It seems that fast-food restaurants are experimenting with local job outsourcing as The Charlotte Observer offers this report.
"Companies began trying remote ordering in 2005. As with outsourcing in other industries, technological advances -- namely high-speed Internet -- made it possible. When customers pull up to the menu, a call center worker takes the order on a computer. The order pops up on a screen inside the restaurant.”
Despite the number of technology companies developing order taker outsourcing solutions, the use of them so far is not widespread. Others have tried centralized order-takers within the st="on"United States, and it is observed that one potential reason for not implementing these outsourced solutions may be “they've found it difficult to prove it saves money.” The article notes other companies who have experimented with limited trials including the parent company of Hardee's. Representatives of Burger King and Taco Bell said they have not tried it and don't plan to at this point. Pizza call center solutions are particularly hot right now, according to this article about a leading provider of call center and online restaurant ordering services that has signed a contract with a New York style pizza chain in st="on"Colorado. Given the nation's high unemployment, if these order taking outsourced solutions have possibly failed to prove cost savings, why the push to take away these jobs from local citizens and hand them to “dedicated restaurant ordering call center call centers”, many which then contract the jobs out to cheaper workers as far away as India? The article also cites a local st="on"Charlotte mother's fast-food order outsourcing experience, as she describes the practice as “an awful lot of trouble” and wonders what the rationale for outsourcing these jobs is all about. She relays her outsourced order taking experience here:
"I had noticed it [several months ago], but I just thought the person taking the order was somewhere else in the store where we couldn't see them," said Elizabeth Banks, a Charlotte teacher and mother of three who takes her 15-year-old daughter and her daughter's friends to Jack in the Box for Oreo milkshakes most Friday afternoons. "It never occurred to me they might be out of the country."
At one point the girls asked the order-taker, "Where are you?" There was a pause, Banks recalled. Then, the person on the other end said, "st="on"Texas."
"I really don't think that's where they were," Banks said.
If outsourcing fast food order taking jobs to people in other countries proves to be unsatisfactory and unprofitable, will common sense thinking prevail? During this country’s economic downturn, employing our citizens first is key to rebuilding our local economies. Whether fast food chains seek to outsource order taking or not is a secondary question, but the imperative, first question should be “if so, why not staff U.S.call centers with U.S.citizens locally instead of sending those jobs to st="on"Indiaor hiring H-1b employees to replace them?”Quality and trusted customer service matters. As this Customer Management Insight article explains, whether you’re referring to the work of individuals or communities, call centers are catching on. The article notes that the big trend that John Boyd, president of site selection consultancy Boyd & Company (Princeton, NJ) observes is a “a return to quality.” The author explains:
“You’ve got to create value beyond the operational savings,” he says. That value comes from productivity, which entails a lot more than reducing labor costs."
Tower of Hilarious, Blathering Babel: A Mel ToastNY Times Exclusive
“Does President Obama’s plan for closing Guantánamo adequately addressing security concerns?”- The New York Times
Breaking News
Chicago, IL - The infamous New York Times is not only known for its celebratory commentariat of thrasonical screedsters and bathycolpian plagiarists but also for its editors who haven’t the faintest idea about correct English language verb tense agreement.
-- Does these editors speaking English?
-- Does Pinchy find this terrifying abuse of the English language amuse or did he fired all the copyeditors?
-- Does the Mexican dude who invested Big Peso in the paper laughingabout this limicolous tower of Babel called the United States of America? Hahahahahaha… Read today’s NY Times headline below:
Room for Debate Obama’s Blueprint and America’s Enemies By THE EDITORS Does President Obama’s plan for closing Guantánamo adequately addressing security concerns?
Alright. Big deal. Somebody is having a bad day at the NY Times and truth be told, these embarrassing slips happening everywhere.Ignore this rant and carrying on.
