Tag Archives: business

The Dear Hunter

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While letting my thoughts wander over the words of those angered-up by OWS and other street protests in an article at the Economist website, Rage against the machine, I came across an interesting observation by Der Perfessor:

The major reason why a solution to the Euro crisis is not happening is that the Banks are insisting that ALL their losses on the Euro bonds be repaid by the governments. No haircut at all! In fact, would you believe it, they now want the 450 billion Euro guarantee offered by the EFSC be expanded to, yes , ONE TRILLION EUROS. And they have sufficient sway to prevent a solution to the euro crisis until they get it.

Until the barbarians at the gate find the means to recruit critical masses of unhappy mercenaries to crash the homes/businesses of those in finance who help support “the 1%” – doing real damage a la Gaddafi’s downfall – then life is endlessly the same thing all over again, is it not?  No matter how many bandaids in the form of refinanced mortgages we apply to the leaking aorta of a dying system.

What was it that guy said in “Tuesdays with Morrie,” that those who bankroll the military and police to support their financial lavishness are always the real ones in power, no matter how public they appear?

Who casts the first stone, as they say in my subculture?

Not me.  I know who I am.  I’m as guilty as the next ex-office worker whose fortune was built on a rigged financial system no different than the average Ponzi/pyramid scheme wrapped in an emperour’s new clothing line.  An indoctrinated, brainwashed technogeek who created an organisation so well-entrenched into the current dysfunctional system that it’s no better or worse than the system it purports to overrun.

I keep waiting for my team of hackers and scientists tied to the supercomputer to show me a global socioeconomic system that keeps everyone fat/trim, dumb and happy, but they just keep feeding me one exploitative system after another.

There’s a lesson in here, if I choose to think about it…

Murdering us with statistics

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<start chapter of humorous novel>

As a species, we like to hunt and kill one another, it seems.  So be it.  I admit I am who I am because of what my species does, regardless of the percentage of us who wouldn’t hurt a fly but would call in an air strike without hesitation.

Or kill formerly caged wild beasts, reliving our nomadic hunter-gatherer days once again for 15 5.352 seconds of Internet video fame.

But back to statistics.  Here are two more data points worth considering:

  1. Statistics about the official economy
  2. The lack of statistics about the shadow economy

Next up, give me that oldtimey religion – a word about archaeology and a word about modern belief structures.

= = =

Thanks to Miranda and staff at Beauregard’s, Eric Mc and staff at Chili’s.

= = =

To the Saboteur Squad, you know which solar manufacturers to target – the ones doing the dumping.  Proceed.

<end chapter of humorous novel>

Spoiled by the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award

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My wife and I consider ourselves fortunate to have grown up with a fastfood retail chain that makes quality a core ingredient: Pal’s Sudden Service, which won the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award in 2001.  For an interesting perspective, read where business students studied and reported on the business’ success.

Does that explain our expectations of [near] perfection when visiting fastfood stores for quick meals, especially in Rocket City?

Last night, my wife ordered two meals from a local Wendy’s restaurant.

At the drive-thru order screen, she noticed the total cost displayed was $11.09.

However, when she pulled up to the drive-thru pickup window, she was informed the total was $12.16.

My y wife commented about the discrepancy and was informed offhandedly, “Oh, it’s probably just a glitch in the system,” making my wife feel like she wasn’t taken seriously.  At her request, my wife double-checked with the restaurant worker to make sure the food she ordered was the food she was going to receive.

In addition, she asked for ketchup, was told ketchup was already in the bag and discovered, after opening the bag at home, there was no ketchup.

Thank goodness for the Internet.

On the drive-thru receipt, a website was listed, which we visited, easily finding, at the top of the main page, the link to a sub-page where we could leave a complaint, compliment or suggestion.

We chose the first selection, detailing the above incident.

Within an hour or so, we received an email from the store’s general manager, who asked to speak with my wife about the visit, including details such as the time the incident occurred.

