The American Dream is Gone!

Consumer confidence down, Oh my!

2009-09-29T13:39:00.000-07:00

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.

Stocks on the slide again!

2009-09-24T19:31:00.000-07:00

Today was an eye opening day. Not so much for me, but for many economic experts who had saw a rosy picture. Hopefully some of our leaders had a little eye opening as well. Maybe they will not be so comfortable with what they have done in the past that has brought us to this point. Let there be no doubt that things will get worse, it is inevitable. Nearly every average person in this world knows what the next year or so will be, but it seems that our leaders are clueless,…or, they are doing what governments have always done. That is putting out misinformation. Painting a rosy picture that does not depict the landscape before us.

I have spent the week dealing with problems that have cropped up in my home quite unexpected. Of course they will need to be fixed. However, had I been a little more vigilant and checked on everything regularly, I might not have had the problem. The same goes for our politicians. The signs were there but unlike me they choose to ignore them or to believe that what was in plain site was not really a problem.

I believe it to be for another reason altogether. GREED! For a small business man doing much the same things, he would at worse lose what he had as well as putting a few people out of work. But for people who run a country and for those running a huge corporation the results are those of which we see currently. What is most disturbing is that many of these same people will say that they cannot be blamed for the current crises. Whether or not they could collectively be blamed for our current crises will be for history to determine.

What has been done is mostly to ignore what needs to be done. Our politicians have chosen to throw money on a fire instead of water. There are those in business that are still saying more government money should be tossed in their fire pit. As a non-expert in the economic field I think I have hit the nail on the head with a few of my blogs. I have even seen ads placed on my blog only to be removed a day or two later. Of course I am saying things that no company or politician would want people to know or believe.

I should be telling everybody “I told you so”! Instead I find myself saddened by the fact that we truly have idiots in charge of not only our country but also many major corporations headquartered here in the states. It is no wonder the rest of the world hates us. Those people truly believe that is how we all are, that we do not care about anything but the money in our pockets. To an extent, they are correct. It is the average American who has voted for these people. It is the average American who has ALWAYS said that “Why should I make waves, it will only make my life harder”! Well where are we now. I saw a comment on an economic story that stated “It is those of us with money who make the economy run and we should not have to pay more taxes. Make those on unemployment take any job so they can pay their fair share”!

Seems to me we have paid our fair share. Just read some of my previous blogs and you can see what the average American has paid, is more than his fair share. How can a consumer driven economy survive with no jobs? I have been doing some research on how much money each which political party gets to campaign for their position. Most of this money comes from the very companies that have kept wages low and/or have already laid off much of their American workforce.

I have been delayed in making a few videos, but I will soon be posting at youtube. We need to stand together and speak up for our rights. We need to dump some dead weight in Washington and get legislation passed that protects the workers and consumers of this country. I truly believe that the average American is downright pissed off enough to start making a change. No more tax loopholes for corporations and financial institution. No company etc should be so big as to bring down the economy. Trust me when I say that if they do fail, we may see some short tough times, but that one company provided services, products etc that are still needed and there will be a dozen smaller companies, fully prepared to fill the void without needing to take our tax dollars to fix things.

Time to get rid of the current politicians!

2009-09-17T10:22:00.000-07:00

Now I have to say that I am truly P*SSED off at the rich. They are crying, wah, wah, wah,! Too freakin bad. Warren Buffet is now calling for more stimulus money. The rich are touting that it is them that keep this economy running with their investments etc. BS, BS, BS, All of it. This country is failing simply from all the lost jobs that have been sent to China. The Good Ole Boys Club of Washington know this. The working man has kept this country running for as long as I can remember. If the rich are truly the ones who have kept this country running, then why isn’t it working? As for Warren Buffet? Why don’t you toss your money where your mouth is! You F-ing rich people make me sick with your crying. You want more government money tossed out there but whose money is it to begin with? That money is from every citizen in this country, but you have all wasted it. We owe the money no matter what. A debt that will be owed by our children and their children.

The rich stop paying into social security after they make the first $106,000.00 in the year. The rest of us keep paying for something we may never have. Stop wasting our money. NO MORE MONEY going to any bank or big business just so they can toss out more bonuses for idiots who don’t even deserve enough money to wipe their *sses. Let GM and the others fail. Let the engineers and other workers from those companies start the Smith & Jones Motor Company. That type of company would prosper and it will be a truly American company. It will be capitalism at its finest because that is how capitalism works. If a company cannot keep itself running with its own savvy then another will start up and take its place, plain and simple, a fact of capitalism.

Money is just being tossed into a bottomless hole with no plan to correct why the hole was there to begin with. If a company is so big that it will bring down the economy if it fails, then it should have been split up long ago. The divisions of GM should have been separate companies as should the divisions of all the other auto makers. In that way, if Oldsmobile failed it would not affect Chevy, or Pontiac etc, etc. Job losses would be at a minimum and life would go on. The same goes for banks! Perhaps there should only be state banks. Each state in this country would have the big banks and then you could have your community banks that could be run privately. Interest rates would stay steady, the states would have some money from them for their own budgets and of course big brother would get a piece of that pie as well.

Now I am calling on the American people to take charge of our country! Vote out every one of the people currently in office and vote people into office who really care about this country and how it is run. For those that want change, you don’t need to have millions to campaign since we have Youtube. A person can state their issues their and the people can view these statements throughout the year and vote on those videos. In the months before an election you would have, let’s say, the top ten of those people for a particular office be put on the ballet. Then the people would vote for who would serve their interests the best. It would change the face of politics forever and it would satisfy the people. No more politicians whose only interests are the huge multinational companies that they have interests in!

We are only going to keep falling. The rich cannot sustain this country or any other country by themselves which is obvious by the hole we are in now.

WAKE UP AMERICA!

Time for Shareholders to Unite!!

2009-09-16T12:47:00.000-07:00

Having a taste of how the votes go at the shareholders meetings, I believe that there is a way to protect ALL the smaller shareholders. The last company I worked for gave me insight to the corruption at the top that denies the smaller shareholder, their fair share. This company had a pension plan that was based in company stock. Every year when the shareholders would vote their minds at these meetings, those of us with the pension plan would receive a little package in the mail along with a "proxy card". We would be asked to sign it and return this card to the company. For those who do not know, this card, when signed, would essentially give the CEO the power of our shares from the pension plan. Kinda BS if you ask me.

