Martini Rambles

We all know the economy is getting tough, not just for business, but for the individuals that work for these companies. So, this begs the question, when must large corporations change their focus from share holders and quarterly profits first, to employees and the nations economy as a whole first?

Let’s take a look at the big picture. When economic times are good there is generally enough to go around for all. Companies make good profits, share holders get good returns on their investments, and employees generally get raises and bonuses. As times get lean, companies do contract and try to become more efficient in how they do business which is understandable. This would entail controlling costs by reducing excess spending, some layoffs, and general tightening of the belt.

But now let us look at the state of the US economy at this point in time. We see these items mentioned above being done, but let us look at the affect of what is happening with the larger layoffs being announced in the news. Who does this impact, the economy and the employees that have made the profits possible for these companies?

I will now place Hewlett Packard in the spotlight. Once, this company was the shining star of corporate ethical standards that everyone aspired to be like. HP use to place a high burden on its suppliers, employees, and management to be head and shoulders above the rest. It placed its employees and customers first, stock holders second. For those of you who don’t remember this, take the time to read the book, “The HP Way” by Dave Packard. By doing this Bill and Dave knew that their employees would make the best possible products and that the customers would buy them because they were the best, and the profits would take care of themselves. The proof of their concept was demonstrated in how the company grew and profited. But over the past decade the whole corporate concept of putting employees and customers first has gone by the wayside. Now quarterly profit for the stock holders has become the main focus with lip service given to a quality product for our customers. This I speak of from experience as I have been involved with support at HP since 1995 so I have a bit of knowledge to draw from.

Now let’s put these topics together to paint the paths that are available to HP and other large corporations in the US. HP stated a $9.6 billion profit for 2007, a 10% increase over the previous year. With this the company was still eliminating jobs to make it more efficient. Now in 2008 the company is still eliminating jobs to keep the growth rate as high as possible for the stock holders. But we now see that the entire US and world economy is heading for a recession. It is quite possible that the 10% growth of last year might turn into a 10% decline next year. What will the CEO and board do? Will they still insist on company growth by the elimination of more jobs? This might keep the stock holders happy, but at what expense? Let’s look at the ripple down affect of these job reductions. The entire economic melt down started from people (people just like you and I) that became unable to afford their houses. There is a lot of blame there to go around but that is a whole separate subject. Houses got foreclosed, values went down, and banks got burned. As a result, people quit purchasing non essential items, like HP printers. Well with that, HP has reduced its workforce more to reduce its cost, putting these people in peril of loosing their houses. This is with the main goal of keeping the double digit growth that our CEO is demanding going, and to keep the stock holders happy. Can you see the picture emerging now?

Now comes the tough part. Does our CEO and the leaders of other major corporation say to the world, its time to spread around the pain? With the economic writing on the wall we know we are in a recession, things are going to get worse before they get better, do we do what is right for the country, or do we stick to placating the stock holders? Not all companies are in the position of HP to suck up losses for the short term. But when they are, should they “take one for the team” like they have been asking their employees for several years now? Or do they just add more people to the unemployment line just to keep stock holders happy? Do they keep the people employed who made these profits in the past possible, or dump them on the street as unwanted baggage? By keeping these people employed they are doing what is right for the country, these people will keep their houses, keep affording to purchase items, like HP printers, and not be an added drain to the economy. Well someone is going to have to loose, who should it be? If large companies keep firing people everyone looses, even stock holders as people continue loose their houses and the economy sinks further. Or can companies say to stock holders, you must take the back seat now because our employees and the country are more important at this time then your profits. Keep the people working and in their homes, give them the ability to purchase your products, and your profitability will come back sooner. Many companies including HP think that new emerging markets are where the future lays. They forget one major issue, where the US economy goes, so goes the world. Asia will fall flat on its face if the US goes into a full blown recession, so where is our new emerging market then?

