Post by queue1114 on Oct 9, 2003 10:03:22 GMT -5
As a simple engineer, I write about what I see, and stick to the facts. I am not into debating opinion. I leave that to the politicians, as that’s what they are best at. Due to the alarming events of September 11 as well as other more subtle and numerous events recently in this country, I have been prompted to write down some thoughts on what has happened and what can be done if anything to correct, or at least slow down the propagation of the many problems we now face and will face in the days to come. I am no genius, and what I offer is not the end all to end all’s. I offer what I hope may be taken as simple common sense. The problem with common sense is that it is not so common. Anyway, here is a short treatise as to what has been happening, and what may be to come:
Shortage, or Sabotage?
There has been a furor in recent years about the supposed shortage of engineers (as well as other professionals) on the national level in the USA. Yet as a “high-tech” worker myself, I continue to see layoffs and down sizings. The corporate buzzword is “right sizing”. The first notion, which must be abolished, is the notion that the corporation is truly concerned with the welfare of its employ. While the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) has strict guidelines about non-pyramid schemes, it does not seem to extend to any entity with the letters “Inc” behind its name. Case in point:
I used to work for a large “blue chip” Company with the letters “Inc.” behind its name. As an engineer, I was one of the fortunate ones to receive a 3% annual “merit raise” for “doing a good job”. This, in an economy which saw a 4% increase in the cost of living. Let’s look at the figures:
1 person: President and CEO 28% raise.
Appx 10 people: Exec VPs 21% raise.
Appx. 100 people: Junior VPs 17% raise.
Appx. 1000 people: Corporate Directors 12% raise.
Appx. 10000 people: Senior managers 9% raise.
Appx. 20000 people: Managers 7% raise.
Appx. 50000 people: Supervisors/leads 5% raise.
Appx. 200000 people: Workers 3% raise.
Looks strangely like a pyramid scheme to me.
The American worker must realize and understand the following 3 things:
1) No Corporation will ever pay you what you are worth. The simple law of corporate economics dictates that they must make money off of what you do. If they don’t, they will go out of business, and you will be out of a job. So, they can never pay you what you are worth. Now, this is only a perception. In reality, they can pay you what you are worth. However, if you were paid what you were really worth, (from the CEO to the floor sweeper), the CEO would make much less money, and you would be making much more, with much larger raises. However, the corporate culture fosters the notion of undervalued workers and overvalued “stuffed shirts”.
2) You may “get away” with many things in the corporate culture in America, but you may never, never, NEVER cut into the bottom line. Especially if it means a cut in pay for the CEO.
3) You may never surpass the person above you when it comes to compensation.
One of the guidelines used to determine if a given economic model is a pyramid or not, is the ability of a bottom level person to surpass those above him in income. This was one of many tests put to those “multi-level marketing systems” that were so feverishly investigated in the 1970s and 1980s by the FTC. If there was no way for the person at the bottom to surpass the person at the top, it was deemed a pyramid, and was promptly put out of business, or forced to change. Yet there seems to be a double standard at work here. The “blue chips” are not given the same scrutiny, or so it seems. Interesting that when an economic model comes along designed to provide greater opportunity to the common man, it is given huge scrutiny, and usually forced to change or go out of existence, yet the old economic models of the corporation, designed to give only the privileged few the greatest of opportunity are lightly skimmed over or virtually ignored.
Now, how does this relate to the problems at hand? What one must realize is that the compensation of the CEO is related directly to the bottom line of the corporation. Adversely affecting the bottom line, adversely affects the compensation of the CEO, and you then will have great adversity. This fosters these powerful (read money, lobbyists, PACs) adversaries to go to Washington, to get laws, statutes and rules changed to favor them. Whether it hurts the worker, the country, or future generations, is not their concern. If it causes future problems, so be it – let someone else in the future clean up the mess that they made. By that time, they will be happily retired in some tropical island sipping Pina Colladas. As a result, their attitudes are: “So what”.
Many of these same powerful people sponsor foreign policy legislation which fosters interference in foreign countries, sometimes to the point of sponsoring coups to overthrow “corporate unfriendly” regimes, then installing “corporate friendly” puppet governments all for a corporation’s ability to rape the land of its natural resources and set up slave labor sweat shops all in the name of “bottom line profit”. Yet the common people of America wonder why there is so much hatred of America in the world. At the same time we have an army of occupation in (count them) 139 different countries around the world. I don’t see anyone else’s army occupying America, forcing their views, laws and morality on us. I don’t see any other country’s corporations raping our land of natural resources (our own corporations already did that). I don’t see outside corporations setting up sweat shops in our country (our own corporations did that in the nineteenth century which resulted in laws being enacted to prevent any further practices of that type). I wonder what kind of reaction that would foster from the American people if any of these things were to happen? Now is it clear as to why so many around the world hate America? Am I bashing the American people here? No, just the privileged few who make self-serving laws, rules and statutes. In no way do they represent the true spirit of America, or what it really means to be American.
Many of these laws, rules and statutes that are enacted favor mass immigration of professional workers (not only in the engineering professions). As these immigration laws are made more lax, more people of ill repute can enter our country legally. Many of these workers come from Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, Iran, Iraq, Libya…… Shall I continue, or do we get the picture? Understand that I am not saying that all people from these or other countries are of ill repute, but lets put things in perspective. It is a well-known fact that there are many who hate America and what it stands for in this world. It is also well known that there is a higher concentration of these people in the aforementioned countries. Terrorists are not stupid criminals. The person who robs a 7 eleven and leaves his license on the counter to later be identified by the police does not have the intelligence of a terrorist. He does not have the intellect to construct bombs out of common household chemicals, grow cultures of anthrax and smallpox, or to navigate and fly a 737 airliner. To have these abilities requires intelligence and usually a university education.
