Rodger Malcolm Mitchell is a business man and an economist -- a turn-around expert, who enters companies in trouble and rebuilds them. He began his career in 1956, where he became the advertising manager and purchasing director for Booth Fisheries, Chicago, then the largest frozen seafood company in America.
Mr. Mitchell left Booth in 1968 and joined Arthur Meyerhoff Associates, an advertising agency, whose largest account was the Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company, of chewing gum fame. Mr. Mitchell became a Vice President and shareholder in Meyerhoff as well as the Management Superviser on the Wrigley account. At $50 million, Wrigley was one of the largest advertising accounts in Chicago. "I probably learned more about business from Mr. Meyerhoff than from anyone. His most important lesson was to focus rather than to pursue multiple ideas, simultaneously. He mantra was, 'Good ideas are a dime a dozen.' His teaching helped me save distressed companies, the owners of whom nearly always tried to do too many things at once."
In 1980, Mr. Mitchell sold his shares of Meyerhoff to the BBDO Advertising Agency, and became the lead partner in Murlas Commodities, a company on the edge of bankruptcy. Under Mitchell's leadership, Murlas became one of the largest commodity brokerages in Chicago, with more than 150 brokers.
By 1989, Mr. Mitchell became disenchanted with the fundamental premise of commodities trading. As he explained it, "No matter how hard we tried, the mathematics of commodity futures required that eventually, all customers lost. For every winner, there was a loser, but because commissions were paid to the commodity exchanges and the brokers, each trade had a slightly higher loss than profit. It was identical with Las Vegas, but disguised as legitimate investing. Eventually, the heartache of watching people lose their money, despite all our efforts, took its toll, and I got out." The company no longer exists.
The next company was National Law Resource. Not only was the company on the brink of bankruptcy, but the then owner of the company was deeply in debt to the IRS and even had mortgaged his mother's home, which the bank was about to repossess. Mr. Mitchell joined MLR as an equal partner, and built it into the largest used law book company in the world. After Mr. Mitchell sold his half of the company, in 1996, the company declined sharply.
In 1996, Mr. Mitchell joined Management Simulations, Inc (as of 2008, Capsim Management Simulations, Inc.) The company had fallen on hard times. Both owners had physical problems, sales were barely existant, and unbeknownst to the owners, the bookkeeper had stolen a large amount of money from the business. Knowing Mr. Mitchell's history of saving companies, they asked for his help. He discovered the theft, then built the company into the largest supplier of business simulations to schools, in the world.
In 1996, Mitchell wrote the book, THE ULTIMATE AMERICA, which he later republished under the title, FREE MONEY, PLAN FOR PROSPERITY. The books were based on three facts:
1. A growing economy requires a growing supply of money.
2. All money is a form of debt.
3. The Federal Government has the unlimited ability to create money.
These three fundamental truths, and subsequent research, led to Mr. Mitchell's assertion that federal taxes could and should be eliminated. Further discussion can be found on Mr. Mitchell's web site, www.rodgermitchell.com [1]
"Writing FREE MONEY and subsequent articles, reminds me of what I learned when rescuing companies. Don't believe the common knowledge. In every company I saved, the then owner believed his profits depended on creating as many businesses as possible. The law book company not only sold used law books by phone and mail, but also had a retail store that sold trinkets to attorneys. My first act was to close the store.
"The software company created custom simulations for corporations, and it sold a stock simulation to corporations and to schools. In neither custom nor stock simulations and in neither corporate nor school simulations was it the leader. I told them it's better to focus on being a big fish in a small pond. So we focused on selling stock software to U.S. schools. We soon became the the world's largest "fish" in our profitable pond. I'm 73 (2008) and I wonder whether that philosophy will continue now that this year, I've retired."