What follows are my posts more or less in response to a thread started about the 9/11 monument in Israel.
Let me say by preamble that the wallowing in national grief over the WTC is misplaced and turns my stomach. Knowing that, you are prepared to continue reading or not. 9-11, get the fuck over it. It was only a warm-up for the tragedies to follow.
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Where are the memorials for those innocent Iraqis who have died since 2003? For innocent Afghans? Way, way over 3,000 in the case of Iraq. http://www.iraqbodycount.org/
One might also inquire about memorials to innocent Palestinians killed by Israelis.
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Mohammar Qadaffi, Hosni Mubarek, and even Saddam Hussein were American allies who were betrayed and dumped by us because a friendly or hands-off relationship with them became too embarassing and politically incorrect.
Saddam was Reagan's counterweight in the Middle East. Then 60 Minutes ran pieces about the mass killing in the Iran-Iraq war, and the use of poison gas and acquisition of weapons of mass destruction. THEN Saddam became a non-person to the Bush One administration. Too dirty, too messy to be involved with.
Before invading Kuwait, Saddam sent a communique through the State Dept to the Bush administration, asking in effect if the U.S. had any objections to his pressing his claim against Kuwait, said claim being the rationale for invading.
I first heard this in a Reader's Digest article in the early 1990s. Now, thanks to Wikileaks, we know more about it. See for example Ron Paul who claims Bush tricked Saddam into invading: http://www.dailypaul.com/156160/ron-paul-enters-evidence-of-bush-war-crimes-in-congressional-record My own interpretation was that the U.S. did not reply, thereby giving tacit permission for Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.
The time to draw a 'line in the sand' of course was before Saddam invaded, not after, when he could not back down without a loss of face and the respect of his enemies. At the very least, George Herbert Bush totally blew it. At the worst, well, you have Ron Paul's opinion.
Back to casualties. How many Iraqis have been killed since 2003? Iraq Body Count is a conservative count. They have debunked claims of 490,000 and a million civilian casualties. http://www.iraqbodycount.org/analysis/beyond/exaggerated-orb/ THEIR count is 115,000 civilians dead from military activity by the USA and allies. More deaths to be found in the action reports released by Wilkleaks. This does NOT include insurgents killed, it does NOT include Iraqi soldiers killed. Does anyone here think we fought bloody battles with the Republican Guard and they took only a few thousand killed? So THE TOTAL or Iraqis killed, on all sides and civilians on no side, is probably a couple of hundred thousand.
And we are making such a fuss about 3,000 killed on 9-11. Hell, we have 30,000 killed in auto accidents each year, ten thou plus killed in suicides, accidents and homicides from firearm, 40,000 killed annually from medical malpractice. Hell, we lose a lot more than 3,000 Americans every year because of a freekin lack of medical care!
Not to bring up for a millisecond all those dying in the Sudan, in Somalia, in central America, in a hundred places around the globe that few of us can find on our maps, whose deaths mean nothing in comparison to a handful of over-fed, well-heeled paperpushers who died at the WTC.
And these g.d. propagandists want to build a memorial to those killed on 9-11 and hold prayers and church services and damn those Americans and non-Americans whose preventable deaths they do not want to bother to try to prevent. As we see in that monument in Israel, and in our own 9-11 memorials and services, this is nothing but propaganda, manipulation of popular opinion for political purposes.
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I'm sorry about that, _______. Sorry about your leaving. Think I'll do the same as soon as I post an attack on LISD's new $30,000 parking spaces that I've been planning for a month. Then, maybe you will come back.
You don't like my comments because I am at base a moralist, and I don't hesitate to do the politically incorrect thing of accusing you or the nation you support of being wrong or hypocritical. You want to blissfully ignore the numbers and the facts and to pretend that you, and Israel and the United States and your religion, have an hereditary exclusive on being right and just.
I agree that it should have been Saudi Arabia that put up a 9-11 monument; considering the relationship between our nations and the role of S.A. in 9/11, much of which has not been released to the public by the 9/11 Commission and will not be for another 12 years, the Saudis really should have built such a monument as a conciliatory gesture. But since the House of Saud is sitting atop a keg of gunpowder -- earlier this year it looked like they would be among the casualties of the Arab Spring -- it is somewhat understandable that they did not tweak the ears of the lion that will one day overthrow and execute them.
