1. The tribal wisdom of the Dakota Indians, passed from generation to generation, says that when you discover you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount.

2. In modern education and government, however, a whole range of far more advanced strategies are often employed, such as:

3. Buying a stronger whip…

4. Changing riders…

5. Threatening the horse with termination…

6. Appointing a committee to study the horse …

7. Arranging to visit other countries to see how others ride dead horses…

8. Lowering the standards so that dead horses can be included …

9. Re-classifying the dead horse as ‘living impaired’ …

10. Hiring outside contractors to ride the dead horse …

11. Harnessing several dead horses together to increase the speed …

12. Providing additional funding and / or training to increase the dead horse’s performance ….

13. Doing a productivity study to see if lighter riders would improve the dead horse’s performance …

14. Declaring that as the dead horse does not need to be fed, it is less costly, carries lower over-head, and therefore contributes substantially more to the bottom line economy, than do some of the other horses.

15. Re-writing the expected performance requirements of all horses ….

16. Promoting the dead horse to a supervisory position …

17. And finally, when all else fails and only when all other avenues have been exhausted…

18. Buy a new bridle, saddle and blanket. It might still be dead, But now it’s more attractive to the potential investors.