You know what really pisses me off about the GOP? It's really nothing more to me than a simple matter of life and death. It's the hypocrisy of the party's stance on life. Most GOPers and the party line is to be "pro-life" (e.g. responsible for telling women in America what to do with their bodies and when to do it even though most of them trying to make such laws are older, caucasian males). I'm referring to their stance on abortion of course - they are pro-life, as in all life has value. Yet at the same time, this is the party that would rather laugh than help out a neighbor and their family who are dying. Remember the GOP debate? Remember the laughs and applaud from the crowd? These people do not value life. I might not be sure what they value, but it certainly is not life.
First and foremost of our inalienable American rights is "life", as in "Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness". This is not a "gift" from either party, but as our forefathers saw, from our basic human and humaneness - an essential right of all American citizens. So how can or did this basic concept of Americanism fall to laughter at a GOP/TeaParty debate? How is it possible that we've fallen so far from ourselves and our essential American"ness", our American moral character, that our forefathers would never recognize what we've become? I'm sure they'd applaud the increase in rights for all Americans, regardless of our origins, religious beliefs or financial status. But at the same time they'd be disgusted with us for putting the value of a dollar over the life of a neighbor.
The gross hypocrisy of the GOP/TP stance on being pro-life as long as it doesn't cost anything is a gross injustice to Americans everywhere. It doesn't matter where you personally fall on the matter. In very simple terms, if you side with today's GOP/TeaParty, you are supporting and endorsing this position and value money more than life. The GOP tactic of fiscal accountability at the cost of the most vulnerable of Americans, the poor, the old and the handicapped is not what we are about. We are people, we are humans and as Americans we all share the same right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and those that would deem to take any of that away from us are our mortal enemies and enemies of the people. There can't be anything more anti-American than that and I call on all citizens everywhere to protect the rights of every single American by doing the right thing and telling the GOP that we won't sit idly by while our most needy citizens are ignored and swept under the rug. Vox populi, vox dei. (Latin for the voice of the people is the voice of God).
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
AIG & Bonus Payouts - or how to fail in banking without even trying
One biggie on my personal list of gripes is transparency - specifically, had we (the people, the ones who bailed out AIG et.al.) known that TARP funds were going to pay bonuses to persons at AIG who managed to sail the ship into the iceberg, would we have been so interested in bailing AIG out? Personally, I'm big on performance - maybe it's a military (ex-Army) thing but I do believe the same principles apply in business. The concepts are fairly simple, promote those who deserve it based on performance; reward or award those deserving of special recognition; never hand out awards or rewards to those not deserving - not ever. Simply put, the fault doesn't lie in those who would be the recipients of the bonuses - they were smart to agree to them in the first place if they could sleep at their desks and still get a bonus. Rather, the fault lies in those responsible for setting up a bonus hierarchy that rewards or awards less than stellar (yes, you are detecting irony here) performance. To point the finger one layer deeper, those who didn't ask AIG what they were going to do with the TARP funds, in great detail, should fall on their respective swords for failing us.
Who's brilliant idea was it, at AIG, to reward those with bonuses as the company tanked? (e.g. under "contract" as they are alleging since they must be paid to avoid litigation). Was this person or persons responsible for obscuring this while asking for the handout?
As we (we, as in we the people) are now, at least in theory if not in practice, 80% owners of AIG, I want the heads of those individuals responsible (to clarify, those individuals responsible for doling out bonuses to anyone at AIG while the company tanked) to roll and roll far. I want their names posted across America. I want to see their financial dealings and histories, particularly their dealings with political parties and lobbies. I want them barred from ever practicing their professions again - were they doctors and they performed like this, they'd lose their license to practice medicine. Were this the military, these individuals would either be at Ft. Leavenworth in jail or would have gotten promoted (y'know the old Army adage - 'eff-up, move-up').
