Ralph Bahna

Ralph Bahna is currently Chairman and Founder of Club Quarters, a new international chain of private hotels in city centers, and he is Chairman of priceline.com, the "name your own price" travel booking engine. His working life has been spent launching major new concepts within the travel industry based on customer-driven, innovative new services. At age 30, he became President, USA, of the fabled Cunard Line and was Chief Executive Officer, Worldwide, at age 34. During his leadership, Cunard was one of the few great shipping companies that survived and became a modern-day cruise operator. Among his accomplishments was the success of the company's flagship Queen Elizabeth 2, and its supersonic Concorde combination. In his 20's, he was credited with helping turn around Trans World Airlines in early 1970's through his creation and launching of the carrier's Ambassador Service and Ambassador Express programs. Ralph was named "The Cruise Industry Leader of the Decade" by Travel Trade Magazine in 1990 and first Chairman of an unified international cruise line organization, Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA). Club Quarters is a new hotel concept where occupancy is limited to member organizations who use big city centers and are looking for well located, full service business hotels at affordable prices. By being private, Club Quarters can provide better security, can focus its services on business travelers and can offer much lower member room rates.

The fact that most smart people especially Americans don't like to think (prefer to transact) let alone change paradigms.

The US is running out of money, running out of time to re-invest in itself. It has been in economic decline for some time which could ultimately cause military decline and the world should suffer from that. The US has an overpaid work force, particularly at the top. it has chosen, particularly recently, to unilaterally solve it's view of the world's problems and pay for same by borrowing from those it slights. It funds its superior lief-style by borrowing from those who toil harder for much less but who want more, more than we do.