Author: albert

About Albert S. Frank

Here are my most recent posts

The Commons Institute has invited me to join the faculty for their program Advanced Topics in Business Law, scheduled for February 18, 2015 at Bond Place Hotel (across from Dundas Square) in Toronto.

My topic is Shareholder Disputes — Causes and Remedies.

For more information, and to register, you can go to http://thecommonsinstitute.com/busn15.html

 

Hard work has a great power in it. Hard work helped the ancient Roman soldiers win their victories. Hard work built the pyramids.

So should we always try harder? Sometimes trying harder is exactly what we need. But trying harder is not a strategy.

Suppose you want to start a small business. Is your success strategy that you will try harder than everyone else? Can you? Even if you can, should you even start a business if you cannot think of a better edge than trying harder?

The late president of the United States of America, Ronald Reagan, said:

It’s true hard work never killed anybody, but I figure, why take the chance?

From what I have read he was a diligent and systematic worker as president, but did not believe in working himself into a frazzle.

Strategy is about arranging to do more with the same resources than would otherwise be done, or to get same or better result with reduced resources. If so then trying harder is not a strategy; it is just a way of applying more resources.

 

A line I’ve often heard is that we should do this, that, or the other because we have “finite resources.”

Are Our Resources Really Finite? If So, Does It Matter?

Are Our Resources Really Finite? If So, Does It Matter?

The idea, often accepted without any rational thought — which I suppose is why people like to use the line — is that since the resources are finite we have to be careful or we’ll run out.

First of all, not all resources really are finite in any meaningful sense. At any given moment there is a finite number of trees on our planet, but new trees are growing all the time. At any given moment a finite amount of energy reaches the Earth from the Sun, but more keeps coming so we call solar energy a “renewable” resource.

What about non-renewable resources? Consider the rock under our feet, about 90% of which is made of silicon compounds. Leaving aside the occasional meteor the amount of silicon on Earth is finite, but given how much we have it is hard to see how we could run out as long as we have a planet at all.

Before we worry about a resource shortage we should ask a few questions, like:

  1. Can we make or find more of the resource if we want to?
  2. Can we recycle, using the same resource repeatedly?
  3. Are we using it faster than we can find or make more?
  4. Is it, though the quantity is finite at a given moment, really a renewable resource?
  5. Can we find ways to use it more efficiently?
  6. Can we use other resources instead?
  7. What are the chances that the resource will become largely obsolete, like the use of oak for the masts of British naval vessels?

These questions may seem dull compared to dramatic suggestions that we’re about to run out. But sound thinking often depends on the details.

In the summer of 1984, I became an Alberta lawyer in my hometown of Edmonton. After practicing there for over a year I moved to Ontario and became an Ontario lawyer on April 14, 1988.

About 25 years later I added the Territory of Nunavut to the places where I can practice law. On February 17, 2014, in the Hamlet of Kugluktuk in the Territory of Nunavut, the Honourable Mr. Justice Bracken swore me in as a Nunavut lawyer.

2014-02-25 10.18.00 - Albert Frank - Justice Bracken and Albert Frank

Justice Bracken with Albert Frank
in the Hamlet of Kugluktuk,
Territory of Nunavut

I still have my main office in downtown Toronto but will also be spending some of my time in Nunavut.

 

Last summer CTV television interviewed me twice about the Lac-Megantic train derailment disaster, which caused damages estimated in the hundreds of millions of dollars.The Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway asked for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the United States. Its Canadian related company applied in Quebec for protection under the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act (CCAA).

Under the CCAA, unlike the Bankruptcy Act, the idea is to keep the business going rather than closing it down and selling the assets. If the business is basically sound this could wind up being better for the creditors, because the assets of the business could be worth more if it is still operating than if it is bankrupt.

At least the railroad seems to have cut through years in which it could have denied liability, so that the creditors can get on with their negotiation and collection efforts.