Mayor Rallies Municipal, School Employees to Purchase Detroit Big 3 Vehicles
Warren, MI - A suburban Detroit, MI mayor whose city is home to two General Motors Corporation facilities and two Chrysler LLC plants is expanding his efforts to get people to buy American cars.
Mayor Jim Fouts tells the Detroit Free Press and The Detroit Newsthat he wants municipal and school officials in the region to require their staffers to buy Detroit Big 3 vehicles. This week, more than 200 letters were mailed to Detroit-area cities, townships and school districts to prompt residents to buy American vehicles.
“Over the summer, Fouts issued an executive order calling on his appointees to buy the Detroit Three's vehicles. And he's now in talks with union leaders to expand that policy to other city workers.
Fouts also wants to lure GM's headquarters from downtown Detroit to Warren.”
As thisDaily Tribune articlealso reports, the Detroit area appears to have a champion for the working class in Mayor Fouts, as he also supported a local rally to back the Big 3 and buy American products back in January.
President Obama’s ambitious pushfor revamping automobile design en masse to improve fuel efficiency standards and to reduce CO2 emissions is underway, raising challenges for American car manufacturers to compete with Japanese designs along with a few “green” contradictions. For example, claiming to “go green” for buying a brand new Toyota Prius hybrid is in some ways counterproductive to saving the environment. Not that the goal is not worthy. While hybrids release less CO2 emissions than the average gas guzzling sedan or truck on the road, manufacturing new cars still requires the use of vast amounts of nasty chemicals used in paints, mercury, petroleum as water becomes polluted. Another significant factor is the huge amount of dwindling, precious, natural minerals necessary to produce the steel. But the most significant contradiction is the push for American automotive manufacturers whose management chooses to offshore their development for cheaply manufactured cars and then ship them back to the U.S. consumer to pay comparatively through the nose for.
So why not just build the damn things here and reduce the massive, marine cargo polluting emissions? 2009 is the year of the Great American Hybrid Rollout, asthis Hybridcars.com reporttakes a closer look at what’s under the hood of the Ford Fusion and Mercury Hybrids:
“Hybrid versions of the Ford Fusion and Mercury Milan are expected in 2009. Ford’s first hybrid sedans will use a 2.5-liter engine to yield 200 horsepower. The entire 2009 Fusion lineup will receive a design refresh, including new headlines and front grille and a complete redesign of the interior. More importantly, the cars will return 39 miles per gallon on the EPA city cycle, said chief engineer J.D. Shanahan, and highway mileage “at least 6 miles a gallon better than Camry Hybrid”—which would be 40 mpg or higher. This beats the mileage for the 2008 Camry Hybrid, at 33/34 (city/highway). Other impressive statistics for the Fusion Hybrid include pure electric speeds as high as 47 miles per hour, up to 2 miles of continuous electric-only driving, and a range of 700 city miles on one tank of gasoline.”
As long as cars are used by millions of Americans who spend on fuel to drive across town to the mall to buy Nike apparel made in Indonesian sweatshops and then on to the grocery store to buy food items shipped from China, cutting out overseas shipping emissions by producing goods locally is one first step toward rebuilding local economies. Spare the air, spare a job? OK. So polluting plants are still a problem and toxic emissions scrubbing technologies are in demand, but why should the Chinese take all the credit for being the world’s greatest polluter?
Anotherannouncement today reveals that Ed Montgomery,Obama’s “director of recovery for auto communities and workers” will be in Detroit next week to meet with local leaders and hold a workshop on how to apply for federal Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grants. The report states that earlier this month, Montgomery visited Flint, Warren, Grand Rapids and Detroit for meetings with officials and community leaders.
Detroit area residents are fortunate to have a champion of workers’ rights like Mayor Fouts, who is serious about improving labor conditions for the residents in his local community as Detroit’s Big 3 evolve to step up to the challenge of 21st century car design production standards.