Why did Israel build a 9/11 monument? To show that they and we have a common enemy-- Arab fundamentalism. Never mind that 99.99% of Muslims are not terrorists, they want to express common cause with the United States in this ongoing battle against Islam. They also want U.S. aid to continue. They want America off their backs in how they treat the Arabs and Palestinians among them. I don't really consider those motivations to be all that admirable, though probably you do.
The terrorism happening in Israel cuts both ways; that is all that I have said and all I am saying; Israelis are both victims and victimizers. A missile is launched from a neighborhood in Nablus; there is a retributive attack on that part of Nablus. And so it goes in an endless cycle of vengeance. How do you break that cycle?
I wonder -- you ever watch those WWII movies where the occupying Germans execute innnocent citizens because of something the resistance has done? That actually happened, btw. In Holland for example the townspeople of Nijmegen or Arnem were told that if the culprits in the Dutch resistance did not give themselves up, that 10 or a dozen men and women would be selected at random and executed for what the resistance had done. Think about that. And consider this:
From http://www.cdi.org/terrorism/chronology-pr.cfm, quote:
[i]"October 23, 1983 - A suicide car bomb attack against the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut kills 241 servicemen. A simultaneous attack on a French base kills 58 paratroopers.
"In response, President Ronald Reagan ordered the battleship USS New Jersey, stationed off the coast of Lebanon, to shell the hills near Beirut." [/i]
Reagan asked in a press conference afterward "Ever hear the sound a 16" shell makes?" Reagan like John Wayne was an expert on war and cannon because he had been in the movies.
So if the terrorists who killed 241 Marines (because their commander was stupid enough to biillet them in one dense, vulnerable pile, but that's another part of the story) were thought to be from the Druze villages in the mountains, then we shelled the villages. Obviously it would be the merest chance that a perpetrator was killed by a shell. It was enough that someone in the same village, the same neighborhood, the same house, was killed.
Get my point? That we do the same things we accused the Germans of doing in WWII occupied areas, and tried them for, by the way, as war criminals. We and the Israelis are higher tech and we often kill from afar when we exact retribution for a terrorist attack.
Wonder what Lebanese or Palestinian families think about the bombs from above when they come. Which brings up the inevitable question, "Who is the terrorist, and who is seeking revenge for terrorism?" Are the boundaries always clear?
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Friday, September 9, 2011
Obama Speech
Well-written and delivered, in form a challenge to the other side -- "You pass this or the consequences are on your head." So now Obama can to a degree sit back and relax, knowing that the whole thing probably will not get passed unchanged and if any change is made, he can blame the Republicans for any problems with the economy. A win-win scenario for the Big O. Unless the whole proposal passes and the economy is still sour, in which case Obama takes the hit. But what is the likelihood of that? (The Jobs bill passing, I mean, not the economy staying sour.)
As to the bill itself, I cain't kick. I would like to see more of a carrot and a stick applied to American companies who move operations or jobs abroad, and more tax disadvantages to companies with officers paid a lot more than the rank and file. It ain't American, and while we can't tell companies how much to pay their board and executives, we can sure as heck penalyze them when it comes to taxing.
Also, as always, there is too much deference toward the financial industry. American business is separate from the casino shell games played in the finance sector.
And in the meantime, Republican presidential hopefuls will be tearing each other apart, while Obama, like Caesar at the Colisseum, sits on his throne and watches.
I'm disappointed in Bachmann's reception. Not that I consider her a good candidate. It's the way the GOP faithful are bypassing her in favor of taller and louder men. Her content is not that different from Perry's, both being on the looney side of the street. Why is he getting the attention while she is fading? Not fair. I think it's because she is a little woman.
I've said before that the Republican candidates are a handsome bunch this year. The hair dye and transplants, the botox, the spa treatments, have really paid off. And I am sorry to say, that is what a candidate most needs: handsomeness. The time is past when Americans will elect a fat, bald, stooped, short, or wrinkled person to the White House. We are all about appearances and soundbites and shortness on substance.
Perry would have appalled previous generations, whose children and grandchildren now stand enthralled. Sad to say, he is the man of our time, which says more about us, about some of us, than about him.