Now is the time for HP and other leading corporation to actually do something, lead! Quit being “industry standard” and be the business leaders, tell stock holders, times are rough and the people that make your profits possible are more important then you at this time. It will not be easy, it will take far more courage to face the stock holders and do the right thing then it does to fire some faceless employee. But if companies do this, it will have a far more profound effect on the entire economy then any government backed economic stimulus package could ever hope to have. This is a challenge to all US CEOs, face your stock holders, tell them my employees are more important then you right now, Its our job to keep the US economy going, I’m sorry, you have to wait your turn.

A Republican congressman from Georgia said Monday he fears that President-elect Obama will establish a Gestapo-like security force to impose a Marxist or fascist dictatorship.

WASHINGTON -- A Republican congressman from Georgia said Monday he fears that President-elect Obama will establish a Gestapo-like security force to impose a Marxist or fascist dictatorship.

"It may sound a bit crazy and off base, but the thing is, he's the one who proposed this national security force," Rep. Paul Broun said of Obama in an interview Monday with The Associated Press. "I'm just trying to bring attention to the fact that we may -- may not, I hope not -- but we may have a problem with that type of philosophy of radical socialism or Marxism."

Broun cited a July speech by Obama that has circulated on the Internet in which the then-Democratic presidential candidate called for a civilian force to take some of the national security burden off the military.

"That's exactly what Hitler did in Nazi Germany and it's exactly what the Soviet Union did," Broun said. "When he's proposing to have a national security force that's answering to him, that is as strong as the U.S. military, he's showing me signs of being Marxist."

Obama's comments about a national security force came during a speech in Colorado about building a new civil service corps. Among other things, he called for expanding the nation's foreign service and doubling the size of the Peace Corps "to renew our diplomacy."

"We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we've set," Obama said in July. "We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded."

Broun said he also believes Obama likely will move to ban gun ownership if he does build a national police force.

Obama has said he respects the Second Amendment right to bear arms and favors "common sense" gun laws. Gun rights advocates interpret that as meaning he'll at least enact curbs on ownership of assault weapons and concealed weapons. As an Illinois state lawmaker, Obama supported a ban on semiautomatic weapons and tighter restrictions on firearms generally.

"We can't be lulled into complacency," Broun said. "You have to remember that Adolf Hitler was elected in a democratic Germany. I'm not comparing him to Adolf Hitler. What I'm saying is there is the potential."

Obama's transition office did not respond immediately to Broun's remarks.

By Jimmy Orr, 10.14.08

Want to set a conservative’s hair on fire? Just mention redistribution of wealth and watch the fireworks. It happened Sunday when Barack Obama was canvassing a neighborhood in Toledo, Ohio.

Fox News cameras were there and captured the conversation (which is now all over the Web) between a self-employed plumber named Joe Wurzelbacher and Obama.

More taxes?

Wurzelbacher explained that by working hard (10-12 hours a day) he was in a position to buy a business. If he bought a truck and expanded the business, he wondered if his success would be greeted by a penalty in the form of higher taxes.

“Your new tax plan is going to tax me more, isn’t it?” Wurzlebacher asked.

“It’s not that I want to punish your success,” Obama explained. “I just want to make sure that everybody who is behind you, that they’ve got a chance for success too. My attitude is that if the economy’s good for folks from the bottom up, it’s gonna be good for everybody … I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.”

The common good

Spread the wealth around. That can mean many things. It could mean a rising tide lifts all boats. But it could also mean government taking from one group of people (the people who earned it) and giving it to those who did not.

This is what Obama detractors are saying his tax plan is all about. And many are wondering why the McCain campaign isn’t being more vocal about this. They contend Obama’s policy proposals are damning enough. Forget Bill Ayers, they say, go after his policy.

The Journal

In the context of the Democratic nominee’s conversation with the plumber (video below), many blogs are linking to a Wall Street Journal column yesterday that charges that Obama’s tax plan isn’t what it sounds. They say it’s a big gimmick:

One of Barack Obama’s most potent campaign claims is that he’ll cut taxes for no less than 95% of “working families.” He’s even promising to cut taxes enough that the government’s tax share of GDP will be no more than 18.2% — which is lower than it is today.

