A History Lesson in Melody, Harmony and a Global Music Revolution (The Beatles)

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Meet the Global Style Hero to Fashion-Savvy Social Media Creators

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At 71, Doug Bihlmaier has become a global style hero to fashion-savvy social media creators.

Matt Hranek, the founder of the men’s fashion magazine WM Brown, first heard about Mr. Bihlmaier in the mid-1990s. At the time, he noticed that Double RL, a Ralph Lauren spinoff brand, had the best versions of the vintage military clothing and watches he sought for his own collection.

One day, while waiting in line outside a vintage show, Mr. Hranek met the man himself — a shy, bearded figure in faded denim. From then on, whenever they spotted each other at fairs, Mr. Bihlmaier would smile beatifically and give Mr. Hranek the peace sign.

The rest is history or should I say the rest is that the king of vintage was found.

Today in Global Small Business: Best Grill Topper On the Planet and Made in USA – Oscarware

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What's affecting me, my clients, my colleagues and other global small business owners:

• It's summer, upgrade your BBQ accessories at Oscarware – they are exceptional!  I know.  I [Laurel Delaney] own one.  Made in USA. Woman-owned enterprise.
• Trump announces EU deal with 15% tariffs.
• Why are stocks high despite looming tariffs?
• Quote of the week:  "No barbecue is worth anything unless it takes all day." – William Faulkner
• FedEx is adopting a direct serve model to further enhance its services offered to Vietnamese customers and keep pace with their needs:  international trade.
• How Asia’s innovation economy is driving growth and a global market shift.

I Live For Summer

©2025 Laurel J. Delaney.  All rights reserved.

"I live for summer." – Sandra Boynton

Business Intelligence Firm BigBear.ai Accelerates Its Global Expansion Strategy

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Bigbear.ai (https://bigbear.ai/), a higher form of business intelligence, is accelerating its global expansion strategy with a focus on turning promising international pilots into sustainable revenue generators.

In first-quarter 2025, the company partnered with Smith Detection to deploy its threat detection AI with CT scanners—marking a pivotal move into overseas markets. This effort underscores BigBear.ai’s intent to monetize American-developed AI technologies in allied regions, especially in security and infrastructure modernization.

Learn more about strengthening critical infrastructure.

A Model for Expanding Your Business into Foreign Markets (HBR)

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In May, 2024, it was thought that globalization would flatten out cultural differences among countries and regions of the world, making it easier than ever for companies to move into foreign markets.

According to a study by the author Joshua Conrad Jack and a colleague, however, cultural differences are greater today than they were 40 years ago, which explains why some major corporations have failed in their recent efforts to establish a foothold in new countries. 

Companies need to adapt, the author argues, and to that end in this article he presents a general model for global leadership in the face of cultural divergence.

Joshua Conrad Jack is a Neubauer Family Assistant Professor at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business.  Other articles by him.

The World Asks: Why Is Someone Not Writing a Biography About Ghislaine Maxwell?

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Please.  The easiest way to find out more details about Jeffrey Epstein (the list, who was involved with him and so forth) is for someone to step up to the plate and ask permission from Ghislaine Maxwell if he or she can write a biography on her.  She has nothing to lose by telling the truth and saying "yes."  It certainly would become a global bestseller.  All proceeds can benefit a charity of choice.  My recommendation would naturally be wegg®.

Who would be ideally suited to write this book?  I vote for Walter Isaacson although he tends to focus on important people who have thus far stayed out of prison.

How Small Pizzerias Succeed With Uniqueness in an Age of Global Food Chain Restaurants

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Pizza is deceptively simple. Made from just a few humble ingredients — baked dough, tangy sauce, melted cheese and maybe a few toppings — it might seem like a perfect candidate for the kind of mass-produced standardization that defines many global food chains, where predictable menus reign supreme. 

Yet, visit two pizzerias in different towns — or even on different blocks of the same town — and you’ll find that pizza stubbornly refuses to be homogenized.

Why is that?  Find out. 

Today in Global Small Business: Is Your Ideal World Walmart?