Not that Perry will win against Obama if nominated. I feel Huntsman is the best candidate to go head to head against Obama. The loss will not reform Perry or his (or Bachmann's or Gingrich's or Palin's) supporters. They will retire to their dens to lick their wounds and plan revenge. As a character said in Lord of the Rings, "After a rest and a respite, the evil grows again."
I know it's bad to characterize a significant segment of the American population as evil, but that's how I feel. They have cleaved to the false prophets and the anti-Christ prophesied in the New Testament.
See! I can wax religious too.
As to the bill itself, I cain't kick. I would like to see more of a carrot and a stick applied to American companies who move operations or jobs abroad, and more tax disadvantages to companies with officers paid a lot more than the rank and file. It ain't American, and while we can't tell companies how much to pay their board and executives, we can sure as heck penalyze them when it comes to taxing.
Also, as always, there is too much deference toward the financial industry. American business is separate from the casino shell games played in the finance sector.
And in the meantime, Republican presidential hopefuls will be tearing each other apart, while Obama, like Caesar at the Colisseum, sits on his throne and watches.
I'm disappointed in Bachmann's reception. Not that I consider her a good candidate. It's the way the GOP faithful are bypassing her in favor of taller and louder men. Her content is not that different from Perry's, both being on the looney side of the street. Why is he getting the attention while she is fading? Not fair. I think it's because she is a little woman.
I've said before that the Republican candidates are a handsome bunch this year. The hair dye and transplants, the botox, the spa treatments, have really paid off. And I am sorry to say, that is what a candidate most needs: handsomeness. The time is past when Americans will elect a fat, bald, stooped, short, or wrinkled person to the White House. We are all about appearances and soundbites and shortness on substance.
Perry would have appalled previous generations, whose children and grandchildren now stand enthralled. Sad to say, he is the man of our time, which says more about us, about some of us, than about him.
Not that Perry will win against Obama if nominated. I feel Huntsman is the best candidate to go head to head against Obama. The loss will not reform Perry or his (or Bachmann's or Gingrich's or Palin's) supporters. They will retire to their dens to lick their wounds and plan revenge. As a character said in Lord of the Rings, "After a rest and a respite, the evil grows again."
I know it's bad to characterize a significant segment of the American population as evil, but that's how I feel. They have cleaved to the false prophets and the anti-Christ prophesied in the New Testament.
See! I can wax religious too.
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Cult
On the GOP, check this out: http://www.truth-out.org/goodbye-all-reflections-gop-operative-who-left-cult/1314907779 By a former Republican who had enough. He is incisive too in his dissection of the Democrats.
Despite what I post here and elsewhere, I don't really think that merely being a Republican qualifies one for a padded cell. There are thoughtful Republicans out there with a useful perspective that could help the country. But increasingly the GOP is dominated by a Far Right lunatic fringe that does behave like a cult.
In fact, their beliefs form a politico-religious complex, and are constantly reinforced by a radio-TV-print- propaganda barrage like that of Herr Goebbels in the 1930s.
To hear some preachers spin it, Jesus was the prophet of free-market capitalism and of low taxes and no restrictions on big business and the rich.
Sunday, trying to get the news programs on TV, I passed a channel where a preacher was preaching -- conservative politics and economics. So much for the Sermon on the Mount. So much for feeding the hungry and clothing the naked. So much for the parable of the rich man and the eye of the needle. The Republican-Religious Fundamentalist complex are forging a new religion, suited to their joint purposes.
If I were the parent of a young Republican today, I'd seriously think about arranging a kidnapping and deprogramming exactly as though he or she had gotten involved with the moonies or scientology or a radical sect of Islam.
I think there is a coming civil war in this country over core values that will make the 1861-65 Civil War look like boys throwing rocks at each other. The conservatives are already armed to the teeth. It is incumbent on those opposing the conservative Religio-Republican agenda to prepare as well.
Despite what I post here and elsewhere, I don't really think that merely being a Republican qualifies one for a padded cell. There are thoughtful Republicans out there with a useful perspective that could help the country. But increasingly the GOP is dominated by a Far Right lunatic fringe that does behave like a cult.
In fact, their beliefs form a politico-religious complex, and are constantly reinforced by a radio-TV-print- propaganda barrage like that of Herr Goebbels in the 1930s.
To hear some preachers spin it, Jesus was the prophet of free-market capitalism and of low taxes and no restrictions on big business and the rich.
