Happy Prospects

We're looking forward to a nice economic boost because American companies have over a third of a trillion dollars in contracts pending for guns and bombs and shit.

From channelnewsasia.com, by way of The Agonist:

In all, over 13,000 contracts are currently underway with 165 countries for $327 billion, according to Landay.

Perpetual war, permanent crisis mode.  Every time we turn around, there's another outrageous attempt to strip away people's rights, or to roll back a bunch of the real social advances of the last 50 years or so; along with a juicy new scandal of some kind that distracts us from those outrages.

It's a circular process: threat of pain, application of pain, relief of pain.  We're willingly participating in our own mass torture.  But it's not a circle at all.  It's a spiral, and it's not going anywhere good.

They Don't Buy What You Do

Simon Sinek provides some of the best sales training I've ever heard. Also works for managers, job seekers, parents, and just plain humans.

Today's SIlliness

I can kinda see this, but I had to ask Irene - and she was happy to read it to me.  Maybe a little too happy.

 

Today's T-Shirts

We Are So Fucked

Labor problems aren't going to get any better any time soon.  We've been pumping out MBAs by the carload, and they're working up thru the system with a kind of single-minded focus on Productivity Improvement as the one true path to profitability.  "Do more with less" is all well and good - everybody needs to be mindful of conserving resources and keeping costs down.  But when you take any one aspect of good management and turn it into an obsession, you're asking for trouble.

Here's today's formula:

  Economic Growth
- Productivity Growth
  Employment Growth

So, you're either making the same amount of stuff with fewer people, or you're making more stuff with the same number of people.  The thinking is that it doesn't really matter which way it tips, if you concentrate on Productivity, the bottom line stays healthy.

If you view it from inside the US, then we're just cannibalizing ourselves, and before long the whole thing craters because there aren't enough workers who can afford to buy the stuff they're making.  But Capital has no respect for political boundaries or any other civilizing conventions.  A market of 300 million Americans matters a lot less when your Potential Customer Pool is close to 7 BILLION.  Of course, that means we're cannibalizing the whole world now, but we believe strongly that by spreading the stress over a much broader surface, we minimize the problems and (most important) we postpone the crash long enough to find some solutions.  Color me dubious.  In the long run, it's still not sustainable.

We have to figure out how to rebalance.  There's always tension between Private and Public; Individual and Collective; Labor and Management; and and and.  It's a Yin-and-Yang universe, but that doesn't make it strictly binary, where it's always and only a choice between one extreme or the other.  It's not a Net Zero thing.  You don't have to lose for me to win.  And if everybody has to lose for me to win, then what's the point?  I can scramble to the top, slaying my competitors along the way; chasing down the gazelles according to my leonine instincts; cracking bones and sucking out the marrow of every deal, blah blah blah - but what have I accomplished?  In the end, I'm standing alone on a hill in the middle of a dead world.

I reject the premise that Economics has to be bloodless and dispassionate and without heart; that business has to be about conquest and consumption.  I expect people to conduct themselves honorably.

The Miss Dys-Remembering Pageant

A Minor Reminder

We're dealing with the massive hangover from the biggest, craziest party ever. There's no way to hurry it along, it just takes time. Of course, it'd be nice if certain people weren't walking around banging pots and pans together, and generally acting as if they're intentionally trying to make things worse.

Welcome Home, Sarge

I guess all I can say is that you should get used to it(?)  And also that this is actually what you've been fighting for, in spite of what you believe you were supposed to be fighting for.

Privatization is the newspeak term for when Government is manipulated in order to pump public dollars into private pockets.

For myself, I can only say I'm sorry for not being able to keep you from it.

Free Markets

Like everything else, Labor is a marketable item - a commodity just like any other.

When a business manager is trying to figure out what his plan should be for the coming year/quarter/whatever, he has to figure out what the costs will be for him to produce the goods and services his company offers.  He has things like rent, and equipment, and taxes, and raw materials, and labor.  He looks at several options before he moves into the space he needs for his operation; he invites at least 3 vendors to bid on selling him the stuff he needs to build whatever he's selling, etc.  The point is to get some real competition going in order to drive down his costs.

If he can pay some dues to Chamber of Commerce, or American Manufacturer's Assn, or some other trade group that can help him elect sympathetic politicians who will pass laws and enact policies that drive down the cost of practically everything, then he benefits greatly; and he will do exactly what we see being done to American workers right now.

When you look at Paul Ryan's budget plan, you needn't wonder why it seems he intends to tamp down on Medicare; he intends to press down on all aspects of the cost of labor because his Corporate Masters have told him to push the labor market to be more highly competitive.    They understand that when you have 100 people standing in line to fill an opening for one decent job, then you've basically created a bidding war.  Suddenly, every prospective employee (aka Labor Vendor) has to bid on that job, and the "winner" is the guy who's willing to do it for the lowest pay, or the longest hours, or the crappiest benefits, or whatever.

You think politicians aren't doing enough to get the economy going again?  Then you're thinking about it from the wrong angle.  The economy is actually going pretty well for the ownership class; all they're trying to do is to figure out how to placate us just enough to keep us from taking to the streets and burnin' this shit down.

Afghanistan

We need to stop this nonsense and get these people home.