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What's affecting me, my clients, my colleagues and other global small business owners:

• An Opinion Piece on Finding Beauty by Crispin Sartwell, a senior fellow at the American Institute for Philosophical and Cultural Thought.
• Trump trade strategy causing legal and economic uncertainty for businesses.
• Expand your reach by going global with the help of U.S. Commercial Service.  U.S. local office lookup.
• Quote of the week:  "Each Walmart store should reflect the values of its customers and support the vision they hold for their community." – Sam Walton
• Expanding internationally: Is it right for you?  An oldie but goodie from Wharton Magazine.
• Global expansion strategies for 2025.

Love Is the Flower You've Got to Let Grow

©2025 Laurel J. Delaney.  All rights reserved.

"Love is the flower you've got to let grow." – John Lennon

What's Your Next Brilliant Move?

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McKinsey & Company wants to help and they are not a sponsor to the Global Small Business Blog.

On a Global Scale, Here's What Can Happen If You Play Around with the Fed

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Four USA bank CEOs weigh in on what the consequences would be should the Federal Reserve not be independent.

1. Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan says, "The core thing is that an independent Fed is critical to the operating of a great global economy like the United States."
2. Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon says, "I think central bank independence, not just here in the United States but around the world, has served us incredibly well."
3. Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser says, "The central bank’s ability to operate without White House or political interference is critical to the U.S. economy and financial markets."
4. JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon says, "Playing around with the Fed can have adverse consequences, the absolute opposite of what you might be hoping for."

Read all remarks here.

The Average Tariff on Imported Goods is Now the Highest It's Been Since the Great Depression

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The average tariff on imported goods is now the highest it's been since the Great Depression. And Trump has threatened to impose even higher taxes on goods from many countries, beginning on Aug. 1.

The uptick in inflation last month cements expectations that the Federal Reserve will hold interest rates steady when policymakers meet later this month, despite mounting pressure from the White House for lower rates.

President Trump has frequently attacked Fed chairman Jerome Powell and his colleagues for not cutting rates more aggressively.

Blame is not a strategy.  

Stagflationary Shock

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President Trump has had little reason to scale back on his global trade was ambitions.  If the new tariffs go into effect on Aug. 1, they could unleash the sort of devastation to consumers and businesses that economists have long worried about and that Mr. Trump has mostly avoided.

Their fear stems from the specter of a stagflationary shock, in which inflation intensifies as growth stalls.

Definition of stagflation:

Stagflation is an economic situation where high inflation, slow economic growth (stagnation), and high unemployment occur simultaneously. It is a difficult economic condition to manage because efforts to combat one aspect (like inflation) can worsen the others (like unemployment). 

The economy has been resilient.  For how long?  The new round of tariffs may hit harder.

Today in Global Small Business: Tariffs Bad

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What's affecting me, my clients, my colleagues and other global small business owners:

• Trade economist Pietra Rivoli describes the consequences of trade in two words:  tariffs bad.
• EU delays retaliatory trade tariffs against US.
• US tomato prices could jump as soon as today, 7/14/25.
• Quote of the week:  "A lot of people believe, and I do at times, that some of our trade agreements are lopsided, and we've got to look at them. But that doesn't mean that we're going to put a tariff on everything." – Richard Shelby
• Small business, big ambition: Creating an easier trade environment for SME e-commerce exporters.
• How African companies are entering global markets.

People Take Pictures of the Summer

©2025 Laurel J. Delaney.  All rights reserved.

"People take pictures of the Summer, just in case someone thought they had missed it, and to prove that it really existed." – Ray Davies

Viewpoint Diversity by Harvard

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Harvard leaders have discussed creating a program that people briefed on the talks described as a center for conservative scholarship, possibly modeled on Stanford’s Hoover Institution, as the school fights the Trump administration’s accusations that it is too liberal.

A spokesman for Harvard said an initiative under discussion “will ensure exposure to the broadest ranges of perspectives on issues, and will not be partisan, but rather will model the use of evidence-based, rigorous logic and a willingness to engage with opposing views.” He added that the school has been accelerating efforts to set up the initiative, which would “promote and support viewpoint diversity.”

Learn more about how Harvard is getting close to making this 'viewpoint diversity' happen.

