Is your career on the right train? Are you working for a company with good economics? Is your company awash with cash? Does your company continue to achieve high margins? Is it experiencing growth in revenue and profits? Is your company innovative?

If the answer is no to any of these questions, why are you continuing to work for the company? Higher salaries, raises, and promotions are more common if the answer is yes to each of these questions.

Is your company under pressure to cut costs? If so, guess what costs they will cut? Maybe your raise or promotion, or even worse your job.

I agree with Mary Buffett (Warren's former daughter-in-law): "If one goes to work for a company with poor long-term economics, then he can never expect to do really well because the company doesn't do well."

Get your career back on the right train. Join companies that have good long-term economics. This simple action will put in you a position to succeed.

Pierre Cutler
The Sacramento Executive

It wasn't until Varick's death did I know that Tommy Smith and John Carlos were two of my brother's heros. I never had a chance to share with Varick that Gillian and I met Tommy and John four years ago this week at the Track and Field Olympic Team Trials in Sacramento.

Varick, here's a salute to you from your heros!

We love you. Rest in peace

Pierre Cutler & Gillian Parrillo

"Really?" I feign surprise.

"Oh yes. His middle name is Hussein," my Republican friend replies with force, almost as if he played a high scoring trump card.

"And so what if he is a Muslim? Would it matter?" I ask.

"Well you know, Muslims want to annihilate Americans. All Muslims are extremists. They hate us!"

I hear this all the time. It's like a dirty little secret to them. And they delight in spreading the nasty myth.

But to me it is wicked and mean-spirited. It's downright dirty pool. It's despicable and disgusting.

So there I was this morning - a weekend bachelor, sipping my coffee and reading the Sunday New York Times. I spotted it on page A13, "HELLO. My name is HUSSEIN"! I just knew where this was going. I grew excited. Before I started to read, I thought, "Blog material", and headed for my computer, with the Times in tow.

Jodi Kantor's article caught my eye - the title read "Making a Political Statement by Adopting Their Candidate's Middle Name". Kantor writes:

Emily Hussein Nordling, her entry now reads.

With her decision, she joined a growing band of supporters of Senator Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, who are expressing solidarity with him by informally adopting his middle name.

We felt great. People noticed and wanted to take our pictures.

And now, New York Times Sunday readers around the world are noticing. People do care and are fighting back.

I still have the badge and plan to wear it on the plane tomorrow to Sacramento. I'll wear it with pride.

Pierre Hussein Cutler
The Sacramento Executive

CNN tells me that a majority of Americans favor Barack Obama's call to clamp down on speculators and reduce demand through tougher fuel efficiency standards and more conservation. The network also informs me that a majority favor John McCain's plan to open up offshore drilling to expand oil supplies. The take-away: a majority want something substantive done that will lower prices at the pump soon.

Of course, neither candidate has much to offer in terms of short-term relief; the constraints of America's political culture guarantee that price controls and fuel subsidies for transportation-dependent industries -- things other governments might contemplate -- are off the table.
But even in the context of this truncated debate, it's clear that the conservative movement's ideas are utterly bankrupt. They're offering a defense of an unsustainable -- indefensible -- status quo: just pump more oil and we'll keep doing what we've been doing without a hiccup. All they have to offer is drilling offshore and in the Alaskan wilderness.

Let's dig into that argument briefly. Our friend Bill Scher over at Tompaine crunched the numbers offered up by Bush's own Department of Energy and found that opening up the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge would result in a decrease in oil prices amounting to 75 cents per barrel of crude, some 17 years from now. Assuming for the sake of argument that demand doesn't increase -- an unlikely assumption -- and using the rough rule of thumb that every dollar in the price of a barrel of crude oil equals 2.5 cents in a gallon of gas, that works out to a promise to reduce gas prices by less than 2 cents per gallon.
McCain claims that there's another 21 billion barrels offshore. Scher cites a a DOE estimate of 18 billion, but let's use the Senator's figure. Opening up our offshore deposits would result in an additional cost reduction of $1.50 per barrel. So, adding the two, we can conclude that opening ANWR and drilling like Hell offshore would result in cost savings to consumers of about 6 cents per gallon of gas. And that's by 2025, meaning that you could get into bed and conceive a child today, and that 6-cent-per-gallon cost reduction would be included in gas prices by the time the fruit of your loins got his or her learner's permit.

Rush Limbaugh won't be mentioning those details, I think..

Gillian Parrillo
The Sacramento Executive

Varick, you must be dancing! South Dakota, my brother's final resting place, has brought Barack victory! How poetic!

Yes we can!

Pierre Cutler
The Sacramento Executive

We arrived with clipboards and pens and forms and we got busy. We registered young graduates and family members and friends and anyone else we could. We were excited to watch the parents encourage their kids to sign up.