I believe that some of the smaller shareholders of large companies should get yourselves a website and set it up for all the shareholders to access. One of the features should be a form that will allow each of these shareholders to fill out and give someone in the group the ability to be the proxy for all the small people who own stock. I am sure that you will find that you can do many things including getting rid of your current board of directors and replacing them with people who have concern for not only the company but for the shareholders as well. In this way you could also CUT the bonuses that are so liberally given to CEOs as well as other "underperforming" people. You would soon see a much larger dividend coming back to you as well as a prosperous company.

For me it does not matter at the moment because I only own stock in my 401k which does not give me voting rights! But for those who can vote but do not, this way of pooling your votes would send a strong message. I saw a very similar message sent to the owner of a company I worked for. Since the company was privately traded, the owner thought he still owned the company and could still do what he felt he wanted to do. Well, those who invested in this private company finally got fed up with his God attitude. They pooled their votes together and essentially tossed the founder of this company out on his butt.

I am sure he raised all kinds of hell because what I heard was that he was forbidden from involvement in any part of his own company. Decisions have been made by those that tossed him out. Unfortunately it may have been too late. The company continues to downsize here in the states and without adding to their China and Mexico facilities. In this instance they simply allowed the owner to make bad decisions for far too long and the company may never recover.

This is just a little advice from someone who has seen the bad in companies and believes that the extra monies should go to the stockholders in divendends and not underperforming CEOs and Board of directors. Don't wait until you no longer see dividends since that will be the end and the only ones who won't lose, will be those at the top.

Economic Recovery is not here, YET.

2009-09-15T17:50:00.000-07:00

I am writing as I watch the evening news with Charlie Gibson. This is after I spent the last couple hours reading the news from various economists and the average person who has felt this recession the most, and of course, my own experiences from this economic mess. I have now gone beyond my worst. For me, this is the longest I have been without a job since I have been 12 years old. I am 48 1/2. All those years of working have taught me one thing. Listen to your gut feelings.

I am hearing everyone say that we are now in a recovery and we will see it better by the end of the year. Apparently none of these people are looking at EVERYTHING. While it is true that spending has gone up in the last month, which is mostly due to the “Cash for Clunkers Program”. The experts are saying it is also up from the purchase of electronics, namely appliances. Correct me if I am wrong but did they not start the same “cash for” program with appliances also?

And even though I am unemployed, I go to the stores and purchase the food we need as well as other necessities. What I see in the checkout line is not exactly good news. Why? Well for one these people are picking through their wallets for a credit card that has enough left on it for this particular purchase. If they were using cash or even a debit card, then I would feel a little better. Just because something is being purchased, does not mean things are good. How long will they be able to use those cards before they must pay it back? How many payments will be made on those new cars? Will their jobs still be there in January?

I will give you all 36 years of experience and perhaps a bit more wisdom than is being shown by those that are telling you we are recovering. Many companies typically cut back at this time of year because winter is a bit slower. Many companies are at the end of their fiscal year and need to do inventory and other housecleaning in order to plan for the next year. This planning includes what kind of money they will be allotting for major expenditures which would also include hiring for the coming year. Now with that said, all of this means that there will be more layoffs. Even in good times, this is the time of year that companies will trim their workforce.

Keeping all of this in mind, and don’t forget the use of credit for current purchases, do you think that there will be increased spending? I don’t think so. Even with the “Great Deal” sales going on at stores during the year, most people are still buying it on time. I am sorry, but even if you offered me a 250k home for 50k, I would have to painfully turn it down, simply because I would not take the chance at a dream, only to lose it because I could not pay for it.

Black Friday may only be here the day after Thanksgiving symbolically, but it may still be a day of red for many. I am telling you this for one reason, and that is so you may save yourself, your family, and what little you may have. Last year I had a Christmas tree with no presents underneath it. This year I will not spend 30 bucks on a tree. That money will be used to feed my family. I will instead use our decorations on the couple of live pine trees in front of my house. Christmas Eve I will stand out there gazing at those trees and wonder where all the common sense in this world went to. I already know the answer to that. It was swallowed up by the greed of this world. People were blinded by what they thought was the American Dream. A dream, that turned into a nightmare, for too many of these people.

I will have hope that when many will lose all they have because they are listening to these “experts” now, that they will not lose their sanity as well. If you will be one of those to blindly follow the blind, know that you will be in my heart. Perhaps next year at this time we will truly feel a recovery and I hope many jobs will have come back. But it may not even happen then if everyone continues to “spend” their credit and follow those with more than enough money to burn. Trust me, you will not lose out on anything by playing it safe. Some of the banks and companies that rely on you to keep spending may fail, but there will be someone behind them to bring a little more common sense to the industry. Our government will not and cannot keep pitching money into bottomless pits. So bottom line is, let these companies and banks fail because they do not deserve your money and do not have the common sense to protect future business by protecting YOU, now. Their future in ensured but your future is not. Protect yourself NOW, and do not follow the hype!

But don’t sit on your butt either, push your Senators and Congressmen and women to work on change NOW, or be gone at the next election. Vote for someone who will change what has become to be known as “The Good Ole Boy Club”. No politician should have so much of a connection with any company or bank that would prevent them voting for the interests of the people. Stop these politicians from spending weeks on something that will never create change. They are there for us not themselves, PERIOD!!!

Stop Multimillion Dollar Compensations!

2009-09-13T10:17:00.000-07:00

It would seem that our economic situation has brought me to a point of enlightenment as to why corporations pay their officers bonuses to the tune of millions of dollars. After perusing the massive amount of information at the IRS.gov site, I have found numerous reasons. However for myself to understand all of it, would most likely take me months to read and then to simplify in my writings. What little bit I have read most likely makes it just as hard for an IRS auditor to do his job properly. The IRS has numerous publications on what the auditor will need to look for and depending on the size of the corporation, impossible to do an audit on their own.

Instead there should be “some” simplification of tax laws which would allow the auditor to better deal with their audit.

1. The multimillion dollar bonuses received by the top executives should not be used as a deduction by corporations as this not only reduces the stock dividends, it also reduces the corporations tax liability since corporate income tax is at a higher rate than employee income tax. Most multimillion dollar bonuses are only paid to those who own major stock or have some other major interest in the corporation and by paying smaller stock dividends they put even more money in their pockets. The losers here are the smaller stockholders as well as the government which in turn is the taxpayers.

2. This is something I knew years ago but had forgotten. Everybody pays social security tax. But once your income exceeds a set amount you no longer pay that tax. Currently this amount is approximately $106,000.00. Most hardworking Americans do not make $106,000.00 annually and will most likely be the main beneficiaries of this program. Since this program was started to help out those who had aged and could not afford to help themselves, why not continue to collect this tax beyond the $106,000.00 earned. After all, those who currently earn more than this amount should most certainly be able to provide for their own retirement. If an argument would be presented that those making more than $106,000.00 per year would not benefit, there too could be the argument that those making less than that amount, may never benefit at all. I may never see social security when I will need it most. Certainly those who will come behind me will never see it at all, but we will still have to pay this tax!

