-- He thinks it is silly for entrepreneurs to create a cash reserve, manage inventories carefully, be flexible and prepare contingency plans,--

Dana should put his money where his mouth is, go for the big house, big mort. and live large.

He should risk his money.

I want to move up, but war's a 'comin.

Sir:

Your statement "rejecting the thesis that Osama bin Laden is evil" is a gratuitous lie, and you know it. It's designed to get heads nodding in personal rejection of all my views, and I take it as the insult it's meant to be.

What I wrote (and your readers find the whole piece at http://www.corante.com/mooreslore/archives/003880.html) ended with the following:

"For those who seek to do good the choices will inevitably be harder than for those who confuse ends and means. As the conflict grows fiercer, as it nears its climax, these decisions get harder. If you're not anguished by them you're not thinking, you're not truly an adult, and you're likely to be manipulated, as a child is, by the simplest tales of good vs. evil, able to rationalize anything done in your name to reach once and for all."

Anyone who believes their own propaganda -- hook, line, and sinker -- is a fool.

As to Cornwall's advice, I stand by my statements. Entrepreneurs are our business generals. If they panic, who will stand and fight?

As for entrepeneurs, Cornwall wasn't urging them to panic. He was urging them to prepare.

Good generals don't rush into battle without preparation, nor do they fail to prepare careful defenses. Your suggestion that preparation equals panic is, simply, ludicrous.

I read your Osama piece. It was moral relativist crap. And in it you called our military "evil doers."

You wrote: ...No leader really has evil intentions. Hitler and Stalin were nationalists. Osama Bin Laden considers himself a defender of the faith. What makes you good or evil, in the end, isn't ends but means. Those who do evil are "evil-doers." Now all nations have evil-doers among them. We call them our military.

Your piece, accurately summarized, said: Osama is not evil. He's defending his faith. Evil is what American soldiers do. Stop the war.

Just to stick my nose where it doesn't belong...

Your quote above from Mr. Blankenhorn:

..No leader really has evil intentions. Hitler and Stalin were nationalists. Osama Bin Laden considers himself a defender of the faith. What makes you good or evil, in the end, isn't ends but means...

Your following summary is incorrect, or at best is an impassioned opinion that's lost site of the actual language.

Mr. Blankenhorn's words do not actually confirm one way or another his opinions of Osama Bin Laden's actions. They simply say that end does not always justify the means. Whether your are Osama Bin Laden or the US Government evil actions cannot and should not be rationalized away by ideaology or religious fervor. I would even say that Blankenhorn text implies that Bin Laden's actions ARE evil regardless of his intentions.

Blankenhorn may have gone on to make a statement about the military that you find insulting, but that doesn't change the intent of the words that come before that statement.

I will not attempt to put words in Mr. Blankenhorn's mouth. But in my opinion, regardless of any esteem we hold our military for their sacrifices, it would be foolish to say that our government had never used it's military for evil ends. But I would place the blame firmly on the heads of the government structure that wields the military rather than those of the soldiers that do its bidding. Perhaps Blankenhorn would agree with me. Perhaps he wouldn't.

Feel free to return to the sensationlist rhetoric in either case.

I have some experience with venture capitalists looking to invest in small companies, startup or otherwise. Their memories are of the 1999-2000 meltdown, and they would almost insist on Dr. Cornwall's guidelines as a precondition of investing. They might quibble about the amount of free cash reserve they want to see, but that doesn't apply to businesses without access to (or desire for) VC funding. For an etrepreneur self-financing, all of Cornwall's good advice holds.

There's a concept in finance and planning called a growth option, which can be thought of in terms very much like a stock option. What Cornwall's advice boils down to is the purchase on the option of being flexible -- of being able to survive a hit and still have strategic maneuvering room, or the ability to change direction as circumstances dictate. It's a bit like purchasing insurance. It's not taught in Junior College econ, but a business writer with any exposure to current thinking should be passingly familiar with the concept. So what exactly does Blankenhorn have his knickers in a bunch about? Also, his buffalo herd analogy makes no sense.

"Anyone who believes their own propaganda -- hook, line, and sinker -- is a fool."

Says a man who has bought -- hook, line, and sinker -- into his own propaganda.