Sunday, trying to get the news programs on TV, I passed a channel where a preacher was preaching -- conservative politics and economics. So much for the Sermon on the Mount. So much for feeding the hungry and clothing the naked. So much for the parable of the rich man and the eye of the needle. The Republican-Religious Fundamentalist complex are forging a new religion, suited to their joint purposes.
If I were the parent of a young Republican today, I'd seriously think about arranging a kidnapping and deprogramming exactly as though he or she had gotten involved with the moonies or scientology or a radical sect of Islam.
I think there is a coming civil war in this country over core values that will make the 1861-65 Civil War look like boys throwing rocks at each other. The conservatives are already armed to the teeth. It is incumbent on those opposing the conservative Religio-Republican agenda to prepare as well.
Thursday, September 1, 2011
On Creationism, Installment (n+1)
"...look at the beauty of this planet, today and through the millions of years that this planet has existed...."
Precisely. But what many creationists are saying is that the evidence that you can see and touch that the earth has existed for millions of years (or billions) is a lie, planted there by a God or a Satan wanting to entrap humankind into false belief. How do you fight that? How can you? It's impossible to argue with someone who denies logic and the evidence of one's senses.
For that matter, what alternative to evolution does a literal reading of the Bible offer? There are two separate creation stories in Genesis, neither of which agrees with the other. Genesis 1:1 through 2:4 versus Genesis 2:5 and following. Two differing accounts of Noah and the flood.
Logically, there would be a big dispute between Genesis 1:1 creationists and Genesis 2:5 creationists: "No, you're wrong, take that!" Bam! Pow! That there is no such rift among creationists is due to poor reading comprehension or nt wanting to comprehend. It is simply amazing how the biblical understanding of fundamentalists is managed and controlled by the few.
Precisely. But what many creationists are saying is that the evidence that you can see and touch that the earth has existed for millions of years (or billions) is a lie, planted there by a God or a Satan wanting to entrap humankind into false belief. How do you fight that? How can you? It's impossible to argue with someone who denies logic and the evidence of one's senses.
For that matter, what alternative to evolution does a literal reading of the Bible offer? There are two separate creation stories in Genesis, neither of which agrees with the other. Genesis 1:1 through 2:4 versus Genesis 2:5 and following. Two differing accounts of Noah and the flood.
Logically, there would be a big dispute between Genesis 1:1 creationists and Genesis 2:5 creationists: "No, you're wrong, take that!" Bam! Pow! That there is no such rift among creationists is due to poor reading comprehension or nt wanting to comprehend. It is simply amazing how the biblical understanding of fundamentalists is managed and controlled by the few.
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
The Religion Disease
Extreme religiosity is associated with brain damage. Hit an agnostic hard enough on the head and he/she will turn to God. And I am convinced that some are born with defective brain wiring, that there is in effect a God gene. [Wasn't this a lead article in a Newsweek some years back?]
But lemme explain my view more clearly. Humans have big brains. Along with those big brains are baggage, self-defeating irrational behavior, an assortment of nearly paralyzing feedback loops in nerve cell programming or development. Especially, though, we fear.
With our big brains, we can imagine all the bad things that can happen to us and to those we like or depend on. The ability to anticipate bad things means fear. Fear can be paralyzing, numbing. Truly, Frank Herbert wrote in Dune that "fear is the mind-killer...." So we humans do anything we can to alleviate fear. By magic, by rituals, by appealing to gods.
Irrational behavior is not seen only in humans. It's not only a big-brain thing. Consider, if you will, the chicken. Put a chicken into a skinner box, give the chicken intermittent reinforcement. If a chicken gets fed when it pecks a certain lever, then the chicken pecks at the lever when its hungry. BUT. If the chicken is rewarded by a food pellet only SOMETIMES when it pecks a lever, the poor chicken goes crazy, obsessively pecking at that lever.
We are exactly like that chicken. [Gambling is as good an example as religion. When I go into a casino, I see all those chickens pulling at slot machine levers. Gambling is an obsession caused by intermittent reinforcement.] We pray or sacrifice, and often times, more often than not, things work out okay. (We only die once, but we fear death many times. And the last time, when we die, we do not live to draw any kind of false conclusion from the experience.) So like the chicken, we pray and propitiate the gods constantly and obsessively. That is how we deal with anxiety.