Tax loopholes are there because they were created and not because someone forgot to word something correctly, or because something was not thought of when these complex laws were enacted. For our supposedly educated lawmakers to claim that they did not realize there were loopholes would simply mean they are lying, or uneducated idiots. A simplified tax law could be as simple as;

If you make $0-$10,000 your tax would be X% and if you make $10,001-$20,000 your tax would be X% and so on and so on. If you are a corporation based in the US and make X dollars-X dollars you would pay X% on profits before bonuses. Simple and effective and absolutely no way anyone could find a loophole. Of course to protect the investors you could also enact a law that the investors would be paid their dividends before bonuses also. If all that would cause a little problem about what profits really are, then you could define profits as any money that is leftover after they paid out for overhead, factory upgrades, non executive income and reasonable executive compensation, not bonuses. Of course then you would need to define “reasonable executive compensation” which should not require that much sense. I do realize it is not that simple, but then it doesn’t need to be so complex either!

In all, my suggestions could not be any more ridiculous than the current system in place that ensures the poor stay poor and the rich just get richer.

in Memory of 9/11

2009-09-11T08:12:00.000-07:00

It has been 8 years. Today as every year at this time, on this day, we shed our tears for those lost on that tragic day. For many those tears do not stop and never will. These people wake up every day and are reminded of why they no longer have their husbands or wives next to them or their child to call them and tell them how much they appreciate all that their parents had done for them. They will forever be reminded of their loss until the day they go to join them eternally.

As many have, I remember that day well, when my wife called to tell me about that first plane. I went through the building to let everyone know what had happened. Those of us that had computers went to the live feeds and watched in horror as the next plane hit the second tower, while those on the manufacturing floor were listening to their radios. Worked had stopped that day at around 9:00 in the morning. We felt our hearts drop for not only those whose lives were lost, but for the loss of security we had all enjoyed for so many generations.

On this day I will not go into the political side of why it happened, or who failed, or who was the cause. Today is for remembering the senseless loss of human life and to remember that no one is truly safe, no matter where they are living and working. It is the responsibility of everyone to never forget that day. Many have forgotten similar scenes that were flashed across the television screens during the Saturday morning cartoons, back in the sixties and early seventies. Vietnam was the horror we grew up with back then. I remember playing at a friend’s house with walkie-talkies and actually hearing, faintly, the radio signals that reached us from half a world away. We could hear the call for airstrikes and the sound of battle and we were shocked at how these radio waves reached these little kids toys that brought us into a very grownup world. A world that we would all say, we would change.

But we have forgotten those promises we made to each other back then.

Let us never forget any of these tragedies, or the lives lost. Let us remember that no matter how angry we may get at someone else’s words or how they chose to live, that it is not worth taking a life over. EVER! We still must protect the innocent, and unfortunately bad things will happen. I do not condone war and never will! I will always believe that if a country wants to push their own beliefs beyond the borders of their own country and to affect the lives of people who want nothing to do with that thinking, then there should be no question of what will need to be done, no matter what country it is!

Remembering is something we all forget to do at times. Remembering the importance of life is everyone’s responsibility EVERY DAY, not only today, but everyday of our lives.

So remember not only the loss of all those lives, but the reasons it has happened and the changes we ALL must make in this world to ensure that it never happens again, anywhere.

May they all rest in peace, and REMEMBER!

A new view of companies investing overseas!

2009-09-09T11:09:00.000-07:00

Ah-hah, I say. After hearing so much about what this country should do to help bring jobs back to America, I decide to do some research in starting a company in China. Very eye opening it was. Although it would take a book to explain how China allows foreign firms to invest there, I will try to simplify it a little bit here after I first go over what Pro- corporation firms and individuals are proposing.

These people want to reduce the corporate tax rate to 27% from the current 35% without getting rid of current tax breaks and incentives or loopholes for the companies that have moved much of their production to China and elsewhere.

I would like to know exactly what these corporations pay since some of these same people allude to the fact that these corporations DON’T really pay as much as 35% of the corporate income tax. Could this be that because of the multimillion dollar bonuses, it greatly reduces the corporate income? I would bet it does!! Since these individuals must pay taxes on their bonuses I would be willing to bet that those bonuses are listed under what they pay out in employee income and of course would be removed from what these corporations claim as profit. In other words I see the only reasons for moving overseas is the cost of wages here in the states as well as being able to hide actual profits there, from here (in the states).

Okay, now let’s talk about doing business in China (since that is where most of our jobs went).

Many corporations that have moved operations to China have gotten many tax breaks and incentives for moving there but overall will see those incentives and breaks disappear in the coming years. Back in 1979 the corporate income tax was 35% and for all but the largest of companies, they were forced to keep ALL profits in China. Hmmmmm, interesting isn’t it?

But recently China reduced it to 25% effective January 2008 and have tried to make things a little more fair for China’s domestic companies to compete. Does not sound bad at first, however! The next sentence was copied from chinaorbit.com which has some eye opening information on doing business there.

“FIEs (Foreign Invested Enterprises) have been able to take advantage of an extensive range of incentives based on the industry sector of their business, or their geographical location, provided they have agreed to a statement of commitment to operate in China.”

A statement of commitment would mean that if they pulled their operations out of China before an agreed time period, they would lose everything they have invested there, EVERYTHING! It currently looks as though whatever agreements were made for any time period previous to January 2008, would have restarted at this time. These agreements are anywhere from 3 to 7 years depending on the industry and the following is from the same China site;

“Some of the new tax incentives are detailed below:

• Sectors where there is investment in agriculture, forestry, fisheries and infrastructure

• Sectors where investment is in venture and environmental protection

• Start-up high technology industries will be given preferential treatment if they are supported by the State and located in so-called Special Economic Zones (SEZs) or the Pudong district of Shanghai.

• ‘Super’ reductions given to firms producing original research and development, and new technologies.

• Direct tax reduction has been replaced with a preferential system for labour and welfare services, and others which make efficient use of resources.”

Take note of the sentences in bold. The “SUPER” reductions are part of the reasons we are also losing our engineering jobs here in the states. Our own engineers are helping this along by going to China and doing Engineering work there. Any new technologies our engineers develop there, are actually the property of the Chinese Government. How about that!!! But don’t say that I am wrong and that this technology belongs to the United States. It only belongs to the United States, if it is developed here. This I know to be FACT!