But for those concerned about the near to long term environmental impact of hybrid batteries’ toxic waste in the landfills who are trying to recapture the “glory days” of sporty cars gone-by, there’s always the revival ofthe most successful of the neo-classic pony cars, the 2010 Chevy Camaro.
-MoDo aka Maureen "the perp" Dowd with Victim, Josh Mashall-
Breaking News
Huffington Post - This Huffpo updateconfirms sordid details that New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd admits that she "lifted" a paragraph in her Sunday column from Talking Points Memo editor Josh Marshall's blog last Thursday.
Memo to MoDo: It's always better to lift a line than to blow one, or far worse, flush one.
-Brocade CEO Mike Klayko on Routing and Switching Deal with IBM-
"I say I say, boy, I'm the dog and you're the chicken."
-Foghorn Leghorn-
Why Punish Brocade CEO with Unfair Foreign Earnings Taxation?
Brocade CEO Mike Klayko’s interesting OpEd in Sunday’s San Jose Mercury News entitled Tax on foreign earnings punishes Silicon Valley innovators offers an insider’s glimpse into the gross disparities between the American CEO mindset and the dying breed of American white collar professionals who are being kicked to the curb by U.S. corporations for cheap imported labor. While his article ignores the dirty secret of 21st century corporate profiteering otherwise known as The Cash Cow of Indian Outsourcing, Mr. Klayko raises an important question about President Obama’s s plan to hike taxeson income generated by corporations outside the United States.
In this article, Klayko argues that while the Obama administration is correctly targeting corporate tax abusers with its attempt to close loopholes and shut down tax havens,“it fails to make important distinctions among “tax cheats, tax dodgers and entrepreneurs.” (If you’re like most people and see the above three descriptions referencing a corporation, you’d chalk this up to redundant.) Obama’s proposal plays to populism appeasment and not to true corporate tax reform.
In the spirit of community, we like Mike. So we’re here to be part of the solution. Yours truly offers a sure-fire fix to the problem he has in my recent article where I propose a winning solution: Let’s not tax companies AT ALL but in exchange, let’s BRING BACK the top tax bracket to 90% to get rid of THE DOUBLE TAXATION PROBLEM.
Although his article does not mention the H1-B offshoring/inshoring disease that afflicts many U.S. CEO’s, there is little reason to doubt Mr. Klayko isn’t at least so far straying from the herd mentality, based upon his involvement with the Silicon Valley Leadership Group. However, I do have to agree with him that indeed, Obama’s tax proposal may not at all be the most expedient way to spur innovation and create jobs for Americans, although not for the same reasons. Why?
Neil Reynolds provides an overview on Obama’s myth of foreign tax breaks with this Globe and Mail Update that explains how jobs for U.S. citizens may fall by the wayside as multinationals search the globe for the lowest tax breaks:
“President Obama is proposing to levy a $210-billion tax increase (over 10 years) on U.S. corporations that operate through foreign subsidiaries – making them, by and large, the (nominally) highest-taxed corporate entities in the world. This will be negative for the United States, potentially terrific for Canada. Beginning soon, major U.S. corporations can be expected to move head offices to Toronto and Calgary to take advantage of the lowest corporate tax rates (by 2012) in the G7. In the end, Obama will have ensured neither revenue nor jobs.”
On the face of it, Obama’s underlying assumption is that foreign investments harm American workers and that this tax code will somehow discourage corporations from moving offshore. Haha! As Mr. Reynolds points out, Obama’s plan is no cure for millions of American citizens being pink slipped or for guaranteed increases in revenues at home. Short of some kind of divine intervention from our nation’s president, only CEO’s like Mike Klayko can stop that. In addition, conflicting reports even suggest there is growing evidencethat U.S. companies' foreign investments will increase at home as they would expand the administrative and R & D infrastructures at their U.S. based headquarters. If that’s true, then why are millions of American professionals continuing to lose their jobs to imported foreign labor?