It’s a clever pitch, because it lets him pose as a middle-class tax cutter while disguising that he’s also proposing one of the largest tax increases ever on the other 5%. But how does he conjure this miracle, especially since more than a third of all Americans already pay no income taxes at all? There are several sleights of hand, but the most creative is to redefine the meaning of “tax cut.”

For the Obama Democrats, a tax cut is no longer letting you keep more of what you earn. In their lexicon, a tax cut includes tens of billions of dollars in government handouts that are disguised by the phrase “tax credit.” Mr. Obama is proposing to create or expand no fewer than seven such credits for individuals.

No preconditions

Not surprisingly, the McCain campaign agrees with that assessment in a sarcastically toned statement:

“If Barack Obama’s goal as President is to ’spread the wealth around,’ perhaps his unconditional meetings with Hugo Chavez, Raul Castro, and Kim Jong-Il aren’t so crazy — if nothing else they can advise an Obama administration on economic policy,” a McCain spokesman told Fox News.

Agreed

Investors Business Daily calls Obama’s tax proposals straight up “socialism.”

John McCain is reportedly considering a broad, simple capital gains tax cut. An across-the-board cut would be a real middle-class rescue, focused on generating new private sector employment — the proven way of “spreading the wealth around,” a concept which Obama, with his deftly disguised socialism, cannot grasp.

By Elizabeth MacDonald
New details in a report on the collapse of Bear Stearns released by the Office of the Inspector General overseeing the Securities and Exchange Commission shows how dangerously lax the SEC’s oversight of Wall Street really was.

It also gives damaging evidence that the SEC’s hands-off approach helped cause the credit bubble to dangerously inflate.

Specifically, the Inspector General’s report, which is based on internal SEC memos, shows that the SEC did little to stop a debt load that has decimated Wall Street and caused an historic market crisis that is remaking the entire U.S. financial system.

The Inspector General’s report, now on Sen. Charles Grassley’s Web site, provides fresh detail on the SEC’s laidback oversight of Wall Street. It comes as the government has enacted a massive $700 bn bailout plan.

More than three times that sum is being pumped into the markets by the Federal Reserve, as Wall Street’s disastrous foray into subprime derivatives has caused the profits earned during the bubble, as well its capital, to go up in a puff of smoke.

“The SEC Inspector General found that officials responsible for monitoring the safety and soundness of our nation’s largest investment banks ignored red flags and risky behavior,” Sen. Chuck Grassley said in a statement. “Those institutions are now gone or re-organized and our financial system is in crisis. As [SEC] Chairman Christopher Cox said himself, the program was an utter failure.”

The Republican Iowa senator has already asked a top government watchdog to find out why the Enforcement Division of the Securities and Exchange Commission declined to bring a case last year against Bear Stearns for improperly valuing mortgage-related investments (see June blog “Did the SEC Miss Warning Signs at Bear Stearns?”)

The SEC has said that it applied the appropriate international standards for holding-company capital adequacy in a conservative manner, but that, despite its best efforts, Bear could not withstand a run on the bank.

To avoid broad market panic and disarray, the Fed stepped in last March to orchestrate an eleventh hour merger between JPMorgan Chase (JPM: 39.44, -0.30, -0.75%) and Bear Stearns, with the Fed agreeing to take onto its books $29 bn in bad assets from Bear Stearns in order to get JPMorgan to agree to the deal.

The March 14 takeover of Wall Street’s smallest yet one of its most recklessly run firms was a bellwether event in the credit meltdown.

What Exactly Happened at Bear Stearns

The Inspector General’s report lays out what exactly happened at Bear Stearns prior to its implosion.

At the time, Bear Stearns, which ran one of the country’s largest clearing operations, was the Street’s biggest player in the mortgage-backed bond market. By the time of its collapse, it had taken on too much water by keeping on its books hundreds of billions of dollars in mortgage bonds backed by subprime assets.

