Category Archives: Society

When Change Won’t Occur

In one of my first posts, I spoke about change and how people and companies handle it.  We can see now that a vast majority of the people want the status quo to change but they are afraid that it simply won’t.  The people who didn’t vote for Obama seem to have forgotten the recession was a long time in coming, that it was his fault.  His supporters blame him for the fact that he hasn’t lived up to their ideological standard.  Everybody is expecting change, in the economy, in politics and it appears it may not show up anytime soon.

Now loom darker clouds on the horizon-the dread double dip recession (key thunder-clap and spooky pipe organ music).  I don’t agree.  I don’t know if it could be called optimism or pessimism, but tend to agree with Larry Doyle’s assessment.  We can’t be entering a double dip because we haven’t really come out of the first phase of the recession. Continue reading

Jobs, Productivity, Investment

Whenever politicians talk about Americans and the jobs they do, they always mention that the US has the highest productivity rate in the world.  You would think this would be a good thing, right?  I guess that all depends on who you are looking at and what you consider the roll of business to be.

One would think that as productivity rose, the workers who were being more productive would be able to see a greater increase in their wages.  After all, If production increases while sales remain constant, then those things produced, whether goods or services, are going to cost less.  This means increased profits for the business owners.  But wages have not been linked to tremendous advances in technology that have made American workers as productive as they are. Continue reading

Jobs, Jobs, Whose got the jobs?

Everybody is wondering where the jobs are?

Every time you see a story about why more hiring isn’t going on, the reporters always seem to be talking to this or that manager of a major investment firm.  The lead figures of these investment firms always begin talking about companies levels of uncertainty, with Washington, with debt crisis in Europe, instability in the markets.  See this.

But why aren’t they talking to the guy who owns the hardware shop down the road,  or the steam cleaning service, or the dog grooming/boarding company or the widget manufacturer or any of the thousands of small business across the country that employ the vast majority of Americans.  It isn’t because they can’t get loans; loan requests by business are down.  And who needs a loan when American businesses are sitting on bucket loads of cash? Continue reading

Two Tax Plans

Given all the rhetoric about spending and what not over the recent debt ceiling rise debate, I thought that I would put forth two ideas I have to fix the tax code.  Both of them are fairly simple to implement and for the individual taxpayers to understand.  Here they are.

Tax Plan 1-The Tea Party Tax Plan:

This plan eliminates all taxes, federal, state and local, no income tax, so sales tax, no property tax, even the ‘death’ tax is gone.  It cuts out all fees and regulation costs.  The individual and businesses are able to keep 100% of what they earn. Continue reading

Respect or Courtesy

Let me be as clear as possible straight from the start:

I don’t owe anyone respect. Continue reading

What’s in a Name: Football & Gridiron

Words often change meaning as time passes and people use them in different ways.  After all, “awful” used to mean full of awe–not any more.  This is natural, after all, language is alive, just like those who use it.  Because of this, I am suggesting a change in our language, what a word means.  I think it is time we change the name of American football to gridiron.  Then, we could actually call football the same thing that the rest of the world does (sorry, I don’t use that “S” word). Continue reading

Change: The Singular Constant-Part 3

Frank Zappa said, “Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible.”  If the reactionaries had their way, we would still be huddled in caves fearful of fire whenever it occurred naturally.  The idea of change makes a lot of people nervous.  In the 1970s, the implementation of the Clean Air Act was going to ruin businesses and the economy with all of its regulations.  Quite the opposite happened, though.  All this time later, we hear the same arguments about moving away from green house gases.  I know that it will advance opportunities for both new technologies and businesses.  Opportunities are not constant, though, and the leaders of an organization need to be able to see change coming and deal with what happens. Continue reading

Change: The Singular Constant-Part Two

There have been a great many changes witnessed by human beings, some better than others.  Here I would like to look at a few items or events throughout history and how different peoples reacted to them.  The first on this list is the printing press. Continue reading

Change: The Singular Constant-Part One

This exploration of change will be conducted in three parts.  Part one will look at how change affects people.  Part two will explore some historically important changes and how they were handled.  The third part will show the result of an organization incapable of dealing with change; that is, groups either being unable or unwilling to take the necessary steps to adapt to the elements of what is changing. Continue reading

How Civilized do You Want to Be?

In the 1970s the FDA carried out, on average, around 10,000 inspections per year.  During the fifties, sixties and seventies the interstate system and the national power grid were constructed, numerous schools and universities built amongst many other projects that changed the way people lived, communicated and traveled for decades to come.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Supreme Court Justice, said that “taxes are the price we pay to live in a civilized society.”  Continue reading