So now I would like to redirect my argument for bringing those jobs back here to the states. I think that we should allow those companies to wallow in whatever they have decided to create elsewhere. Take away those tax breaks and incentives and close the tax loopholes for them including knocking out the bonuses as being included in the company’s expenses AND taxing bonuses at a higher rate that exceed $100,000. For one you will see multimillion dollar bonuses simply disappear. And you may see the $1.00 a year CEO pay go on up to a more realistic value so that it covers what was lost in bonuses.

After all that, the United States will have more than enough money to invest in new companies here, after all they have dumped OUR money into the cesspools they call, banking, GM, and others that I just learned, much of those dollars will never come back to the people that paid their taxes for it. Our country’s engineers should pool their talents together and create new and better companies, right here. It will bring us back to the respect we once had in the business world. And for the other countries that saw the same departure of jobs, you should do the same thing.

Sure it will change the face of the world as we know it today. The big names of business will be swallowed up by the countries they have turned to and new names will emerge to take their place.

I do not believe that it will send those countries into ruin because of it, on the contrary, I believe that there would be more equalization between everyone and certainly it would be so much harder multinational corporations to rise up and reclaim their multimillion dollar bonuses they so generously give to people who could never make it on their own!

I hit The Lottery for Millions!

2009-09-07T15:34:00.000-07:00

Or at least that is what many of us wish for. After all, If I did win the lottery I would be more inclined to concern myself with, well, MYSELF! In my blogs I try to bring a little attention to what I thought concerned many of us who are out of jobs. Maybe I didn't post my blogs correctly or used the right labels so that it would come up in a search.
   Maybe you would find it interesting, as I did, that when I went to an old computer that had nothing on it to identify myself and did a search, I found almost nothing about me. Well almost nothing. In fact I found a couple of things I posted when I was in engineering, and those were from almost 9 years ago. I find it hard to understand that an obscure post from years ago would still be floating around but nothing about my current blog or youtube accounts.
   Now if I were of a highly suspicious mind I would point out that my blogs and Youtube posts are angrily pointed at the news media, politicians, "So called" experts in stocks the economy etc, and of course large corporations! May I be a conspiracy theorist for a moment? I have posted what many people say are correct.
   By many I mean close to 1000 people who ALL have the same consensus about what I am writing about, or I would not have bothered writing at all. So to go with a conspiracy theory I would feel better about the world around me as far as real people go. But perhaps the "real" people do only want to worry about healthcare for now, until they need to pay for it that is.
   But putting a conspiracy theory into another realm, perhaps I have been on the wrong blog. Maybe I should now set my mind and unemployed body to joining every possible blog there is as well as joining every social site and posting newsletters to every bulletin board at every store I visit!! Then surely at least a few thousand would see it.
    So, if you are the only person who reads this and knows how I can reach more people with my posts, let me know. Tell me how I can better improve my readership or just tell me I suck or that I'm just whisteling in the wind, but let me know what I'm doing right or wrong!
   I have been concerned for my fellow citizens and how the American dream has turned into a horrific nightmare that has been propagated by GREED, plain and simple.

Let me know!

Healthcare or Jobs!

2009-09-07T09:18:00.000-07:00

I am finding the issue of healthcare more boring than ever before. I have discussed this issue with many different people and gotten only a few different answers. The burning question that our revered politicians fail to answer is "How will it be paid for?".

The biggest problem for YEARS has been our jobs heading out of this country and with those jobs go the taxes that many people pay during their employment. Healthcare reform seems to be hinged on what can be done for those that have no jobs or those working for companies that offer no health insurance. In the long run, who will pay for it? The answer is simple, if you work, you will be paying for it! The government already skims from social security and anywhere else they can get large amounts of money that can be "borrowed" from. Well we all have already given money to social security that many of us will never see.

Is there another rabbit in the hat that we are unaware of? Perhaps the push on healthcare is to try to blind us from the fact that the politicians do not want to remove the tax incentives multinational corporations have received for creating companies abroad. After all many if not all politicians are financially connected in some way, to many of these companies.

It seems the louder I yell about jobs, the louder politicians bring up the issue of healthcare. I recently received an email inviting me as well as others, to watch a video about healthcare reform. We were also asked to respond with a video of our own about our need for healthcare reform. YES IT IS NEEDED BUT SO ARE JOBS!!

At this point my response goes something like this... Give me all the data on multinational corporations that are headquartered in the United States. I want to know;

1. What is the percentage of manufacturing facilities in the United States vs. foreign countries?

2. How much money (or tax breaks) is the United Sates giving to those companies that have more than 50% of manufacturing outside the U.S.?

3. How much of those foreign made products come back to the U.S. for sale that escape normal tax and tariffs that are imposed on foreign based manufacturers?

4. How much do these companies put into healthcare in the U.S.?

5. How much profits are these companies making BEFORE the bonuses are paid? After all bonuses cannot be paid unless the company is profitable and it is from these profits that the bonuses will be paid!

6. How much money will come from these companies for healthcare reform vs. the government (us in other words)?

Somehow I do not believe that I would get 75% of the above questions answered, if any at all!

Of course I would also expect that no response would be made of this blog which will be posted here, on my Facebook page, and sent in the form of a letter to the Whitehouse. People want healthcare and for most, as long as they can get it for free, they will be happy even if it does come from our taxes.

Work on healthcare reform but do it alongside "job reform" as well.

What about the jobs?

2009-08-31T12:15:00.000-07:00

As I was reading the day’s news, I found that what I have been saying is a bit more accurate than some would admit. The stocks took another slide, once again. Those of you with enough disposable income will or have already found, that is exactly what it is, disposable! You should take it and flush it down the toilet or better yet, use it to help some of those less fortunate. In this way you may see a quicker return of your investment.

I may not be an economic "expert" but I do believe I am in a better position to see what is happening.

I am one of the laid off "working class" and most of the people who have had salaries of $50,000 or less a year and even some that make a little bit more, are not spending. I literally laughed at those that thought Disney buying Marvel comics would help bring the stocks up a bit. REALLY? I mean it is just an entertainment company. What do the two produce that people really want? Nobody wants to spend on frivolous entertainment except those with a bunch of money! It is not creating more jobs, to the contrary, more people may now lose some jobs in both companies! It also shows that big money will just be making more money. It won't lower the cost of movies or comic books, period!

This did not produce lower fuel or food prices nor did it help in any way with healthcare and as I just stated, it will not produce jobs!

But some "experts" still see economic recovery around the corner. Too bad you can't hear me laughing!