Most notably, Klayko’s article ignores the vital role of the social contract(h/t Rob Sanchez) between U.S. citizens in the management/labor equation and CEO’s of our nation’s corporations as they abandon educated Americans by importing H-1B visa and immigrant workers without conscience in pursuit of profiteering at the expense of American citizens who have invested heavily in their educations and careers.
Looky here, son, I'm no loud-mouthed schnook…Not unlike the loud, Southern rooster, Foghorn Legorn who, while teaching his son to play ball in the street explains the difference between dogs and chickens, Mr. Klayko confidently establishes his unilateral, eminent worth to labor by comparing the entrepreneurial role of CEO to that of a farmer who takes it upon himself to “grow the food and supply it to grocery stores” below:
“Entrepreneurs and multinational companies, such as Brocade Communications Systems, are like farmers who grow that food and supply it to grocery stores. We do this by investing in the land, cultivating the soil (here and abroad) and coming up with new ideas on how to grow the best crops while employing thousands for the harvest.”
OK. So Brocade doesn’t really get its hands dirty farming rice or potatoes so what does it actually grow and supply for the rest of us in the sticks outside of the boardroom? Investments abroad! Why, that giant sucking sound is the wind that Joe “white collar” Taxpayer is left to consume while CEO’s reap bazillions, collectively, courtesy multinational tax loopholes and global human slave trade labor “investments” or imported cheap labor schemes. The good news is that this problem can be fixed, if only CEO’s would admit that they are powerless over the promise of profits gained through outsourcing American jobs and vow to change. Change we can use!
The critical question yours truly raises to CEO’s like Mike Klayko is this:
Obama and his tech lobby sponsors and promotional pitchmen are asking us to give up our addiction to cheap, foreign oil. Can they give up their addiction to cheap foreign labor?
Does Klayko’s farmer analogy to “investing in the land” and “cultivating the soil here and abroad” and “coming up with new ideas on how to grow the best crops” suggest that American citizens need CEO’s who ship our jobs overseas or is he the exception to the rule? Does he envision a pig pile of unemployed Americans stacked to the skies like rotting grain in silos as vital to improving the lives of multinational, corporate communities? So far, this whole hot, smelly, flat world globalization thing has been working out just fine for a few global elites, so why would Obama and his corporate tax plan want to upset the apple cart? Answer: he doesn’t.
Without addressing CEO responsibility to the social contract, the American CEO is, accordingly, the farmer and the educated American is the old, rotting head of cabbage discarded to the dung heap of our country’s tragic history.
Gee, how about that for sustaining the growth engine of corporate America? U.S. educated citizenry can serve as fertilizer on the scorched earth of corporate America. Smart planning!
And who exactly is Mr. Klayko purportedly looking to employ? “Employing thousands for the harvest”?What harvest? Whose thousands? Where? Is he a breakaway CEO who finally gets that putting citizens who have invested in our local communities first for jobs is the key to sustainable growth? Or does he pine for more cheap, imported labor, swallowing the tech-lobby party line that useless educated Americans are a nation of sacrificial hillbillies, ostensibly too unworthy and stupid to cling to jobs and healthcare?
We can solve this problem for CEO’s like Mike Klayko through restoring the top income tax bracket at 90% and through reinvestment in our local economies by rehiring our citizens and putting them first. Until U.S. CEO’s want to take the bull by the horns and start investing in our own communities again and stop throwing educated American workers and their families under the John Deere tractor, articles like this one are grist for the woodchipper.
Government Loses Faith in Politics, Seeks Old Time Corporate Religion
Pass the Buddha!
With so much heartfelt, transcendental demand from the Democrats for our President to do the right thing on healthcare, jobs, and the economy, now that Obama’s First One Hundred Days have finally come to and end, the Second Hundred Days are going swimmingly:
4. Harmless, shadowy “think tank” Bilderberg group to meet in Greece this weekend, receives goat-flu shots, plot strategy to annihilate American workers...