Great Analysis of How Tariffs Are Paid by Americans

©iStock/Pavlo Stavnichuk

Ed Gresser's analysis of how tariffs impact consumers (Americans) is excellent.  If I were updating my Exporting book, which I should and will soon, I would reference this.  He uses an example of a Vietnamese supplier.

The buyers’ tariff payment [business owner who imports], in turn, is included in the bill you pay in the store. This is because these buyers add it to the bills they’ve paid to their Vietnamese supplier and to the shipping company carrying across the Pacific to the United States. The result is the “landed cost” from which they mark up to cover costs — wages, building rent, transport, maintenance, marketing, etc. — and leave a profit margin. If the product doesn’t sell, the store takes the loss; if you buy it, you cover their tariff cost. Using the hypothetical example of a container carrying 1,000 Vietnamese-made wooden chairs valued at $100 each, here's the arithmetic.

Read on for the full analysis.

The OKAPA Water Bottle: Elevating An Everyday Ritual Through Meticulous Design and Uncompromising Engineering

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At its core, the OKAPA bottle elevates an everyday ritual through meticulous design and uncompromising engineering. Launched in January 2025, the new bottles are available in eight contemporary colorways curated by renowned color and materials specialist Beatrice Santiccioli (BSD), including Misti Pinku, Goldie Samba, and Fetishe Noir, among others.

In working with IDEO, global brand expert Hardy Steinmann, CEO and Founder, OKAPA says:

“IDEO’s thinking starts where other firms end. Our collaboration was the art of playing thought ping-pong. It resulted in a high-tech, sophisticated, intelligently beautiful, and fashionable lifestyle product. The final design is so perfect, I made it my mission not to change anything..” 

Learn more by reading the fabulous, meticulous, story here.

Tariffs: Oh Keep Up Will You?

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President Donald Trump has delayed imposing higher tariffs on US imports, while sending letters to 14 countries including Japan and South Korea detailing the levies they face.

The latest development on global trade by Trump comes as a 90-day pause the White House placed on some of its most aggressive import taxes was set to expire this week (7/7/25).

Starting August 1, 2025, here's what you might expect.  Chaos in the name of the game here.

Today in Global Small Business: The Predictability of Unpredictability

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What's affecting me, my clients, my colleagues and other global small business owners:

• Trump is not the first American president to deploy an Unpredictability Doctrine.
• Dalai Lama, a global symbol of Tibetan culture and resistance, turns 90.
• How maritime ports can advance industrial climate tech solutions.
• Quote of the week:  "You can have a plan, but you have to be flexible. Every day is unpredictable, and you just have to go with the flow." – Jane Krakowski
• Planning for the unplannable: What supply chain leaders should be doing now.
• Container lines pull back on India-US pricing push.

I Simply Know They're Just One Thing

©2025 Laurel J. Delaney.  All rights reserved.

"About Jesus Christ and the Church, I simply know they're just one thing." – Joan of Arc

Honoring Independence Day 7/4/25 and Hoping For a Better, Freer America Soon

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When You Find Yourself In Times of Trouble, Listen to the Beatles (Video music)

The Winners and Losers in Trump's Big, Beautiful Tax Bill

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The Big, Beautiful Tax Bill (BBTB) is indeed big: 1,116 pages in the House version and 887 pages in the Senate. How attractive it is to you depends largely on how big your paycheck will be in 2026.

What's in the BBTB?  Who comes out a winner?  Who comes out a loser?  Find out here.

The Dollar's Worst Start to the Year in Decades

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The United States’ currency has weakened more than 10 percent over the past six months when compared with a basket of currencies from the country’s major trading partners. The last time the dollar weakened so much at the start of the year was 1973, when the United States made a seismic shift and ended the linking of the dollar to the price of gold.

The combination of Mr. Trump’s trade proposals, inflation worries and rising government debt has weighed on the dollar, which has also been buffeted by slowly sliding confidence in the role of the United States at the center of the global financial system.   

Maybe the dollar isn't that weak after all because it started from such a high level.

Learn more about the state of the dollar, full-scale de-dollarization and how the weaker dollar impacts investments from Americans outside the USA.