I am now going to hit on something that will even make some of the working class gasp. Unions! I am sorry but for the most part, unions have outlived themselves. Sure they are good for some areas and people such as electricians, carpenters, and steel workers, if there are any left. Federal and state laws have been in effect for many years that can protect you in many of the ways a union says they protect you. The only difference is that the worker needs to negotiate his salary, not someone else. A worker pays a good amount of money to join and to stay in a union job and without a doubt they do bring higher wages to a certain amount of people. But let me tell you, some of the reasons are for the unions own pocket.

My father was a union man most of his adult life, right into retirement! And at one time the unions would force a company to add a label to the goods produced that stated "Made with Pride in the USA". And the products WERE quality. But that quality went out the window long before the jobs went to China and elsewhere.

An example; > My first job in engineering was at a sheet metal manufacturer back in the early 90's. The office workers were not union but the shop was. It was a smaller company but they paid a premium for those that had been in the union for quite some time. I got the chance to not only observe how these people worked, but also the quality of not only the final product, but also the attitude of the union workers. The quality was sub-par of both. The attitude was "I am union, you cannot fire me". Many of these workers made over $20.00 an hour and would move about their jobs that would make a tortoise seem like he was high energy. Any non-union employee would have been fired or at best laid off for doing the same type of work. Result? Those union workers basically forced the company to charge a higher price for a product that was CRAP! No customer wants to buy crap, so eventually the company went out of business!

I also worked as a union employee and found corruption was the name of the game. One textile company I had worked for had such a union. The company wanted to change the new 3 year contract after we were in it for only a few months. They wanted to shorten the contract to yearly as well as changing the workday to 12 hours without having to pay overtime and other cuts. We were only making around $7.50 an hour when the average union job was around $10.00 - $14.00 an hour for the same type of work. Our own shop steward endorsed this change and the union reps told some of my fellow employees that since we elected them as our bargaining agent, they would agree to the change without a vote. Unfortunately for them, I was not going to allow them to treat my fellow employees that way. I told them that if they chose to go that route I would contact our major customer and inform them of what was taking place. Our customer was the Federal Government! Their contract with the company stated that any labor dispute that was questionable would put an immediate halt to all orders. I forced a vote but before it could be taken I was fired from my position for sleeping on my lunch break.?? The union reps tried to keep me from the meeting hall because of this and stated that our contract went by New York labor laws and I did not have the right to be there because I was fired. I pulled out federal labor law and stuffed it in their face and they had no choice but to let me in and speak my mind. The change was voted down. The principles sold out their ownership of the company and a new ownership seamlessly took over!

Now you may say how could I work both sides of the street (union vs. non-union)? Well the union was not out for the workers. They stood on the side of the company and they were flawed! Ok so now you tell me other unions have gotten higher wages for many more people! True. However those people were not worth the paper that the contract was written on. A dock worker for a trucking company known by an "employee given name" of Corn Flakes paid most of their long time workers well over $20.00 an hour and that employee could not unload a full size trailer in a shift because they spent most of the time BSing with others. Mean while another Union worker known as a "casual" was making less than $14.00 an hour and could unload the same trailer plus half another one in a shift. The casual had to sign an agreement that forced them to pay full union dues but without all the benefits and security the union gave to the fulltime workers and a wage that was frozen at around 13.75 an hour. the wage was fair but the rest was not.

That trucking company no longer exists, but the union does.

My point on the unions is this, except for those listed previously, the unions only helped to breed sub-par quality, laziness in the employees, and forced many companies to go where labor is cheaper! The higher prices we pay for goods can be partly blamed on many of these unions. And when these companies leave the US and go to a foreign country to manufacture their goods without union labor, the price of those goods do not and have not nor will they, come down. This puts even more money in the pockets of the greedy corporations. The only good I could see coming from companies moving to China and elsewhere, is that it is shrinking these unions. After all, if the unions tried the same thing in China and elsewhere, they would be gone forever because those countries would not allow it and the reps would just disappear one by one.

Once again, I say that the energy that is being put into healthcare reform, would be better spent on bringing the jobs back to this country, raising the minimum wage to one that would allow survival as well as a mandatory cost of living raise and getting rid of many unions or at least stop them from getting super high wages for people who are not keeping up with their non-union counterparts. Granted that it is not as easy as it seems I am saying, but more jobs means more money in the economy and possibly more people being able to afford healthcare. And in the meantime focus on getting the price of healthcare down.

At the moment, if Healthcare reform were to be implemented without bringing more jobs, then our country will be nothing more than a welfare state.

False and misleading stories.

2009-08-26T11:28:00.000-07:00

I would like to start off by laughing at the stock market and those that invest in it. I would like to say that I feel sorry for those people currently investing, but I won't. Why? Well I do not believe that the hard working people in this country are the ones investing. It seems that it is those that still have disposable income to work with. Part of the reason I see the market going up and down.

The real people are not investing anymore. No one wants to invest in something they will lose at.

This is how I see it going; Those with tons of money and interest in certain stocks may be investing in their favorite stock or in a company they own. Naturally this brings up the price. But there is no interest in owning that stock by the working class people. They want to hold on to what little they have. Naturally one person or even a few cannot sustain purchasing many stocks and the price continues to fall. For the most part people have proved that they cannot be fooled again. Not by the brokers, not by the media, and certainly not by the companies that desperately want and need that investment money.

I really LOVE the fact that people now view the media as if it were the "TRASH" news that is at the checkout lane at the supermarket! I have always known, since I was about 10 years old, that most people DID believe in the media and would go in the direction the media pointed them. However, the media always had a couple of bogus stories that could just be forgotten about, and life went on. In the last ten years though, the media has consistently shown that they jump the gun to be the first to get a story out and in the course of that haste there was little research and it goes to press as fact. The problem nowadays is that most people have already looked at information before it became news. They were already aware of the facts and when the media puts out their own version of what they think is fact, they lose what little confidence the people did have left in them.

You have seen it over the years. For example how many times have you heard that drug use is at a record low? MANY TIMES! And then you head out to the store and along the way you see people selling drugs on the street corner, kids heading off into the woods behind the mall after the parents drop them off, they certainly were not going to a movie!! The drugs being pulled out of your local schools, etc, etc! And then a week later you spot a little one paragraph story buried in the newspaper that states drug use is at an all time high? Hmmmm, who got it right? Ah yes it feels good to know that the majority of people no longer exhibit the "blindly following the lead" attitude of many years ago.