However, the report shows how the SEC did nothing to get Bear Stearns to pare back its business in this area and to boost its capital cushion, as Bear steadily leveraged itself up to a terrifying 33 to one capital ratio–meaning, for every $1 of assets, it was swamped with $33 in debt (the figures do not include off-balance sheet debt.)

The problems uncovered by the SEC’s Office of the Inspector General were reported by Bloomberg, which noted that the SEC initially issued a censored report. Grassley’s office has put up an uncensored version of the report on its website.

This story provides fresh detail.

The SEC had allegedly removed a section of the publicly distributed report showing that its Division of Trading and Markets, which oversaw Wall Street, knew Bear Stearns’s capital ratio had dropped to 11.5% in March from as high as 21.4% in April 2006.

Ten percent is the minimum standard under international banking regulations. Capital ratios measure the amount of cushion a firm has as a percentage of its risk-weighted assets.

For the whole story: http://emac.blogs.foxbusiness.com/2008/10/21/the-report-the-sec-doesnt-want-you-to-see/

So, we were told a decade ago that the world was heading for a new global economy that would help everyone prosper. Now 10 to 15 years later we are living in this new global economic market where America manufactures almost nothing, sends the majority of our money to countries that hate us. We send billions to China where slave labor is still used to produce junk we think we need. We send trillions to the Middle East for oil, to countries that want to see our way of life destroyed. The middle class of America that once was the back bone of this great country is loosing jobs to countries because the men at the top make their money by sucking the collective balls of Wall Street.
Do I sound a bit angry? Hell yes, I work for a large, use to be high tech company that has been sold out by it’s CEO to India, China, and places like Viet Nam. I won’t mention our CEO’s (Mark Hurd) name, or the company, (Hewlett Packard), but working for this company since 1995 I have seen it go from one of the top ten companies to work for in the US, to not even being in the top 100. Why? Greed from the slime at the top. I met Dave Packard when I first started working here, he was an inspiration to the people who worked for him, and he never worked to please Wall Street. He worked to please his customers and employees. But now long dead, I’m sure he has turned in his grave so much that he has worn it out from what he sees in America now, and not just in his company. HP has gone from a leader in innovation, to a "me too" crap made in China wholesaler. Mark Hurd said he can’t find talented engineers in the US, so he fires the ones he has and hires incompetent ones in India and China and slaps the HP brand on their stuff. Why because you, the American people want cheep!!! So as this once great country turns into the next third world nation remember, you put people like Mark Hurd into their positions by demanding cheep products and instant return on your money from Wall Street. So after your job gets out sourced to some peasant overseas, and you are whining about not having any money to get the new cheep crap you demanded, remember whose fault it really is, yours! Before it’s too late, get your head out of your ass and demand from your government and corporations, America comes first, even if you have to dig a little deeper in those empty pockets…

NEW YORK, New York — Anheuser-Busch gave him six figures, Colgate-Palmolive shelled out $50,000 and Macy's and Pfizer have contributed thousands to the Rev. Al Sharpton's charity.

Almost 50 companies - including PepsiCo, General Motors, Wal-Mart, FedEx, Continental Airlines, Johnson & Johnson and Chase - and some labor unions sponsored Sharpton's National Action Network annual conference in April.

Terrified of negative publicity, fearful of a consumer boycott or eager to make nice with the civil-rights activist, CEOs write checks, critics say, to NAN and Sharpton - who brandishes the buying power of African-American consumers. In some cases, they hire him as a consultant.

The cash flows even as the US Attorney's Office in Brooklyn has been conducting a grand-jury investigation of NAN's finances.

A General Motors spokesman told The Post that NAN had repeatedly - and unsuccessfully - asked for contributions for six years, beginning in August 2000.

A sermon last Friday by a prominent Muslim cleric and Hamas member of the Palestinian parliament openly declared that "the capital of the Catholics, or the Crusader capital," would soon be conquered by Islam.