Think about sacrifice. God or gods have no need of human sacrifice. They don't eat flesh or the produce of the field or anyone's first born. But we obsessively offer these things because they mean something to us! We created the gods, in our image, with our wants, to obsess over us. We are the center of our universe, and the gods we create obsess about humans and the conduct of men and women! [I say that God needs to get a life, study astrophysics or go knit worm holes around the universe and get away from obsessing over human sexual behavior and that pet ant farm on earth.]
Confession time. I've never confessed this to anyone, though some may guess. Remember Jack Nicholson in the movie "As Good As It Gets"? I have for many years and especially in times of fear and stress engaged in ritual behavior, you know, turn three times clockwise before leaving home, touch the doorknob five times, turn the key back and forth twice, avoid the cracks in the step, and so on. Not quite like that, but close.
Why, for pete's sake, do things that stupid? Because they work, or seem to, at least part of the time. Think about that chicken in the skinner box, given intermittent reinforcement. That ritual behavior is precisely like the ceremonies of religion, in the case of Christianity, telling oneself that "Jesus is with me and there is no reason to fear death for myself or my loved ones because at death we will become one with Jesus." I knew an old man, seemingly rational, except that he would constantly, every few minutes, say quietly, "Praise Jesus!" When he was talking, he'd interrupt himself every few sentences to say, "Praise Jesus!" Perfect example of ritualistic behavior. And how is that any different from telling a rosary by fingering the beads, or spinning a prayer wheel?
Where religion is not purely the result of brain damage, it is a product of our irrational ways of coping with fear.
But lemme explain my view more clearly. Humans have big brains. Along with those big brains are baggage, self-defeating irrational behavior, an assortment of nearly paralyzing feedback loops in nerve cell programming or development. Especially, though, we fear.
With our big brains, we can imagine all the bad things that can happen to us and to those we like or depend on. The ability to anticipate bad things means fear. Fear can be paralyzing, numbing. Truly, Frank Herbert wrote in Dune that "fear is the mind-killer...." So we humans do anything we can to alleviate fear. By magic, by rituals, by appealing to gods.
Irrational behavior is not seen only in humans. It's not only a big-brain thing. Consider, if you will, the chicken. Put a chicken into a skinner box, give the chicken intermittent reinforcement. If a chicken gets fed when it pecks a certain lever, then the chicken pecks at the lever when its hungry. BUT. If the chicken is rewarded by a food pellet only SOMETIMES when it pecks a lever, the poor chicken goes crazy, obsessively pecking at that lever.
We are exactly like that chicken. [Gambling is as good an example as religion. When I go into a casino, I see all those chickens pulling at slot machine levers. Gambling is an obsession caused by intermittent reinforcement.] We pray or sacrifice, and often times, more often than not, things work out okay. (We only die once, but we fear death many times. And the last time, when we die, we do not live to draw any kind of false conclusion from the experience.) So like the chicken, we pray and propitiate the gods constantly and obsessively. That is how we deal with anxiety.
Think about sacrifice. God or gods have no need of human sacrifice. They don't eat flesh or the produce of the field or anyone's first born. But we obsessively offer these things because they mean something to us! We created the gods, in our image, with our wants, to obsess over us. We are the center of our universe, and the gods we create obsess about humans and the conduct of men and women! [I say that God needs to get a life, study astrophysics or go knit worm holes around the universe and get away from obsessing over human sexual behavior and that pet ant farm on earth.]
Confession time. I've never confessed this to anyone, though some may guess. Remember Jack Nicholson in the movie "As Good As It Gets"? I have for many years and especially in times of fear and stress engaged in ritual behavior, you know, turn three times clockwise before leaving home, touch the doorknob five times, turn the key back and forth twice, avoid the cracks in the step, and so on. Not quite like that, but close.
Why, for pete's sake, do things that stupid? Because they work, or seem to, at least part of the time. Think about that chicken in the skinner box, given intermittent reinforcement. That ritual behavior is precisely like the ceremonies of religion, in the case of Christianity, telling oneself that "Jesus is with me and there is no reason to fear death for myself or my loved ones because at death we will become one with Jesus." I knew an old man, seemingly rational, except that he would constantly, every few minutes, say quietly, "Praise Jesus!" When he was talking, he'd interrupt himself every few sentences to say, "Praise Jesus!" Perfect example of ritualistic behavior. And how is that any different from telling a rosary by fingering the beads, or spinning a prayer wheel?