5. Shadowy, "unofficial but real president" Al Gore joins Cheney-Obama feud… isn’t it the job of VP’s to attend state funerals?...
7. WEALTHCARE NOT HEALTHCARE official Obama administration slogan as the insurance lobby backed President (who once promised to never "shy away from a debate about single payer”) puzzles columnist David Sirota:“Obama aides are trying to squelch any single-payer discussion, deploying their health care point-person, Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., to announce that "everything is on the table with the single exception of single-payer."
“The banks, frankly own the place.”-Democratic Majority Whip Dick Durbin
In his article entitled Who Rules America?Paul Craig Roberts answers that the military/security lobby, the financial gangsters, and AIPAC rule America. How is it that “the same financial gangsters whose unbridled greed and utter irresponsibility have wiped out half of Americans’ retirement savings, sent the economy into a deep hole, and threatened the US dollar’s reserve currency role” keep getting elected and Americans do nothing to stop them?
Despite it all, a majority of “the people’s representatives” voted as the discredited banksters instructed. Roberts explains what motivate$ our elected “representative$” to wage war on America’s middle class:
“It is not difficult to understand why. Among those who defeated the homeowners bill are senators Jon Tester (Mont), Max Baucus (Mont), Blanche Lincoln (Ark), Ben Nelson (Neb), Many Landrieu (La), Tim Johnson (SD), and Arlan (sp) Specter (Pa). According to reports, the banksters have poured a half million dollars into Tester’s campaign funds. Baucus has received $3.5 million; Lincoln $1.3 million; Nelson $1.4 million; Landrieu $2 million; Johnson $2.5 million; Specter $4.5 million. The same Congress that can’t find a dime for homeowners or health care appropriates hundreds of billions of dollars for the military/security complex. The week after the Senate foreclosed on American homeowners, the Obama “change” administration asked Congress for an additional $61 billion dollars for the neoconservatives’ war in Iraq and $65 billion more for the neoconservatives’ war in Afghanistan. Congress greeted this request with a rousing “Yes we can!”
Banksters = bad. Check. Politicians = bad. Check. Greedy corporate overlords = bad. Check. So now what? One Big Money Party. Check. It’s easy to complain about them, and apparently impossible to stop them. This is why millions of Americans voted for Nader, knowing that Obama, as Roberts explains, is insulated from the issues that face the majority of Americans and that this presidency means a present and future life of “leisure” for him and his family as he carries out his handlers’ war on the American middle class for personal gain. He will end his term a much wealthier man at the expense of our citizens’ lives and livelihoods. Is this what he was elected for?
So who’s ruling America? They are. Unless, of course, everyone FINALLY stops electing these faux “representatives of the people” and starts taking up Naomi Klein to Fire the Bosses.
(Phil Lesh, Bob "Monopoly Mustachio Man" Weir, and Warren Haynes)
-THE DEAD-
I hope everyone had a nice Mother's Day yesterday with your families, to celebrate and/or remember your moms. I wish I could have spent time with my loving mom who died much too soon. Instead, I got my second wish.
Mine was spent with family and friends at a sold out Grateful Dead concert at Shorelinewhere the band played all night. (Make that "The Dead"). They blew the tent off of this magical open air, outdoor theatre. This was the band's first appearance in five years, and the show was unf**king believably so incredible that I'm going back for the second show this Thursday for another round of signature DEAD aural bliss (not that the light show was chopped liver). The first act was typically good, all loosey-goosey, warm up. But by the second act, the band was done with the suble jazzy stuff and ready to play tight and loud.