Those in power will try to steer the very people who put them there, in any direction they so choose. I will give a recent example of this, and it comes in the form of my 401K choices. Back in 1999 I could see the writing on the wall and decided to through a good chunk of my investments into International funds, after all that is where everything was going. I eventually changed jobs but was able to keep that 401K with that company. For whatever reasons the 401K provider was changed and one day as I looked at my statement and tried to understand why I lost $3000.00 in the quarter, I noticed that all my "elective" funds, were in domestic stocks. Naturally I called the provider demanding to know why my electives were changed. I was informed that since I did not return the form, that was never sent to me, they placed it all in domestic stocks of their choosing which was close to my original choices. When I pointed out that the ones they chose for me was almost identical to the domestic stock I chose originally minus the International Funds, I then received a letter a few days later that explained I could only invest a certain amount in the International funds and because my original percentage choice was higher than allowed, it all went to domestic. Real nice I thought.
Now I am not allowed to invest where I know I can make money and I was basically forced to take what they wanted me to have. Just another point about how the rich get richer and the poor will stay poor. I bet those with hundreds of thousands into their 401K were not forced to take losers.

We have always been misled and the people are not putting up with it anymore. You say you want proof of this? Okay. Pick any article that is online that is on any hot topic today, economics, jobs, housing, health etc.

Read the article and form your opinion. Now go all the way to the bottom of the page and read the comments posted by the people who have read them. If you were not an informed person about the subject, which way did your opinion go? Did it go in the direction of the author? Did it match the majority of opinions on the article? You may be surprised!! I blindly followed one article just the other day and I did disagree on how they came up with their figures. I then read the comments and found things I really did not look at. They made simple math mistakes which put them in an even harsher light to me. Essentially, my thoughts after I double checked figures were this... First was that it proved my point about the idiots in charge steering our direction, who in turn, hire more idiots to come up with data that is incorrect. My other thought was that it was such a basic math problem that any 2nd grader could have got it right, and now it seemed that numbers were just thrown out there to prove their point that does not exist.

Whatever happened to research? Research is the most valuable thing in this world, and the only thing more important, is knowing how to do that research. As an engineering person, my top talent is research. I have used it to not only produce a top quality product, but as a tool to keep informed of many new products and technologies in the industry. When I was presented with a problem during an engineering meeting, I usually had 4-5 ideas before the meeting was over.

I have been told that we will need to design a certain product to be used in an assembly of a final product. The explanation by the top engineer was that nothing exists for our application. I would later explain to the engineer that there is indeed a product on the market and would proceed to give him all the information he required to fit it in our design. Over the years I have adapted products from one technology into another technology and saved the company I worked for from a few bucks to thousands! I reported on research ACCURATELY, not slipshod and from the hip of what I think I know. I have learned more than a school could have ever taught me in a lifetime. All from thorough research. After all you can't tell a machine to work just because you THINK you got the right part.

Nowadays if you want to get your position across to the masses, be prepared to do your research thoroughly and present the data that is relevant, but your research may make you believe differently so be prepared! Perhaps that is the other side of it. These people did their research and found that they could NOT prove their point and decided to just throw it out there and in the process messed up the fake data they presented.

In any case I think the point I have made is that, the people today are more informed than ever and the combined brains of the masses are far superior to those people who THINK they are in charge and know better than everyone else! Now if we can just get the informed masses to speak out and get the idiots off the podium.

Recession or Depression?

2009-08-25T15:15:00.000-07:00

Okay, I have been hearing a lot of flap about our economy? One of the things I just read was the report from the Whitehouse and Congress about record deficits. This came out as I was writing my last blog and did not get it in there. However, I thought that I could not let it go. First I need to say that I am a republican. I was formerly a democrat. And I now realize that either party is just pure B.S.
Apparently the republicans are already poised to blame the president and to make it their platform at next years elections. ALSO, apparently these idiots do not realize that less than a year ago they were in power and basically for the previous 8 years. THEY spent like hell and most of it was not for the benefit of the American people. Just take a peek at the Whithouse.gov site. Look at the programs that our President wants to cut and his reasons for wanting to cut them. I was enraged by what was there to begin with. My first thought was "Do we really have stupid people in Congress?" I cannot fathom that even half of those programs were ever started let alone continued.
One example would be the engine program for the Joint Strike Fighter aircraft. The Department of Defense (DOD) started 2 programs to reduce technical risk, understandably. But in 2007, with one of the programs working well, the DOD did not see a need for a second program and asked for it to be closed and did not request money for it. However the Wizards in congress decided to keep the program and have allotted money to it since then... I will now call them the whizzers of congress, since it seems that is what they are doing with our money..
I am sorry but who in heck do they think they are? I thought the experts in that area of need, would be the DOD? But hey, congress has always thought they know better than anyone else. That is why they tell our military how to fight a war!! Damn, you mean West Point and others, do not know how to teach warfare? We should just disband the military and send congress over to the hotspots and all the other spots that they have no problem in sending mere boys to die! Let them fight the wars, since they know better than the military!!! They listen to their own so-called-experts that probably never held a gun or did anything beyond classroom work. But OH WAIT....Aren't those experts called...LOBBYISTS? That is how I see it anyway!!!

Quite frankly, as long as the same "Good Ole Boys" are in congress, then the phrase "We the People" only means the people in political positions! The rest of us are expendable....to a point! I don't really like the moniker of being a sheep, that is why I am speaking out. I believe that many do not mind being called sheep.
I have always been the one to speak up for my rights as a human being. I have also seen MANY people only say "it isn't currently affecting me, so why should I make waves?" But when it gets to that point, it's then too little, too late!!

A little analogy here; We have this big hole that needs to be fixed. Congress has been stuffing money in it and it isn't even close to being filled. Soon, no one will have money to stick in it anymore and the hole will still be there. Lets stop putting money into holes and let's take a REAL look at what needs to be done, and fix it once and for all so that it can never open as big as it has. JOBS FIRST, then some of the other stuff like healthcare will come along without taking more from the working man!!!

Great Depression - part 2?