If we had known, in advance, how far the rot in the tree had gotten, would we really have spent as many taxpayer dollars trying to revive it as we had or would we have let business run it's Darwinian course with the strong surviving and the weak dying off? In emergency medical triage, we save as many as we can of those that are that can be saved - those that would take up so many resources as to cause otherwise recoverable persons to die/lose limbs/lose sight, we mark as last in the list, pray they make it until we can get to them, and move on. It's a sometimes brutal process - we always want to save as many as we can, but never at the expense of the others we could almost definitely save. It's not a perfect process, but it does work. To me, it makes sense that this set of principles apply to AIG and others. I know, I know - hindsight is typically 20-20, but - didn't anyone ask AIG what they were going to do, in very great detail, with $30 b as in billion more taxpayer dollars? This isn't rocket science after all!
I hate to point fingers, but in all honesty, those who would slow the process of economic recovery due to their own political interests over the interests of the country (so far, at least, seemingly mostly Republicans) are causing further injury to our patients (using the analogy of patients, the first rule of medicine is "do no harm"). I have no problems with oversight, rather, I insist on it (and using the methods transcribed would be a brilliant start) - but one man at Treasury can't do it by himself and the GOP needs to get with the program. Transparency only works if we have sufficient eyes to look through the veiled deceipts and machinations of the greedy.
Finally, this is first and foremost about greed and money and who can get the most of it; right now, all the general public (particularly those who need it most) is getting the worst of it.
I'm not a financial expert, but it doesn't really take much more than a modicum of common (somewhat uncommon these days) sense to see that you don't give out medals to the officers of the ship that drive it into an iceberg and cause it to sink.
Now, I've just heard that the AIG employees who face the loss of their bonuses are threatening to use AIG inside secrets against them to further drive down the value - if this isn't criminal, it sure as hell should be!!! As I said, this is about money and greed and people will do almost anything for more money - just wait and see how bad this actually gets.
All I can say is, you gotta be kidding me!
Who's brilliant idea was it, at AIG, to reward those with bonuses as the company tanked? (e.g. under "contract" as they are alleging since they must be paid to avoid litigation). Was this person or persons responsible for obscuring this while asking for the handout?
As we (we, as in we the people) are now, at least in theory if not in practice, 80% owners of AIG, I want the heads of those individuals responsible (to clarify, those individuals responsible for doling out bonuses to anyone at AIG while the company tanked) to roll and roll far. I want their names posted across America. I want to see their financial dealings and histories, particularly their dealings with political parties and lobbies. I want them barred from ever practicing their professions again - were they doctors and they performed like this, they'd lose their license to practice medicine. Were this the military, these individuals would either be at Ft. Leavenworth in jail or would have gotten promoted (y'know the old Army adage - 'eff-up, move-up').
If we had known, in advance, how far the rot in the tree had gotten, would we really have spent as many taxpayer dollars trying to revive it as we had or would we have let business run it's Darwinian course with the strong surviving and the weak dying off? In emergency medical triage, we save as many as we can of those that are that can be saved - those that would take up so many resources as to cause otherwise recoverable persons to die/lose limbs/lose sight, we mark as last in the list, pray they make it until we can get to them, and move on. It's a sometimes brutal process - we always want to save as many as we can, but never at the expense of the others we could almost definitely save. It's not a perfect process, but it does work. To me, it makes sense that this set of principles apply to AIG and others. I know, I know - hindsight is typically 20-20, but - didn't anyone ask AIG what they were going to do, in very great detail, with $30 b as in billion more taxpayer dollars? This isn't rocket science after all!
I hate to point fingers, but in all honesty, those who would slow the process of economic recovery due to their own political interests over the interests of the country (so far, at least, seemingly mostly Republicans) are causing further injury to our patients (using the analogy of patients, the first rule of medicine is "do no harm"). I have no problems with oversight, rather, I insist on it (and using the methods transcribed would be a brilliant start) - but one man at Treasury can't do it by himself and the GOP needs to get with the program. Transparency only works if we have sufficient eyes to look through the veiled deceipts and machinations of the greedy.