The most amazing second set below KICKED ASS:
"Unbroken Chain"; "The Other One"; Drums/Rhythm Devils/Space segment; "Sugaree"; "Gimme Shelter"; "Sugar Magnolia" Encores: "St. Stephen"; "The Eleven"; "Touch of Grey"
I haven't seen The Dead since Jerry died and couldn't imagine anyone filling his shoes, an impossible act to follow, but this new band is a keeper. The set opened with my all time favorite, Phil Lesh's "Unbroken Chain" where Ratdog keyboardist Jeff Chimentitook Keith Godchaux'splace on the keyboards (Before Keith died, he was the original pianist on the sleeper "Unbroken Chain" with the album recording From the Mars Hotel) and played this complex, hauntingly beautiful tune that's filled with a myriad of changes and unusual minor chords, along with a funky bridge.
When the band then opened into "Gimme Shelter", the place lost it. Not getting one's hands on this outrageously awesome recording ought to be a crime. Allman Brothers/Gov't Mule lead guitarist Warren Haynes was the lightning strike of the second set's encore when he rocked out with Bobby and Phil doing "St. Stephen" and "The Eleven" in time-warp time - seamlessly interweaving shades of "Whipping Post" into these two Grateful Dead treasures.
Did I forget Mickey? The god of drums needs no introduction. Now I remember why I loved this band so much and went out of my way to see them. Life is too short not to spend time with the second coming of The Dead.
Chicago, IL - By now you’ve all heard about the KFC/Oprah free-chicken-dinner-with-a-coupon-flap, as Big Chicken plucks and feathers America’s favorite talk show diva. What’s all the clucking about? Ms. Winfrey dared to help feed struggling people in this down economy by publicly promoting a giveaway of KFC chicken dinners to anyone who could download a coupon from the internet all across the country. Natural News offers this account:
“KFC suppliers cram birds into huge waste-filled factories, breed and drug them to grow so large that they can't even walk, and often break their wings and legs. At slaughter, the birds' throats are slit and they are dropped into tanks of scalding-hot water -- often while they are still conscious. It would be illegal for KFC to abuse dogs, cats, pigs, or cows in these ways.KFC's own animal welfare advisors have asked the company to take steps to eliminate these abuses, but KFC refuses to do so. Many advisors have now resigned in frustration.”
You know, the above description of these chickens bears a striking resemblance to at least a few inbred, large and drugged copywriter’s I know who are crammed like birds into our waste-filled cubicles where we are sequestered to the basement level, albeit with elevator access given the lousy shape of our legs -- which might explain why the brass encourages us to forego the stairs and use the company Segway for McD.’s lunch junkets…
Why is Oprah taking heat for trying to help the poor and needy? Can't they cop a free chicken dinner? Her's is the rare rags to riches story that personifies everything that this country used to stand for, before it started roasting its own. If there is one woman in our media’s 24/7 celebrity fishbowl who could use her much-earned pulpit to rally progress for American citizens, it is Oprah. What is her secret for getting overpaid movie stars to jump on her couch?
Throughout her life, this exceptional woman has pulled herself up by the bootstraps and courageously jumped through life’s rings of fire, the sort that would melt many amongst us (even if she does live mostly in Santa Barbara). The KFC coupon squawking is nothing but a witch hunt in a hen house,a stalking rooster to conceal the shortage of disabused poultry, you know, the relatively few by comparison, organic, free range regalia…which wouldn’t turn a profit for the Titans of Big Foul.
Don’t flame Ms. Winfrey while Big Chicken goes unscathed. She tried to help poor people eat. And for all the speculation as to why she would find herself in this pickle, don't worry. The woman is a marketing and promotional genius, who understands how to deploy her gift of media prowess to usher in positive, progressive change through the backdoor. Even if it does raise the cost of a KFC Grilled Chicken Meal.