The fiery sermon, delivered by Yunis al-Astal and aired on Hamas' Al-Aqsa TV, predicted that Rome would become "an advanced post for the Islamic conquests, which will spread though Europe in its entirety, and then will turn to the two Americas, even Eastern Europe."

"Allah has chosen you for Himself and for His religion," al-Astal preached, "so that you will serve as the engine pulling this nation to the phase of succession, security and consolidation of power, and even to conquests through da'wa and military conquests of the capitals of the entire world.

"Very soon, Allah willing, Rome will be conquered, just like Constantinople was, as was prophesized by our prophet Muhammad," he added.

Al-Astal last June preached how it was the duty of Palestinian women to martyr themselves by becoming homicide bombers.

"The most exalted form of jihad is fighting for the sake of Allah, which means sacrificing one's soul by fighting the enemies head-on, even if it leads to martyrdom," he said in a June 23, 2007 interview.

Wow, I never would have believed it, the Dems have the next election in the bag and what are they doing? Cutting each others throats!! I love it, if both Hillary and Obama would just keep their collective mouths shut; one of them would kick MacCane aside and be sitting in the oval office. But no!!! Slam, slam dig up dirt and toss the poo. Are you surprised? I’m not, look at who we are dealing with, a Clinton, lie, cheat, deny, stab, stab. And Obama, “no, I wasn’t raised as a Muslim” and who’s pastor of 20 years says Jesus was a “poor black child”. These two idiots, which almost half the idiots in the US want to be president, would rather tear the party apart and self destruct then do anything positive. Gee, now wouldn’t you want one of them as president now, just think of what they would do to our country if they had a chance!!!

It is so sad to see the man who wants to lead the most powerful country in the world stand there and apologize to people for the fact that someone speaking along side him    (Bill Cunningham) used Barack Hussein Obama’s middle name. Why? Because he is afraid he might “offend” someone. Get a grip, people offend people, and if someone is offended by their middle name, too bad. The press and now John MacCane seem to want to hide the fact Obama was born a Muslim. Is that something that should be hidden? I don’t think so, it doesn’t make him a bad person, but it shows how weak John MacCane is…

 My fellow Identity-Americans. As your future president I want to thank
 my supporters, for their... well, support.

 Your mindless support of me, despite my complete lack of any legislative
 achievement, my pastor's relations with Louis Farrakhan and Libyan
 dictator Moamar Quadafi, or my blatantly leftist voting record while I
 present myself as some sort of bi-partisan agent of change.
 I also like how my supporters claim my youthful drug use and criminal
 behavior somehow qualifies me for the Presidency after 8 years of
 claiming Bush's youthful drinking disqualifies him. Your hypocrisy is a
 beacon of hope shining over a sea of political posing.

 I would also like to thank the Kennedy's for coming out in support of
 me. There's a lot of glamour behind the Kennedy name, even though JFK
 started the Vietnam War, his brother Robert illegally wiretapped Martin
 Luther King Jr. and Teddy killed a teenage girl. And I'm not going
 anywhere near the cousins, both literally and figuratively.
 
 And I'd like to thank Oprah Winfrey for her support. Her love of
 meaningless empty platitudes will be the force that propels me to the
 White House.

 Americans should vote for me, not because of my lack of experience or
 achievement, but because I make people feel good. Voting for me causes
 some white folk to feel relieved of their imagined, racist guilt.
 
 I say things that sound meaningful, but don't really mean anything
 because Americans are tired of things having meaning. If things have
 meaning, then that means you have to think about them. Americans are
 tired of thinking. It's time to shut down the brain, and open up the
 heart. So when you go to vote in the primaries, remember don't think,
 just do.

 And do it for me.   

 

 And perhaps it could also be an investment for - ‘Hope and Change’ - of some sort ???

 (After all, you did it for Jimmy and Billy)

 

 Thank You.