Finally, this is first and foremost about greed and money and who can get the most of it; right now, all the general public (particularly those who need it most) is getting the worst of it.
I'm not a financial expert, but it doesn't really take much more than a modicum of common (somewhat uncommon these days) sense to see that you don't give out medals to the officers of the ship that drive it into an iceberg and cause it to sink.
Now, I've just heard that the AIG employees who face the loss of their bonuses are threatening to use AIG inside secrets against them to further drive down the value - if this isn't criminal, it sure as hell should be!!! As I said, this is about money and greed and people will do almost anything for more money - just wait and see how bad this actually gets.
All I can say is, you gotta be kidding me!
Monday, March 16, 2009
Microsoft Getting Stimulus Funds? You Gotta Be Kidding Me!
Originally from Friday, March 13th, 2009
http://www.businessinsider.com/microsofts-memo-to-temps-your-10-pay-cut-is-effective-march-2-2009-2
Merry Christmas, Happy New Year - Yadda yadda yadda - here ya go!
Microsoft, in the middle of laying off up to 5,000, is cutting the rate of it's Allegis Group (e.g. TekSystems and others) temporary (read: contractors, consultants and the like) employees by 10 percent as of March 2d. Further cuts of up to 15 % more are expected. This from the firm that says there aren't enough qualified IT professionals in America to do it's work (is that, um, dirty work or ?). At the same time, Microsoft is enjoying the fruits of it's labors by a direct benefit of the Stimulus Spending Bill - 11 million dollars is going to build "a bridge to Microsoft" - Ballmer or Gates probably have that much lying around in last year's swim trunks, so why build a bridge to Microsoft who is cutting it's U.S. employee population (yet, still hiring overseas?!?!?!?!?!?!) and while they are cutting the rate of it's non-employee's? Smells like a ton of pork in the bill if you get my drift. If it looks like pork, smells like pork, tastes like pork, then it's probably pork. The only stimulus Microsoft is creating now are overseas jobs while they trim the fat and paychecks of Americans. Way to go Microsoft - my Red Hat's off to ya! On a more somber note, Microsoft's lawyers - Screwy, Do'em and How gave themselves a fat raise.
http://www.businessinsider.com/stimulus-package-contains-11-million-bridge-to-microsoft-give-away-2009-3
Oh and, by the way, guess what happened to Microsoft's dividend? It's up 2 cents a share (to 13 cents a share) from this time last year.
http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-sets-its-dividend-up-from-last-year-2009-3
Me? Hell, I'd tie the 11 million bucks to them keeping those 5,000 employees or giving them their jobs back and giving the consultants, who take crap from everyone almost all the time, a raise! Now, that would be stimulating. Despite Microsoft spending 34 million on the roadway/bridge to Microsoft project - I do salute them for that - I don't see how injecting 11 million more dollars of federal stimulus money IS NOT a pork barrel project. What could any one of us do to stimulate the economy with 11 million dollars? Maybe they should start charging the foreign markets (China in particular) what they would charge one of us for say, Windows Server 2008 instead of the few bucks they do charge for it.
It's too bad that there's nobody else in the world who can make and deploy a (decent) handheld to desktop to server to enterprise operating system that doesn't require a brain surgeon to operate, maintain and keep healthy (yes, I have had Macs - recently even - and also Linux boxes - while I love the sleek elegance of Apple products, it doesn't justify the mark-up to me - and most Linux distributions are not ready for Joe six-pack). If you're into the tech stuff, even a little, and have multiple pc's (or Windows devices or a Mac) check out Microsoft Mesh https://www.mesh.com/Welcome/default.aspx - if nothing else it will stop you from e-mailing stuff (where stuff equals pictures, documents, databases, Outlook.pst files and the like) to yourself just so you can have it wherever you login.