Where religion is not purely the result of brain damage, it is a product of our irrational ways of coping with fear.
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Employment, Wages, Unemployment
I've argued against the "union-busting" that Gov. Walker and the Tea Party movement pushed through in Wisconsin. My problem was that the legislation was not broad enough. Not just unions should be targeted. Executives and CEOs should be too. If there is a pay-cut in government or in a company, it should be across the board, with executives leading the way.
Walker may not have "won" in the long run but he had a point.
The point that he had is the need to enable companies to reduce salaries/wages when the company/economy is going downhill.
I think this might be done by enacting a law that permits companies to make across the board cuts in the pay of all employees, including all executives and board members, despite any contracts to the contrary, when the profitability of the company has gone down to zero.
Some years ago, I started thinking about a new way of paying employees. A base wage that eould not change, with bonuses for individual productivity, for team productivity, and in relation to the profitability of the company. Pay by formula. When hard times strike, employee pay is automaticaly reduced. The employee has to tighten his or her belt, but still has a job.
More of that would end the need for unemployment compensation.
As it is, employment/unemployment and compensation is very unfair. Production line employees get laid off when misfortunes hit. Engineers get laid-off with a nice nest egg in severance pay. And too often, the CEO gets a bonus or a new CEO is hired for a record amount. This is crazy. These companies are run with a total disregard to employee loyalty, and a blatant in-your-face statement about the differences between executives and line employees. There can be no loyalty in such a company. No teamwork.
You have to treat everybody alike or at least similarly. Except that cuts should be higher in the executive suite.
I've never believed in lay-offs. Permanent employees ought to be ... permanent. Not seasonal like migrant farm workers. Not as a pool that can be discarded or picked up as needed. But being permanent means too that they share in the fortunes and misfortunes of the company. That pay cuts occur immediately and automatically, according to an objective formula. It means employees have to realize that income will vary, that there are no automatic raises or cost-of-living increases.
Which brings up the unemployment picture.
With the 2012 election coming, some are saying that something has to be done about unemployment, that it is a problem that must be fixed. That someone in charge, like the president, needs to wave a magic wand and cure things. To a large extent they are wrong, pandering to misinformed popular opinion.
Many of those jobs lost will not be replaced. The companies that survived are leaner and meaner, doing more now with fewer employees. Less deadwood, fewer chair warmers and middle managers, more automation. Those jobs will not be coming back.
Then too, some companies and industries are gone.
Jobs continue to be exported. There is one area where the president and Congress can try to make a difference, by providing incentives for American companies to stay in America and disincentives (penalties) for leaving. Lower corporate taxes, for example, with high penalties for companies that attempt to fictionally move elsewhere.
International business competition is becoming a more level playing field. More competition from China, India and Brazil means some U.S. companies will be losing market share or going out of business, a trend that has existed for 50 years and will continue. In the very long run, Americans will be no more wealthy than folks in half the nations of the world. This is a statistical principle called "regression to the mean."
More and more, U.S. income and lifestyle will regress to the mean of the world as a whole. That is unavoidable.
All of which means that a lot of the unemployed will not be getting an equivalent of their old job back. They are going to have to settle for retraining, for a less expensive way of living. To find new goals and interests. There are no magic wands.
Any politician who doesn't tell us this is lying through his/her teeth.
Copyright 2011 by El Alacran and The Refracted Image
Walker may not have "won" in the long run but he had a point.
The point that he had is the need to enable companies to reduce salaries/wages when the company/economy is going downhill.
I think this might be done by enacting a law that permits companies to make across the board cuts in the pay of all employees, including all executives and board members, despite any contracts to the contrary, when the profitability of the company has gone down to zero.
Some years ago, I started thinking about a new way of paying employees. A base wage that eould not change, with bonuses for individual productivity, for team productivity, and in relation to the profitability of the company. Pay by formula. When hard times strike, employee pay is automaticaly reduced. The employee has to tighten his or her belt, but still has a job.
More of that would end the need for unemployment compensation.
As it is, employment/unemployment and compensation is very unfair. Production line employees get laid off when misfortunes hit. Engineers get laid-off with a nice nest egg in severance pay. And too often, the CEO gets a bonus or a new CEO is hired for a record amount. This is crazy. These companies are run with a total disregard to employee loyalty, and a blatant in-your-face statement about the differences between executives and line employees. There can be no loyalty in such a company. No teamwork.
