My mother used to take me to flea markets in my stroller and I would just rummage through the piles. You've got to dig through the overstuffed racks that everyone else just walks by. It's the only way to find the cool stuff.

From computers to information technology to airplanes it has been America's unique blend of republican government and free-market capitalism that has allowed us to surpass all other nations in history.

Well the big products in electronics in the '50s were radio and television. The first big computers were just beginning to come in and represented the most logical market for us to work in.

Imagine if the pension funds and endowments that own much of the equity in our financial services companies demanded that those companies revisit the way mortgages were marketed to those without adequate skills to understand the products they were being sold. Management would have to change the way things were done.

Brands must empower their community to be change agents in their own right. To that end they need to take on a mentoring role. This means the brand provides the tools techniques and strategies for their customers to become more effective marketers in achieving their own goals.

Anyone who thinks there's safety in numbers hasn't looked at the stock market pages.

When you're in the car how well you do is down to you and you alone-no band no management no marketing.

Investors have few spare tires left. Think of the image of a car on a bumpy road to an uncertain destination that has already used up its spare tire. The cash reserves of people have been eaten up by the recent market volatility.

We have some worse scenarios for which we need to prepare as companies. For the moment we're planning for the worst and the worst is now and the car market is down more than 15 percent in France. There is so much uncertainty.

I'm still that little girl who lisped and sat in the back of the car and threw vegetables at the back of her head when we drove home from the market. That never goes.