Granted, that is an exceptionally fast response and we commend the Wendy’s franchisee, First Sun Management Corporation, for setting up a quick way to address customer complaints.

However, the email began with a misspelling of my wife’s name.

Details, details, details…

Is it “first impressions don’t last” or “you never get a second chance to make a first impression”?

My wife and I have always noticed that the Wendy’s in another part of town (on University Drive, not far from Cummings Research Park) has a much smoother and more efficient operation than the one my wife visited last night.

Boy, do we miss Pal’s here in north Alabama!

Anyway, I scanned the drive-thru receipt into a PDF file so my wife could email it back to the general manager, who gets to address this issue with her staff, including drive-thru workers and IT personnel, we hope.

Maybe the general manager will take this as a lesson in finetuning how she hones or sharpens her attention to details.  Perhaps she or the FSMC owners should visit Pal’s and see what they’re missing.

In our town, missiles and rockets require the highest level of quality, because a misspelling or a disconnect between the console display and the actual reading onboard usually means the difference between life and death.

My wife is inclined not to visit this particular Wendy’s store again.  We hold nothing against the corporation or its stores in general.  But something about this particular store has always bothered us – slow or lackadaisical service, frequently, as if management is off playing golf or bass fishing, and the workers know it.

We challenge the general manager to prove us wrong, should my wife and/or I visit the store again.

UPDATE: After this story was relayed to my father, he reminded me he was the executive director of the National Center for Quality when he introduced the quality management info about Eastman to the Pal’s ownership/management, including Pal Barger, at Skoby’s Restaurant years ago.

Increase your hits by linking popular topics of the day

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So much to say, so little motivation to organise my thoughts today.

As long as officials in small countries that serve as tax havens can be easily bought and paid for, well…a supercommittee is practically useless and defenseless against such a system, n’est pas?

As long as highly-profitable speculation drives growth in one part of the world, the other parts will never succeed in corralling speculators.

Those are the problems.

What are the solutions?

See, life on Mars decades from now is no different than life on Earth today.

The full spectrum of muddied, transparent personalities exists outside of time.

Be an immigrant/artisan, you say?

Then take away the conveniences of modern life.

Until hardships or other means to provoke our competitive nature, our desire to feel alive, dominate, change is slow.

Molasses at the South Pole.

What did you expect to happen when an automated, robotised future freed us to enjoy leisure but took away our means of making a living?

Until the robots work for us, all of us, not just the automated factory owners, we live in a disjointed society/economy.

How do you spread the increase of productivity around?

My wife and I invested in the means of production via purchases and longterm holding of stocks, bonds and mutual funds.  That way, we capture some of the benefits of continuous productivity improvement.

We avoided the debt trap of purchasing objects which reach their depreciation to zero within a few years.

House paid for.  Transportation vehicles paid for.  You know the scenario – we did not leverage debt, ours or someone else’s, in order to speculate.

Yet, we have enjoyed artificially-fast portfolio growth because of speculators.  We have suffered artificially-fast portfolio decreases because of speculators, too.

That’s why our investments are spread across the globe, to capture differences in socioeconomic conditions.

Thus, our lives our intertwined with the richest and poorest of us seven billion sets of states of energy.

My wife participates in the office-style work environment.  I manage a visibly transparent network that feeds this blog/never-ending story.  Together, we, as past/present/future millionaires (in USD), have a keen interest in ensuring our global economy is relatively stable and free from control by selfish tyrants/hoarders.

Who are the selfish tyrants/hoarders?

They are the ones who gained wealth by high-risk speculating with the wealth/debt of others without providing a way to share the profit through dividends, stocks, bonds, mutual funds or other less/low speculative ways of channeling their hordes to wise, longterm investors.

What is the difference between high-risk speculators and low-risk speculators?

That, my friends, is a view that changes with the popular topics of the day; meaning, there is no easy answer to that question.

We hope you figure out how to enjoy the bounty of automation and increased productivity while some of us figure out how to define the constantly-changing difference between high-risk speculators and low-risk speculators and protect the wise investors from the wild, reckless ones.