It was exhilarating, sharing this special day with these beacons of the future. Many of these kids came from very poor neighborhoods. The fact that they had persevered to graduate is celebration enough. But now they are even more empowered. They are voters!

And more ceremonies to come next week.

Gillian Parrillo
The Sacramento Executive

This book captures Chinese Americans contributions to Sacramento's diversity and their integral part in Sacramento's rich history. Canton Footprints, Written by eminent Chinese American historian Philip P. Choy, it brings together over 150 years of Chinese American history in Sacramento. Through more than 40 oral histories, Choy shows the role and influence that the Chinese American community has had in shaping Sacramento.

The 160-page book includes 178 historical photographs and is offered in soft bound and hard cover. The photographs from the Anna Wong Lee Collection and 19th Century lithographs and engravings from Philip Choy's private collection give visual impact to the importance of the Chinese American Community's role in Sacramento history.

The author, Philip P. Choy will give a lecture and sign copies of the book on Sunday June 1, 2008 at a CACS dinner to be held at the Holiday Villa Restaurant, 7007 S. Land Park Dr.
Sacramento, CA. The cost is $25 per person.

The book costs: $20 paperback, $30 hardbound.

To place orders for the book, contact: Donna Scotti, PO Box 60267 Sacramento, CA 95822
e-mail: CACSbookorder@comcast.net.

Gillian Parrillo
The Sacramento Executive

Gillian Parrillo
The Sacramento Executive

The news and sports shows are a buzz this week about him owing $400,000 to the Wynn Las Vegas Resort from a bad night at the tables this past October.

Now for the $64,000 question - does Charles Barkley have a gambling problem? I don't think so. But what is his problem then, if he has lost $10 million in the past twenty years at the casinos?

It's simple. He has a math problem. Charles doesn't understand the mathematical principles behind Las Vegas casinos - the house has an advantage when it comes to odds. And Charles has not figured it out - if you play for twenty years in Las Vegas, it's almost certain you will lose over the long run.

Charles, stop gambling with the Las Vegas house. Go someplace else, where you can get better odds, preferably when the odds are in your favor.

Charles, it's simple - you have a math problem. Fix it.

Pierre Cutler
The Sacramento Executive

Gillian Parrillo
The Sacramento Executive

So, we were working at the Dallas Barack Obama HQ this weekend. We were part of an effort by the Obama campaign to recruit a million volunteers to add to his million donors. More than 150 people showed up to learn how to register new voters and walk neighborhoods signing up new volunteers. Groups of four were set up in random fashion and the 'troops' went out on the streets.

Several hours later, we watched the foursomes return, bonded by the experience. They were energized by their day together. And then we began to notice the true relationship that had been generated during their common purpose. In walked one of the groups, two white women in their late sixties and two young black men in their twenties. They were laughing and joking and exchanging phone numbers and talking about what a great time they had had and how they wanted to do it again soon.

Another foursome, two young black women in their twenties and two white men in their thirties are finishing up their day. As they left, the white guys stick out their hands and do their best to replicate a 'black' handshake, something they have evidently talked about and discussed on their cavassing route. At the same time, the young women are bidding their white companions Shalom, having evidently discused the fact that the guys are Jewish.

Please tell me where else such diverse people would be coming together and really getting to know each other? And this is happening all over America each and every day in the common act of getting Barack Obama elected as President.

Tears come to our eyes, hope returns our hearts. Things are going to be really, really different. A new America.

Oh, by the way, we signed up 48 new voters yesterday. And one of them was an 88 year old woman!

Pierre Cutler and Gillian Parrillo
The Sacramento Executive

Fund raising, governance, compensation, staff development, customer development, market segmentation, etc. are all areas where an engaged Board might find a useful role. Just how then do you get this entitled bunch to do real work for a living.....

Who should attend:

• President, CEO
• CFO, VP Sales, VP HR, VP Engineering
• Investors for their portfolio companies
• Other Senior Executive team members

Instructor: Roger Akers, Founder and Managing Partner, Akers Capital.

Gillian Parrillo
The Sacramento Executive

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Pierre Cutler
The Sacramento Executive

His sidekick Charlie Munger: We try to behave as if Berkshire stock was all owned by crippled relatives.

It's definitely working, many of Berkshire's investors have become multi-millionaires.

Buffett said the current financial crisis is a byproduct of a system that encouraged executives to "paint pretty pictures."

At his annual stockholder's meeting, he followed his owned advice and gave very blunt guidance:

"There is absolutely no question" that Berkshire's returns will decline, Buffett said. "Anyone that expects us to come close to replicating the past should sell their stock. It isn't going to happen. I think we're going to get decent results over time, but we're not going to get indecent results."

Gillian Parrillo
The Sacramento Executive