You have to treat everybody alike or at least similarly. Except that cuts should be higher in the executive suite.
I've never believed in lay-offs. Permanent employees ought to be ... permanent. Not seasonal like migrant farm workers. Not as a pool that can be discarded or picked up as needed. But being permanent means too that they share in the fortunes and misfortunes of the company. That pay cuts occur immediately and automatically, according to an objective formula. It means employees have to realize that income will vary, that there are no automatic raises or cost-of-living increases.
Which brings up the unemployment picture.
With the 2012 election coming, some are saying that something has to be done about unemployment, that it is a problem that must be fixed. That someone in charge, like the president, needs to wave a magic wand and cure things. To a large extent they are wrong, pandering to misinformed popular opinion.
Many of those jobs lost will not be replaced. The companies that survived are leaner and meaner, doing more now with fewer employees. Less deadwood, fewer chair warmers and middle managers, more automation. Those jobs will not be coming back.
Then too, some companies and industries are gone.
Jobs continue to be exported. There is one area where the president and Congress can try to make a difference, by providing incentives for American companies to stay in America and disincentives (penalties) for leaving. Lower corporate taxes, for example, with high penalties for companies that attempt to fictionally move elsewhere.
International business competition is becoming a more level playing field. More competition from China, India and Brazil means some U.S. companies will be losing market share or going out of business, a trend that has existed for 50 years and will continue. In the very long run, Americans will be no more wealthy than folks in half the nations of the world. This is a statistical principle called "regression to the mean."
More and more, U.S. income and lifestyle will regress to the mean of the world as a whole. That is unavoidable.
All of which means that a lot of the unemployed will not be getting an equivalent of their old job back. They are going to have to settle for retraining, for a less expensive way of living. To find new goals and interests. There are no magic wands.
Any politician who doesn't tell us this is lying through his/her teeth.
Copyright 2011 by El Alacran and The Refracted Image
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Giffords and Thoughts
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/12/gabrielle-giffords-photos_n_875498.html?icid=main%7Chtmlws-sb-n%7Cdl1%7Csec1_lnk3%7C215783
When you harm another being, you take a great deal onto yourself.
If you harm but do not kill, them you have to live with your responsibility for what the life of that being has become. This applies to Congressman Giffords, to those who were paralyzed or who have brain damage from an auto collision, and to deer wounded by a careless hunter.
When I was a sripling, I was very aggressive and as soon as I learned to make what we called a "negro-shooter" out of a forked stick and rubber bands, I started shooting at birds. Which did not make my grandfather, who taight me how to make such a weapon, very happy. Especially when I shot at and injured a bird. Then again, at Lake Colorado City, I threw a rock at a lizard and hit it, injuring its leg. Each trip back there, my mother or grandfather would remind me of what I had done and would point out the gimpy lizard. It's a lesson that most of us learn. Never well enough to stop us from doing harm carelessly.
Where this is seen most often is driving, where a vehicle hits another vehicle, pedestrian, or cyclist. Especially the later two, where brain and/or spinal cord damage occurs so easily.
The prescription is the same. We just have to think about what we are doing, always.
When you harm another being, you take a great deal onto yourself.
If you harm but do not kill, them you have to live with your responsibility for what the life of that being has become. This applies to Congressman Giffords, to those who were paralyzed or who have brain damage from an auto collision, and to deer wounded by a careless hunter.
When I was a sripling, I was very aggressive and as soon as I learned to make what we called a "negro-shooter" out of a forked stick and rubber bands, I started shooting at birds. Which did not make my grandfather, who taight me how to make such a weapon, very happy. Especially when I shot at and injured a bird. Then again, at Lake Colorado City, I threw a rock at a lizard and hit it, injuring its leg. Each trip back there, my mother or grandfather would remind me of what I had done and would point out the gimpy lizard. It's a lesson that most of us learn. Never well enough to stop us from doing harm carelessly.
Where this is seen most often is driving, where a vehicle hits another vehicle, pedestrian, or cyclist. Especially the later two, where brain and/or spinal cord damage occurs so easily.
The prescription is the same. We just have to think about what we are doing, always.
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