That, in itself, is motivation to get out of bed every morning and compete in the marketplace of ideas to create a better future for all of us.

Why?

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Having worked in Ireland, I ask, “Why is the corporate income tax rate so high in the U.S.?” [by comparison]

Time to take a break.  There’s an issue that’ll take a few days to resolve.  See you on the other side of getting an answer.

To the driver of car with licence tag 47R96V8: pay more attention to the road and less attention to reading texts while driving.  The life you’ll save will hopefully be mine! 😉

The Game of Risk, Redux

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Here we are, in the future.

As we’ve seen before, it was a corporation that established colonies on Mars.

How did we get there?

Easy.

First of all, the U.S. Congress demonstrated the U.S. had no international power of its own, anymore, conceding and bowing down to the megaconglomerates that disapproved of setting tariffs on Chinese goods in response to China’s lack of concrete effort to let the yuan/USD exchange rate reach its true fluctuating market value.

After all, we’re dealing with reality here.  There’s no grassroots movement strong enough to get millions of people to force Congressional candidates to sign unbreakable promises on this issue or risk not getting [re]elected.

Sure, we have the potential start of a massive uprising, starting as they often do, in small-scale protests on the East/West Coast, but is there enough spark to light the flames of a full-scale US Autumn to rival the Arab Spring?

What is your desire – a) trying to repair the system we have, avoiding an undeniable double-dip, or) b letting chaos seep into the system and cracking it apart, destabilising market prices – stocks, foods, bonds, property, fuel – causing waves of riots over multiple chronic issues?

I get bored at times but do I want economic war on my doorstep?

Does the Lost/Unemployed Generation have the wherewithal to stand its ground against City Hall?

Does the Generation-In-Power have the foresight to make corporate/government policy changes that benefit the people in every socioeconomic level?

Meanwhile, I’m envious of deaf people and those with whom they use sign language.  They can talk at the table with their mouths full and be fully understood.

And what about those Martian colonies if the U.S. Congress believes in the words of Old Hickory, Andrew Jackson, showing that banks/corporations aren’t fully in charge, and risks starting a trade war with pending legislation?

The supercomputer predicts that price increases (the aftereffect of tariffs/duties) would have a marginal effect on the global economy if the U.S. takes a unilateral approach on this issue, pushing China to increase exports to other countries interested in buying cheap goods, and encouraging the Obama administration to push harder for NAFTA-like status for countries like South Korea.

Pebbles in a pond – frequency/amplitude shifts.

Bottom line: The COTS equipment on Mars will simply have a different “country of origin” mix – everything is the same, everything is different, mass and energy are conserved, or are they?

 

Has the fog burned off yet?

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A list of books piles higher in the house.

Piles of books rise higher, the reader reluctant to dive in during the warm summer months, content to lie down on the sofa in the sunroom, watch the world go by, snooze, check Nothing off the daily to-do list one more time.

So a book had to be moved into the bathroom to be read.

The writer – Geerat Vermeij.  The story – his life story, the story of a boy blinded by disease as a toddler and going on to become a successful scientist.

Other stories he has told: one explanation of the diversity in ocean systems, for instance.

Adaptation, competition, genetic drift, specialisation – more words with multiple meanings in our continuing conversation as the proverbial blind people standing in one place describing a single aspect/feature of an elephant.

However, we tend to wander around, observe from multiple locations, regardless of physical abilities.

I had vivid dreams last night, sparked by a challenge to myself to give the widest diversity of input to the supercomputer, network of hackers and business associates so they can help figure out what is wrong with the idea that our current economic problems can be solved by motivating people to consume more and take on debt in order to motivate them to work and pay off the debt, preferably revolving debt while consuming/buying more and more and more and more.

What if the produce/consume model is wrong, regardless of its implementation in societies that are primarily capitalistic or primarily communistic?

Setting aside religious objections to the model of life as evolutionary biology, what is the next revolution in the evolution of our born/eat/reproduce/sleep/die social interaction set?

