In politics, building and strengthening relationships are part of what governments do. Ideally if you can help turn an government that has not acting favorable to your government to one that looks upon your government as favorable then your foreign activities has been successful. In the case of North Korea it is a different country because it devotes money to the military and military resources without having an enemy. The country has a nuclear program and millions of people are living in poverty being controlled by the state. If the people were thriving and people in neighboring countries wanted to live in North Korea it could have enemies. However no one really wants to go to North Korea. The President staked his reputation and much time and resources on being the person to help change North Korea. The meeting was off now is on for a smaller scale.

In business, relationships are economic in nature. If your company has something another company wants – be in technology, people, customers then the other company needs to either buy shares in the company or enter into mutual beneficial ventures to explore how each other treat each other. If the company president discuss how wonderful these relations could be and are and the other company sees them as smaller ventures or exploratory, there is a disconnect between followers of the company and the company public relations.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, one of the advantages of being a profitable company is other companies will want to do deals with the company. Some are great, some are no so great and some are pie in the sky. There is an old story about someone who said he won a large cash prize from a lottery but had not cashed it out. It went on for some time and no one knew if he had won or not. The reality is whether he won or not he wanted to be treated like he had. Some people treated his as he did and gave him extra time and resources on him in hopes they would get a share when he did cash in. Others treated him as they would everyone else and of course there were people who did not believe he won and treated as the eccentric person. Which one was right? No one knows because lottery tickets expire if not cashed in after a few years. Which type of President do you think the President is in terms of making a deal?

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.