When tough competition leads to innovative solutions and creative proposals, it's a good thing. When it leads to over commitment, false promises, and misinformation, it's unethical and dishonest. One tactic employed by one of my largest competitors was to promise anything and worry about delivering later. "Once we're in, we're in!"
This tactic is starting to resemble some of the statements and promises of the Obama campaign. Let's look at an example:
Obama says that if elected he will eliminate the need for foreign oil in ten years. He follows with another commitment by saying that he would have one million, 150 mpg electric vehicles on the road in six years. There are about 200 million vehicles on the road today in the U.S. However, most experts say that both commitments are extremely difficult to achieve if not impossible.
Time to ask ourselves some common sense questions:
- Obama is against additional drilling, nuclear power, and natural gas exploration. That pretty much leaves wind turbines, biofuels, more attention to proper tire inflation, and major investment in development of more energy efficient devices including automobiles. But will the combination of these tactics eliminate the need for foreign oil in ten years? The experts say it is nothing more than a fantasy.
- The price of regular gasoline in Germany is over $8.00 a gallon. Germany is the home of two of the world's most advanced automobile companies. If it were possible to engineer itself into energy independence, why isn't Germany doing that?
- If drilling does not make sense as part of a multifaceted energy strategy because it would take 5-10 years to deliver more energy, why do electric cars, wind turbine farms, and development of energy-efficient devices make sense when it is likely that it will take several years before they deliver more energy?
Is Obama just putting out feel-good commitments that he can't keep just to win the election?
This reminds me of a joke that's popular with people who sell for a living:
A decent man died and was immediately transported to the Gates of Heaven. St. Peter was waiting with a sign-in book and as the decent man was about to sign, the Devil, who was standing a few feet away, got his attention and waved him over.
"Hey, before you sign, let me show you what you will be missing out on." He led the decent man over to the Gates of Hell and swung open the huge doors. The decent man could hardly believe his eyes because spread out before him was the most beautiful view he had ever seen. Rolling hills and perfect weather, cascading water falls, sparkling lakes, prestine white-sand beaches, emerald golf courses, spectacular mansions, and beautiful people. After a few minutes, the devil swung the doors closed and asked the decent man to sign the admission book. The decent man, liking everything he saw, promptly signed.
The devil then swung open the doors again and much to the decent man's horror, flames leapt out and the screams of the inhabitants could be clearly heard. "What happened to the beautiful view, the waterfalls, the golf courses, the beaches?", our decent man asked the Devil. "Oh", the Devil responded, "That was just the demo."
Let's hope that this funny joke does not become our sad reality.