Cheers,
P.S. - has anyone tried Twitter yet? It's micro-blogging and it's fairly addictive - a position I was applying to for Search Engine Optimization required that you have an account on Facebook (yep, had one), MySpace (yep, have one of those too) and Twitter (didn't have one just yet but set one up last week). Please let me know your id or if you do sign up, locate me (dshiggins) and click on the follow button. I don't recommend joining unless you have a little time to kill as it's fairly addictive. Ciao!
http://www.businessinsider.com/microsofts-memo-to-temps-your-10-pay-cut-is-effective-march-2-2009-2
Merry Christmas, Happy New Year - Yadda yadda yadda - here ya go!
Microsoft, in the middle of laying off up to 5,000, is cutting the rate of it's Allegis Group (e.g. TekSystems and others) temporary (read: contractors, consultants and the like) employees by 10 percent as of March 2d. Further cuts of up to 15 % more are expected. This from the firm that says there aren't enough qualified IT professionals in America to do it's work (is that, um, dirty work or ?). At the same time, Microsoft is enjoying the fruits of it's labors by a direct benefit of the Stimulus Spending Bill - 11 million dollars is going to build "a bridge to Microsoft" - Ballmer or Gates probably have that much lying around in last year's swim trunks, so why build a bridge to Microsoft who is cutting it's U.S. employee population (yet, still hiring overseas?!?!?!?!?!?!) and while they are cutting the rate of it's non-employee's? Smells like a ton of pork in the bill if you get my drift. If it looks like pork, smells like pork, tastes like pork, then it's probably pork. The only stimulus Microsoft is creating now are overseas jobs while they trim the fat and paychecks of Americans. Way to go Microsoft - my Red Hat's off to ya! On a more somber note, Microsoft's lawyers - Screwy, Do'em and How gave themselves a fat raise.
http://www.businessinsider.com/stimulus-package-contains-11-million-bridge-to-microsoft-give-away-2009-3
Oh and, by the way, guess what happened to Microsoft's dividend? It's up 2 cents a share (to 13 cents a share) from this time last year.
http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-sets-its-dividend-up-from-last-year-2009-3
Me? Hell, I'd tie the 11 million bucks to them keeping those 5,000 employees or giving them their jobs back and giving the consultants, who take crap from everyone almost all the time, a raise! Now, that would be stimulating. Despite Microsoft spending 34 million on the roadway/bridge to Microsoft project - I do salute them for that - I don't see how injecting 11 million more dollars of federal stimulus money IS NOT a pork barrel project. What could any one of us do to stimulate the economy with 11 million dollars? Maybe they should start charging the foreign markets (China in particular) what they would charge one of us for say, Windows Server 2008 instead of the few bucks they do charge for it.
It's too bad that there's nobody else in the world who can make and deploy a (decent) handheld to desktop to server to enterprise operating system that doesn't require a brain surgeon to operate, maintain and keep healthy (yes, I have had Macs - recently even - and also Linux boxes - while I love the sleek elegance of Apple products, it doesn't justify the mark-up to me - and most Linux distributions are not ready for Joe six-pack). If you're into the tech stuff, even a little, and have multiple pc's (or Windows devices or a Mac) check out Microsoft Mesh https://www.mesh.com/Welcome/default.aspx - if nothing else it will stop you from e-mailing stuff (where stuff equals pictures, documents, databases, Outlook.pst files and the like) to yourself just so you can have it wherever you login.
Cheers,
P.S. - has anyone tried Twitter yet? It's micro-blogging and it's fairly addictive - a position I was applying to for Search Engine Optimization required that you have an account on Facebook (yep, had one), MySpace (yep, have one of those too) and Twitter (didn't have one just yet but set one up last week). Please let me know your id or if you do sign up, locate me (dshiggins) and click on the follow button. I don't recommend joining unless you have a little time to kill as it's fairly addictive. Ciao!
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