While the BRICS presumably builds upon the old middle class stabilisation model, what can the EUSA do to establish a more successful model of sustainable species growth?

Do we throw out everything and start over; that is, foment revolution on a massive scale, disrupting the global economy to create something we hope, from our angle that only includes a detailed analysis of the past and a limited view of the future, is better in the longterm?

Or is it only a matter of shifting perceptions?

What was once, in this country, a democratic republic that partially regulated the capitalistic economic system, becomes a democratic republic that is controlled by a centrally planned capitalistic economic system?

In other words, people can still vote for legislators to write laws about our social behaviours, creating rewards and punishments for how we treat one another as individuals or perceived members of groups.   We separate the management of our economy from the government, voting with our money for the companies led and/or owned by those who dedicate themselves to plan the best allocation of resources – raw material, land, people.

What is the effect on an economy/society if more public roads became private toll roads?

What is the effect on an economy/society if other public services – schools, common defense (police/military), firefighting, social safety net (Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food assistance) – become privately managed, meaning you have to directly pay and/or work for the service(s)?

How do we promote love and compassion instead of selfish greed, hoarding and fear?

How do we provide a sense of stability rather than prey on insecurities?

With seven billion different behaviour sets (and growing), how many different ways must we describe the new tools we’ve created to ensure everyone understands we can have access to adequate sustenance, if we want it.

And if we or you don’t want it, that’s okay.  No system or systems will accommodate every want and need, no matter how inclusive it may try to be.

More later – the analysts who run the supercomputer are ready for input, the hackers have found a way to tap into more computer systems to increase the supercomputer’s virtual processing power, and my business associates…well, I can’t talk about what they want me to talk with them about right now.

Herding Humans, All Too Human, All Two Humans

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In a meditative trance/dream last night, I realised I had an email from an assisted living facility director that implicated him as an accessory to robbery in broad daylight.

In the old days, I would have used that email as leverage, a bargaining chip to maneuver the advantages of a deal in my favour.

But a deal is unnecessary in this case, because the use of leverage involves the police, mass media (“failing the newspaper test”), potential testimony, etc., for which I don’t want to waste my time.

So why do I mention the dream/trance if it is not real?

This question has no answer.

It is a metaphor, allegory, simile, tale, morality play, joke, theory, blog post inspiration.

An outward representation of my body’s processes at two in the morning.

Right in the middle of the changing times we call 2nd of September 2011 in many parts of the world.

As reluctant Comedian King of the Committee, I’m supposed to issue edicts on a daily basis.

But as a practical joking amateur philosopher/poseur, I disguise my edicts in fibs, fabrications and fables.

When we are our own gods, do we act with impudence, impotence, impunity or omnipotence?

Conscience or conscientiousness is a concept buried in our brain functions.

We may teach our children immutable laws, morals, ethics of our culture but their bodies are preprogrammed to act upon our teaching in ways we are often unaware (although basic observations of their behaviours as they grow up give us clues).

Thus, it is how they choose to occupy themselves in providing the necessities of human living upon which I focus my thoughts.

Their preprogramming tells me how easily they can accommodate the requirements for providing necessities – food, shelter, clothing – in pursuit of satisfying their higher brain functions.

Your immutable ideas tell me how they’re going to attempt to mimic their fellow humans while deciding to move into (or stay in) circles and subcultures of “most favoured” humans or stay in (or move into) less favoured subcultures and circles.

One can worship at the altar of the profit motive and also seek to maximise happiness of the human capital involved in gaining maximum favour from the God of Profitmakingtaking.

Either/or is a thought process of last resort.

We are far from the dire, desperate times that only “either/or” can rescue us from.

My high school prom date in Blountville, Tennessee, USA, and constant companion for a time in Knoxville, Tennessee, USA, now lives with her husband in Singapore, Singapore.  Nobody forced them into a deal to make that decision – they chose of their own free will, following the job abd lifestyle opportunities in a global marketplace.

A lesson in positive attitudes about changing times.

The moral to this story is self-explanatory.