Jacobs Capital CEO, Michael Jacobs, has been the only person selected to write a monthly column for both the Triangle Business Journal and the Raleigh News & Observer. Below are links to some of his columns:
Companies should stress value, not short-term profits.
View the original article in The News and Observer by clicking here. Most of the people I encounter in the business community will tell you that they are not fans of Donald Trump as a person, but they agree with most of his policies including lower taxes, less regulation, beefed up national security, and greater […]
Why the governor’s appointment powers should be limited.
View the original article in The News and Observer by clicking here. Six proposed constitutional amendments are on the ballot. Two are controversial within the Republican Party, which authored them. One shifts the power to nominate members of the state Board of Elections and Ethics to the legislature (the governor would choose from a list provided […]
Bias stifles campus speech at UNC-CH.
View the original article in The News and Observer by clicking here. I recently spoke to the UNC College Republicans. Both of them. Seriously, there is a robust group of students in Chapel Hill who are willing to be identified as non-progressives on what has become an overwhelmingly progressive campus. Though a majority of today’s college students […]
Before you accuse someone of racism, look in the mirror.
View the original article in The News and Observer by clicking here. Racism is often easy to spot. When a cab driver fails to stop for a black person; when Jews were recently spit upon while walking in a Muslim neighborhood in France; when Muslims are assumed to be terrorists. But most racism is more […]
George H.W. Bush was a great mentor and boss.
View the original article in The News and Observer by clicking here. Life in the George H. W. Bush Administration was very different from today’s Washington. I was fortunate to have been chosen by the elder Bush to serve at the U.S. Treasury Department tackling the subject I was most passionate about: American competitiveness. President Bush […]
Why our physicians need to know more about nutrition.
Although I am not a medical professional, I have taken the same number of nutrition classes as the vast majority of doctors—zero. That’s right. Most medical doctors know next to nothing about how what we put into our mouths every day effects our bodies. My saga with gluten is illustrative. There are 18 million Americans […]
The UNC-CH faculty is overwhelmingly liberal. That’s not good.
A “liberal education” does not mean you studied under Elizabeth Warren. According to the Association of American Colleges and Universities: “Liberal Education is an approach to learning that empowers individuals and prepares them to deal with complexity, diversity, and change. It provides students with broad knowledge of the wider world (e.g. science, culture, and society).” […]
I’m a Republican who doesn’t watch Fox News. And other things that perplex me.
In a world where the new normal is the extreme, I detest extremes. I am a Republican who doesn’t watch Fox News. I try to figure out how people on the other side of the aisle think, so I read the New York Times and Washington Post daily. I don’t understand why black people consistently […]
How trained dogs could make schools safer.
This suggestion will lead to concerns that there will be more children claiming the dog ate their homework, but the idea of using dogs to protect our schools is deadly serious. Rather than asking 72-year old kindergarten teacher Miss Mildred to pack heat, we need to place explosive and weapon detection dogs in our children’s […]
Why it’s not easy to sell a business during a pandemic.
View the original article in the Triangle Business Journal by clicking here. Since pandemics are new for most of us, there aren’t a lot of data points or roadmaps that provide insights for business owners who want to, or have to, sell their business in the next couple of years. Those considering, or forced to […]
Why business owners need boards.
View the original article in the Triangle Business Journal by clicking here. The old adage ”it’s lonely at the top” applies nowhere better than to running a private company, where CEOs make daily decisions about disciplines in which they have no background. Having worked with over 200 private-company owners over the past 25 years, it […]
Hello! I want to buy your business.
View the original article in the Triangle Business Journal by clicking here. If you own or run a mid-sized business and don’t receive at least one call a week from someone professing to want to buy your business, you should wonder why. If this is an all-too-common occurrence, I will offer some ideas to help […]
Really, how much is your business worth?
One thing that executives of both public and private companies have in common is that neither has a very good understanding of what determines the value of their stock. When I headed corporate finance policy at the U.S. Treasury Department, I met with groups of Fortune 500 CEOs on numerous occasions, and they invariably complained […]
Can we trust big companies anymore?
Thank goodness for Congress. If not for its dismal approval rating, corporate America would rank dead last among all institutions in our country. Only one in five Americans respect big business. And that was before the Facebook fiasco. As a conservative UNC business school professor who graduated from the West Point of Capitalism, Harvard Business […]
Are liberal arts colleges becoming irrelevant?
Should young people focus on STEM classes, in order to develop the technical skills required to secure gainful employment in today’s workplace; or do all “enlightened” people need to be well versed in the liberal arts? The answer is “yes”. We need both. But while STEM courses have evolved with the global economy and effectively […]