2009-08-25T07:25:00.000-07:00

I love being right, and who wouldn't? But sometimes, once in a great while, you hope that maybe, this time, you could be wrong. What am I talking about? Our economy, our jobs, or what used to be our jobs! The lifestyle that everyone has enjoyed for so long that, we just expect it to be there tomorrow. Will it? I am saying, probably not, and I hope I could be wrong, but let's look at one piece of data.
Of course I will have a ton of people saying that, you can't see the whole picture with only one piece of data. Well let's put it out there. The data I will discuss comes from a blog at the Whitehouse (see it here http://www.whitehouse.gov/StrongMiddleClass ) Dated Aug 11th. It is a quick read and the information is eye opening. It brings a little more credence to my fictional series I am doing on youtube.
In the blog they discuss and have a little chart on the "Income going to the top 1% of families from 1913-2007". They call it "ominous data". We will assume that there are 238 million working families, according to the recent census data. The chart in the whitehouse blog shows that 23.5% of income is made by 2.38 million families which means that 76.5% of the rest is divided among those, who are lucky enough to still be working > 235.5 million families. That's 1% of income per 3.08 million families!! Of course a majority of these families receive far less.
The last time the numbers were this high for the top 1%, was in the year before the Great Depression. In contrast, the top 1% only received 9% of the total income in 1978. Most of you remember 1978? The song "Good Times" said it all. They were good times. Most of us did more than just merely surviving. We built homes and paid a decent price. Most everything was in our reach and we had VERY GOOD TIMES!!
But like the Great Depression, things may soon come crashing down. Oh yea, everybody has made a valiant effort at trying to divert or stall another depression, but will it work? I don't think so!! Many of us have seen the market slide up and down and recently I have only seen and felt, that the market has been artificially inflated. My explanation for this is simple. over the last ten years I have seen friends, relatives, and coworkers, lose hundreds of thousands of dollars in the market. They have now turned towards "safe investments". They are only getting a small return but it is guaranteed. The working class does not want to lose what little they have left.
And this is why so many of the "EXPERTS" have been wrong on so many levels. The media hype of years ago, no longer works on the minds of the people today. We all used to rely on what we heard on the news and read in the papers. Now people do their own research on the Internet and many base their decisions on the data they see, which is not good. The experts no longer have the credence they used to.

I have said a million times over, that people need to stand up for their rights. Unfortunately they feel that it is not their problem and they should not make waves. Most people choose to ignore what they know is wrong. We have become a passive society.
Well the numbers show a different story. Remember, these numbers I am talking about are not dollars. It is the percentage. You can't say that everything cost so little then and so much more now!!! If you go by the numbers, we are due to go into a depression.... and, apparently we need to go there. Perhaps it will wake everyone up!! That's right!! I said we need to go into a depression!
If you have a big hole that you can't see the bottom of, because it is filled with water, do you know how much dirt you need to bring in to fill it? Do you just start filling it in, hoping that the next load will fill it? Or do you do a thorough job and pump out the water and assess what needs to be done to ensure it is done correctly? I like a thorough job to be done. We have dumped money into just about everything, Failing companies, banks, even to people who bought homes they could never afford. It can't keep going. We can't see the bottom of the hole but we keep dumping money in there to fill it and there is only speculation as to how close to the top it is to being filled. This money comes from you and me, Oh yea, and CHINA!! If you look at this in terms of a corporation, then China owns a good chunk of the United States with the billions lent to us to stabilize our economy.

Let them fail. ALL OF THEM!! We don't have an endless supply of money and it will run out....SOON!
I have been cautious all of my life and if I had taken the plunge for a new house or new car, I would have lost it all and perhaps my family too!! But, as it stands now... if the whole economy collapsed tomorrow, my family and I would survive, and so would many poor to the lower middle class. Why? Because we have had to survive our own little independent depressions over the years. It isn't because we saved so much! It's because we can fix that piece of crap car so we can put off buying another. We do our own repairs on everything out of necessity. We hunt and fish for our food (in season) and we survive.
For those of you who "currently" are able to still live. Those of you who don't want to make "waves" or push for major changes and accountability! Be prepared to kiss it all goodbye. It happened before, remember the Great Depression? The money is going fast and I say GOOD!!!

What will happen? Well this world still needs all the things that are manufactured, and that will continue. I don't see the same multinational companies owning everything. They will lose too. But there will be the "mom & pop" shops that will step in and provide the goods and services. They do not have investors who push them one way or another that is not good for "their" company. Mom and Pop will only take from the business, what they need to survive and they will work to ensure they have the best people working for them and those people people will push mom and pop to prosper. In contrast, the large companies have only the upper echelon they care about (the 1% previously mentioned). Big money will only look out for big money.

So go ahead enjoy what little time you may have, if you are one of the top 1% or one of those, still not concerned! It will all go away and then it will be up to the rest of us to get us back to where we should be. And don't bring your greedy, fat butts around the "restofusville", since we will be busy trying to survive and not looking for a handout, because it won't be there for us to get. You won't see us crying because you lost 15 of your 20 cars or you have been reduced to only 2 vacation homes.
When you see us come running towards you, it will be because the foreclosure and bankruptcy proceedings just put your millions in properties and personal items on the auction block for a fraction of their value, and we will now scoop up what was yours.. :-)
Certainly one piece of data won't show the whole picture, but sometimes, that one piece of data means the whole world!!!

One example of how a company wastes.

2009-08-21T11:44:00.000-07:00

Just shifting gears now, slightly, to show some points I am trying to make. I am going to give some observations from past work experience to prove my point. I will not mention companies or names, so it does not look as a sour apples or revenge story.
One such company is a very large and old Multinational Corporation. It will only from one departments and person's perspective.
I was hired to work an as Engineering Technician, testing tools. The mainstay of the tests was a room of test fixtures for testing the life of a tool and if failures occurred, the type, time, etc was recorded. These test systems were setup to closely mimic actual use of the tool.
One portion of this system was a brake assembly that utilized a high lead bronze as a "brake pad" that had grease injected into the braking surface. The whole system had been designed and implemented decades ago. And, as designed, the system worked perfectly, however the system was not working perfectly and I mentioned this to my boss about 2 months after being there. I was given a speech about the systems and everything was as it should be and I should concern myself with the setups only...
I did for 2 years, Will need to point out that in the meantime I had noticed a case of a tech taking shortcuts and guessing at test numbers to put in. I soon was pulled to the side by my boss and asked why I was slower than the other guys and I was seeing why but only said something when my boss became angry that I was talking to another employee about it. He did not believe me but decided to confront the other technician who admitted it. Well we all agreed to just not mention it again and that it would not happen again. It did with the same tech but with another partner on the test. It was not reported.
But needless to say that I thought my boss was worried that I had something over him. Which could be what may have sent him over when I informed him that I decided to do a hardness test on the Bronze we used for the test system and it was as much as ten times harder!!! I did it when I noticed different colors of bronze to which my boss and his boss both laughed at me and said "what do we need a metallurgist for, will just give it to you and you can tell us what it is. Well short story I gathered 3 sets plus one piece which I thought was all different, sent to metallurgist and confirmed for what I said and what it was and all different!
They had 60 combined years with the company... I had 2!
Kinda get my point so far?
My boss thought he would show his worth and find what we needed when I told him it would only take me hours! He was concerned that I may spend too much time on it. So a week later he came to me and said he could not find it, and did I have an idea? I had a company in an hour but they took to long on the quote and in the meantime one of my boss's friends in another division found and got a quote the same day my guy quoted and at a lower price.
My boss went with his find at the higher quote.........He also told me that the material had been changed for over 10 years, but that it did not mean the tests were invalid. I heard engineers say that almost 90% of the tools I tested, matched field results and they had all the data required where others had failures that did not match field results and they did not have enough data to tell them why???
Ok so your sayin sour grapes yadda yadda what's the point?
This is not the techs fault when you have bosses with decades of straight employment with the same company.. It's just the "internal politics" as they like to call it. It helps certain people to keep a job no matter how badly they do it, because it is only 1 person in 40,000 employees.
Now think of the costs put into an item because it was improperly tested. Time taken away from the development of new items because time is wasted on current products fixing problems that are nonexistent because the test system was not operating to specifications.
Now imagine some of those tech jobs moving to another country because their testing more closely matches literature when the lab in this country, tested those same tools after they were shipped back to the states and numbers changed.
These types of companies Really do need to rely on those people in these positions to know what they are doing. If a boss does not recognize a problem, or refuses to, then everyone in under him can be considered as part of the failure, if the failure is out in the open. Whether it is or not, but they stand a greater chance of losing their jobs than the boss will. Often these companies need to do a double take at some of those employees that were in the same dept for 30 years. Maybe they will find a big chunk of wasted money right there!
So until the executives bring their fat butts down under the clouds more often to check on their own company, then this type of waste will go on, and they still won't have a good sense of their own business.