Continued - next post.
Shortage, or Sabotage?
There has been a furor in recent years about the supposed shortage of engineers (as well as other professionals) on the national level in the USA. Yet as a “high-tech” worker myself, I continue to see layoffs and down sizings. The corporate buzzword is “right sizing”. The first notion, which must be abolished, is the notion that the corporation is truly concerned with the welfare of its employ. While the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) has strict guidelines about non-pyramid schemes, it does not seem to extend to any entity with the letters “Inc” behind its name. Case in point:
I used to work for a large “blue chip” Company with the letters “Inc.” behind its name. As an engineer, I was one of the fortunate ones to receive a 3% annual “merit raise” for “doing a good job”. This, in an economy which saw a 4% increase in the cost of living. Let’s look at the figures:
1 person: President and CEO 28% raise.
Appx 10 people: Exec VPs 21% raise.
Appx. 100 people: Junior VPs 17% raise.
Appx. 1000 people: Corporate Directors 12% raise.
Appx. 10000 people: Senior managers 9% raise.
Appx. 20000 people: Managers 7% raise.
Appx. 50000 people: Supervisors/leads 5% raise.
Appx. 200000 people: Workers 3% raise.
Looks strangely like a pyramid scheme to me.
The American worker must realize and understand the following 3 things:
1) No Corporation will ever pay you what you are worth. The simple law of corporate economics dictates that they must make money off of what you do. If they don’t, they will go out of business, and you will be out of a job. So, they can never pay you what you are worth. Now, this is only a perception. In reality, they can pay you what you are worth. However, if you were paid what you were really worth, (from the CEO to the floor sweeper), the CEO would make much less money, and you would be making much more, with much larger raises. However, the corporate culture fosters the notion of undervalued workers and overvalued “stuffed shirts”.
2) You may “get away” with many things in the corporate culture in America, but you may never, never, NEVER cut into the bottom line. Especially if it means a cut in pay for the CEO.
3) You may never surpass the person above you when it comes to compensation.
One of the guidelines used to determine if a given economic model is a pyramid or not, is the ability of a bottom level person to surpass those above him in income. This was one of many tests put to those “multi-level marketing systems” that were so feverishly investigated in the 1970s and 1980s by the FTC. If there was no way for the person at the bottom to surpass the person at the top, it was deemed a pyramid, and was promptly put out of business, or forced to change. Yet there seems to be a double standard at work here. The “blue chips” are not given the same scrutiny, or so it seems. Interesting that when an economic model comes along designed to provide greater opportunity to the common man, it is given huge scrutiny, and usually forced to change or go out of existence, yet the old economic models of the corporation, designed to give only the privileged few the greatest of opportunity are lightly skimmed over or virtually ignored.
Now, how does this relate to the problems at hand? What one must realize is that the compensation of the CEO is related directly to the bottom line of the corporation. Adversely affecting the bottom line, adversely affects the compensation of the CEO, and you then will have great adversity. This fosters these powerful (read money, lobbyists, PACs) adversaries to go to Washington, to get laws, statutes and rules changed to favor them. Whether it hurts the worker, the country, or future generations, is not their concern. If it causes future problems, so be it – let someone else in the future clean up the mess that they made. By that time, they will be happily retired in some tropical island sipping Pina Colladas. As a result, their attitudes are: “So what”.
Many of these same powerful people sponsor foreign policy legislation which fosters interference in foreign countries, sometimes to the point of sponsoring coups to overthrow “corporate unfriendly” regimes, then installing “corporate friendly” puppet governments all for a corporation’s ability to rape the land of its natural resources and set up slave labor sweat shops all in the name of “bottom line profit”. Yet the common people of America wonder why there is so much hatred of America in the world. At the same time we have an army of occupation in (count them) 139 different countries around the world. I don’t see anyone else’s army occupying America, forcing their views, laws and morality on us. I don’t see any other country’s corporations raping our land of natural resources (our own corporations already did that). I don’t see outside corporations setting up sweat shops in our country (our own corporations did that in the nineteenth century which resulted in laws being enacted to prevent any further practices of that type). I wonder what kind of reaction that would foster from the American people if any of these things were to happen? Now is it clear as to why so many around the world hate America? Am I bashing the American people here? No, just the privileged few who make self-serving laws, rules and statutes. In no way do they represent the true spirit of America, or what it really means to be American.
Many of these laws, rules and statutes that are enacted favor mass immigration of professional workers (not only in the engineering professions). As these immigration laws are made more lax, more people of ill repute can enter our country legally. Many of these workers come from Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, Iran, Iraq, Libya…… Shall I continue, or do we get the picture? Understand that I am not saying that all people from these or other countries are of ill repute, but lets put things in perspective. It is a well-known fact that there are many who hate America and what it stands for in this world. It is also well known that there is a higher concentration of these people in the aforementioned countries. Terrorists are not stupid criminals. The person who robs a 7 eleven and leaves his license on the counter to later be identified by the police does not have the intelligence of a terrorist. He does not have the intellect to construct bombs out of common household chemicals, grow cultures of anthrax and smallpox, or to navigate and fly a 737 airliner. To have these abilities requires intelligence and usually a university education.
Continued - next post.