Here it is 7 months to the general election, Wow, this is enough to make me want to go watch mold grow. Looking at our choices just makes me want to crawl into a hole and say the hell with it. First off, I’m a republican, and a moderate right conservative just to let you know where I’m coming from. But to look at what the republicans have to offer makes me want to hurf… John MacCane is about as republican as Barbra Boxer, so, no one on the right to vote for. That leaves me with what the democrats have to offer, again, hurf!! We know what Hillary is; she already ran the country for 8 years, so again, nope. Well, one last choice, Mr. Obama, This would be interesting because no one has a clue as to what this man would do. The press won’t talk about his upbringing at all, not PC you know, they might be called raciest, Islam phobic or something along that line. So what the hell, this man might be the best thing for this country. If he is as much of a socialist as he looks, he might revitalize the Republican Party better then anything they could ever think of. Imagine, 4 years of a true socialist!! This country would see a true nationalistic movement like it has never seen before! It might take us 10 years to recover and fix the damage, but I think it would be some good medicine to stop the rampant liberalism that is infecting our nation…

So as far as I’m concerned, GO OBAMA!!!

The name Hewlett Packard brings many images to mind, Quality, Honesty, Top American Employer. All of these things were true, at one time, unfortunately, not any more. In the past decade HP has been taken over by the same robber baron mentality that has infected most of the former top US companies. Many of you have heard these stories time and time again, jobs moved over seas, freezes on wages, jobs eliminated all in the name of cost cutting. Wall Street loves this, stocks sky rocket, at first all looks fine to the outside world, like a rotting potato pristine on the skin, black and hollow on the inside. To top it off, as HP boasts of record profits to the world, Mark Heard, the COE informs his employees HP won’t be giving any raises. At the same time, Mark cashes in on $200 mil of HP stock he had in options. Between Mark Heard and other top HP officials, over $2 billion worth of stock had been cashed out. Today the story is obvious, a very few rape and destroy a great company at the cost of its employees and customers.

With liberals whining about the war, because it’s the US’s fault that radical Muslims don’t like us, whining about the poor illegal Hispanics disserving all the rights, and welfare that Americans have, and how mean big business is to the people of these great United States, I have a solution. Elect everyone that is one the ballot!!

I am so fed up with trying to convince these brain dead pie in the sky folks what the reality of pulling out troops out of the middle east would do, like, full collapse of the region, loss of oil reserves, collapse of world economies, chaos and war not seen since WWII. So, as a conservative, registered republican, (whom are no longer conservative), I have a solution. Give the liberals exactly what they want, elect Obama and every liberal on the ballot you can. Let them pull our troops home, socialize medicine, grant amnesty to all illeagles, and sit back and watch. In 4 years true nationalists will be back in charge with a vengeance!!!

Wow, here it is, the super bowl is over, less then 2 weeks till Daytona 500, I can tell the days are getting longer, and ever better, here in the North West it's getting above 50 degrees!! Before you know it we will be swimming in the pool, playing darts out at the Tiki Bar, and bitchhing about how hot it is... But for right now, I can't wait for the hot days of Summer, I'll take being forced into sitting in the pool with an ice cold Martini in my hand complaining about getting sun burned.... Ahhh, what a life. Day by day it gets closer, until then, I can look at sunny pictures.

See ya all later....

Wow,,, So here it is 2:30 in the F%$#n morning, am I in bed sleeping? hell no, my eyes popped wide open, my brain going 100mi a min, so I'm sitting here typing this garbage...

Well, anyway, yesterday was a very cool day here in Molalla. We don't get snow here very often, but yesterday was one of the rare times. We got a good snow, 3in I'd say, and looking out the window right now, we got another inch at least during the night. Well hell, it's still night and looking at the radar we are going to get some more before the sun comes up. No work today, at least no driving in. I'll just work from home. Thank goodness for the internet. As soon as I figure it out, I'll post a movie of the snow and the neighborhood playing again. It actualy felt good seeing the few neighbors we have left all out talking to one another. Well, James didn't say much again, but we have all got use to that. We will see if the morning brings us more snow, maybe we all can get out there and enjoy it once again... night all...