Corporations and Politicians Sharing the Same Bed: The Lies We Hear....Still!!!

2009-08-18T10:03:00.000-07:00

Corporations and Politicians Sharing the Same Bed: The Lies We Hear....Still!!!

The Lies We Hear....Still!!!

2009-08-18T07:21:00.000-07:00

Isn't it funny how we are currently being told that things are getting better? When was the last time you heard the truth about our economy? Search your memory deeply!! How about the experts in finance and what the media puts in our faces? NO? Yea me neither!
It is so funny how the media will compare our current gas prices to a couple months ago, but will compare housing costs to years ago! It is all to lull us into a false sense of security and give us that warm fuzzy feeling!
Well I for one am saying "NO MORE". Perhaps most of you don't believe the BS, but where are your voices? I should be able to open my door here in the country and hear the moans of the people who are in dire need. But no I do not! I try to understand the passive attitudes of the millions who are struggling in this world and I still do not understand. Ok. This entire blog will be dedicated to bringing out how we are lied to, and treated as nothing more than sheep that can be used for the wool!
I will now scrutinize the Free Trade Bulletin #36 by Daniel Griswold. People like Mr. Griswold is why most people still hang on to the hopes that things will get better. For the the things that I know first hand, he says is not so. He mentions in the beginning of his article About the Campaign promise of Barack Obama the he will stop giving tax breaks to corporations that ship jobs overseas and start giving them to companies that create good jobs here in America".
Then he goes on to explain how these US companies only created affiliates in other foreign countries to reach new customers that otherwise would be impossible without being in that part of the world. My response to that would be... Then how did we do business with the rest of the world in the last century?
He also says " Contrary to popular myth, U.S. multinational companies do not use their foreign operations as an "export platform" back to the United States. Close to 90% of the goods and services produced by U.S. owned affiliates abroad are sold to customers either in the host country or exported to consumers in third countries outside the U.S." And he also says "customers in the U.S. account for only 17% of sales". HUH?!!
Having worked in Engineering for the last 18 years, placed me in the unique position of seeing nearly all sides of how a company "creatively" does business when they have "divisions" of their companies overseas. Yes, Divisions and not affiliates! I am here to tell you that these type of companies I have worked for, do indeed leverage the "export platform" to return foreign made products for sale in the U.S. Just go to any store, pick up any product and look for where it is made and you will be hard pressed to find anything that says "Made in the USA".
One such company I worked for had divisions across the globe. They also had operations in China and Mexico. The U.S. divisions of this company were, at the time, in the northeast U.S., Silicon Valley in CA., Colorado and a few others. As their facilities grew in China and Mexico, the U.S. facilities disappeared and layoffs ensued. I went to an Engineering Design meeting at the corporation's home office in NJ and had breakfast with the owner of the privately held company.
We talked about U.S. jobs disappearing and going to these facilities overseas. He expressed his concern as an American. However he also pointed out that, he was a business man whose main concern was his investors and his own pocket. He told me about the import/export game and how he could have a 75% failure rate of his products from China and still make a profit. Not only because he had lower wages to pay in China but also because of the tax breaks and incentives he received from the U.S. He said he could not even have a 25% failure rate in the U.S. facilities or he would be out of business. Kinda makes you think!
Currently, the investors have successfully ousted him from control of the company and there are only 2 divisions left in the U.S. Their main manufacturing facilities are in China and Mexico. Because they still maintain their headquarters in New Jersey, They still receive the tax breaks and incentives that our politicians so generously give them. The other facility is now for prototypes. It gives the impression that they are manufacturing here in the states but those products are only used for testing, and in some cases those products have been tweaked to perfection by the engineers and technicians and given, yes given for free, to a potential customer for them to test, and then that customer will buy the inferior product that is made outside the U.S.
Oh yea, where did the couple thousand jobs go, that this company had here in the U.S.? They went to China or to Mexico!!!
This is only one example, the other companies I worked for are the same. The only reason they have manufacturing facilities in the U.S. , is for building Prototypes and for testing, that will eventually go to their China, Mexico, or India Divisions for manufacture and sold not only in those countries but also to U.S. customers.
I say to Mr. Griswold, "you are either an idiot or you do not know what you are doing". As I stated before, I worked in Engineering, I designed, built, and specified parts to be used in designs. I worked with the customers and manufacturing facilities. I touched everything that a company does because I am very thorough in my job and I know the reasons for every step a company makes to put out a product. I wrote the ISO procedures for the company that were tailored for these foreign facilities. I wrote "books" of instructions that would allow someone who never even touched a wrench, to build the products we designed.
Mr. Griswold does not think that taking away the tax breaks and incentives will change anything here in the U.S.!!??? Then how about we give it a try? Give companies tax breaks and incentives to keep and grow jobs here in the U.S. and then tell me and everyone else in 5 years how it did not make a difference in the U.S. You will not be able to.
Another question for Mr. Griswold - "Where do you invest YOUR money?" I bet it is with the very corporations that receive these tax breaks and other incentives.
And as I state in the purpose of my blog, Do not throw your education at me. Just because someone can commit their schooling to memory and graduate at the top of the class means nothing to me. Produce results and not just methane!