius at most.

The thing is, people voted for this path. It’s going to take a long time to dig out of this mess.

I wrote about the idiocy of this situation – in which people are bringing destruction on themselves – in a blog post 18 months ago about my personal experience with the US soybean industry.

Take a look, and have a read:

Tariffs, Trade Wars, the Conundrum of Politics, and My Good Friend Jim Carroll of the Arkansas Soybean Board!

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“I opened the annual meeting of the United Soybean Board in St. Louis, a group that represents most of the US soybean industry. I was on stage with a message for over 300 soybean farmers about opportunities for future growth. In addition, I spent 2 hours in a private session with the Board of Directors talking about opportunity.

We talked a lot about China and global markets as a big opportunity. Today, the industry is struggling with the fact that they while they spent a lot of time developing China a key market, the country has now targeted their beans with tariffs. They are in the front line of the new global trade war.”

Who would have thought? Well, people vote, and votes matter.

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And then I wrote:

“Here’s the thing – I’ll bet you dollars for donuts that most soybean farmers voted for an agenda that would supposedly ‘make America great again,’ but in the long run, certainly won’t help them. The conundrum is this: most of them voted for a path that placed restrictive ideas in the face of opportunities for innovation. They are now seeing the results of such a path.”

Seriously stupid, is not a strategy.