Well, like I have said before and I'll say it again. It certainly doesn't take an expert to know that this is the wrong time of the year to expect the consumer to be confident about anything. Well then why do the economic experts find it surprising? Simple, they make the big bucks, their friends make big bucks and since they wine and dine at the big bucks establishments, they only see what is in front of them.
As you can see by my previous blogs, I have known and predicted it for a long time. How can so called economic experts even assert such a thing? Easy, they have all lived the good life for so long that they lost touch with what is real. To them the consumer is themselves and their friends who make those big bucks. But for those of us who have driven the economy for so long and are now unemployed, we know the truth. We will not let some moron heckle us into spending that which we no longer have.
No longer will we all be coddled into believing that everything is all right in our world when in fact, it has gone to hell. These so called economic experts that make their friends believe, can go on and do so. But I have now taken pride in my fellow man and my confidence has risen above expectations I had years ago. That's right, I am sorry, but for years I did not believe that many could even measure up to the bottom of my bootstraps. I watched as friends who earned less than I did, go out and buy a house and new cars on credit while I paid cash for everything and bought used items and fixed them up like new, while spending a fraction of what they had spent.
Today my debt is barely over a thousand bucks while my friends learned the hard way. They lost everything they had or they now work menial jobs 18 hours a day 7 days a week in order to just keep their homes. They drive clunkers that they cannot afford to fix or they hitchhike to work. That is not and never has been the life for me. I may not live in a nice big home but what I have is mine, free and clear!
Now I'm not saying ALL my friends have it hard. There are quite a few who were smart enough to save from the times they worked while still in school. They were frugal with what they bought over the years. They did not have to keep up with the Jones of this world. And in today’s tough economic times, they are able to ride out the storm that the rich and those less frugal have created.
I know it is not the nicest thing of me to say, but for those that think their money can bring us back from the brink we are on ie, economic experts, corporate heads etc, I hope and pray they lose it all. That's right! I said it and mean it with all my heart. They will be the ones that will lose the most. As for the rest of us who have said, NO MORE, we will ride out the wave that has sunk the rest of you, or will sink you eventually. Those very institutions that our government bailed out may well sink also, because they believe or try to make the rest of us believe that all is right once again and they go on as they had before.
I have seen the nonchalant attitude of companies and that is what drives them down. I would challenge any company to hire me to get rid of their wastefulness in how they do business. I would defy them to keep me employed as such when their friend who worked in their company was fired by me because they don’t know their *ss from a hole in the ground. I would sooner keep 50 people making 75k per year, employed in the company, because they have the intelligence and knowledge of their job, than 15 idiots making 125k per year who would rather get rid of those 50 people in order to save their own jobs.
Cost savings come in many different forms. Just because a group of people making some good money that can be saved if you got rid of them, does not mean that you saved the company money. I hired people who had very little education beyond high school, over people with a degree under their belts, and my bosses were quite impressed with their abilities. Why did I hire them? Well they answered my interview questions correctly and logically, where those with a degree just seemed to expect the job because of their education. As I have said before, anyone can follow a book through school but not everyone has common sense for what they were trained to do, plus the ones with a degree gave me some pretty stupid, illogical answers to my questions.
Not that I would ever be hired as a CEO of a company, but if I was, I would come down off my perch regularly to talk to those that make the products of the company. I would ask each of them, who they felt was weak in command above them and why. I would then challenge the person or persons who lead, to explain why they do the things that make employees think they are weak. I would give that person only one chance to change or to get out. I would not care if it was my best friend, because to me, the only reason I would be at the top, is for the common sense of those at the bottom.
I was once put in charge of some people who ran a very large piece of equipment on the manufacturing floor. The machine processed camouflage material that was used by our military. No one else wanted to be in charge of this machine and my boss made it very clear to me that I was the only one for the job because of that reason. I was called the “Head Lead Man” of the machine although there was one “Lead Man” for each shift and we ran 3 shifts. To the dismay of my superiors, my shift ran the most material with the least amount of defects and problems. They changed my shifts to see if things would change. They did not. They switched my workers and gave me the ones from the other shifts, expecting things to change. They still did not! They called me in the office and asked me how I could do it with all those changes and still run 5000 yards of material more than each of the other 2 shifts. I simply told them that I treated those under me as my equal. I would not ask them to do something that I, myself would not do. I gave them respect. But I demanded them to perform as well. There were certain jobs that each of us had to do and I did not offload what I was responsible for.
Even when my immediate supervisor decided to take on the role of first shift “Lead Man” for a week, the best he could do was still 3000 yards less than we had ran. When they talked to each of the machine workers, they told my supervisors just what I had told them. They all respected me and put their all into what we were doing because I treated them fairly and with respect.
So I again will say to any company, if you want me, you can hire me, but if you want to keep me and your manufacturing units running at tip top, grow a set of balls and give me the ability to get rid of the dead weight and reward those who deserve it. I certainly will not think I am king, but neither will those who currently think they are.
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