Only before you read the rest, go to your partners and other s.o.’s and shout from the rooftops: “Pigs Don’t Kill People. PEOPLE KILL PIGS!” Don’t think about it. JUST DO IT…
Anyway, Kansas rocks! Championing the cause for porcine equality and justice in my unofficial Pigs for Peace Movement (that so far, George Clooney has yet to provide a celebrity endorsement) is a Pig Farmer in Kansas,Mr. Ron Suther. Unlike those slaughtering Egyptians in Cairo who committed mass swinocide by waging a jihad on hundreds of thousands of innocent Pigs,Farmer Ken is even banning visitors from his sow barns and is making the maintenance workers, delivery men and other strangers report on recent travels and any illness before they step one foot on his property. National Pork Producers chiefveterinarianJennifer Greiner rallied around our cause by making sure that U.S. pork producers are doing everything they can to make sure that the new H1N1 virus, known around the world as the "swine flu," stays out of their herds:
"There is no evidence of this new strain being in our pig populations in the United States. And our concern very much is we don't want a sick human to come into our barns and transmit this new virus to our pigs," said National Pork Producers chief veterinarian Jennifer Greiner. "If humans give it to pigs, we don't have things like Tamiflu for pigs. We don't have antivirals. We have no treatment other than to give them aspirin," said Greiner.”
Some of you may remember my conversion to Islam last year here. But after the Muslims in Cairo launched their jihad on hundreds of thousands of defenseless, Egyptian Pigs, I pulled out my prayer rug, got down on my knees and wailed “Why, Allah, why? How could you allow this mass swinocide? Give us an apology, some kind of a sign by appointing a new Prophet – not Barack, since he refuses to veto the porkwhile prefering to cling to the Iberian ham…maybe somebody from Kansas -- who will redeem our faith once again in your divine mercy.” And do you know what? Allah DID by delivering us Farmer Ken.
One thing suspicious is that farmers were warned by some industry wonks and other veterinarians to
“step up their biosafety protocols, keeping pigs in barns behind security fences with access by any outsiders extremely limited.”
Uh-oh. (Could they be talking about a stealth ‘Gitmo’ for Pigs?) . . . . . . . . . .
“Behind security fences”? “Access to outsiders”? Hmph. I’d better call up Mr. David Sirota who just wrote about Pigs here but didn’t name any names and compare notes. Maybe he will courageously face off with me on Blogging Heads TV in a porcine game of one-swinemanship called NAME THAT PIG. (Want to bet on who’ll win, everybody?) Anyway, Mr. David Sirota also said that “Pigs are supposed to be the smartest animal” and do you know what? He’s right. (Maybe we can get him instead of George Clooney to endorse our movement.)
Although my Pigs for Peace Movement (recently delivered a blow) is woefully underfunded just like the FDA, you can send an email to 2Truthy with your PayPal or credit card number in support of lodging/travel, food, entertainment and gambling expenses along with the occasional hush money necessary to conduct this undercover stealth mission into smoking out who’s behind this diabolical One World Plan to extink the Pig from our planet.
During the World's Fair of 1893 hosted in my hometown city of Chicago (known as The ChicagoWorld's Fair or The World's Columbian Expositionwhich was held on the lakefront) there was this historic meeting of world religions known as the Parliament of the World’s Religions. It claimed to be the first of its kind in history. I could believe it. I don't know of any such conference since the circumnavigation of the world was accomplished - not that I've been paying attention.
Anyway, apparently, it is an important event for Hindus, as a Swami gave an address famous to this day. One hundred years later, in 1993, another such conference was held in Chicago, commemorating the first one where Swami Vivekananda gave an historic address:
“The eloquence of Swami Vivekananda and his introduction of Hinduism thought to the United States are particularly remembered. The speech has been identified by many to mark the beginning of western interest in Hinduism not as merely an exotic eastern oddity, but as a vital religious and philosophical tradition that might actually have something important to teach the West.[4][5] The opening line, "Sisters and Brothers of America...", was greeted by a three minute standing ovation from the audience of 7000.[6] "Sectarianism, bigotry, and its horrible descendant, fanaticism, have long possessed this beautiful Earth. They have filled the earth with violence, drenched it often with human blood, destroyed civilization, and sent whole nations to despair. Had it not been for these horrible demons, human society would be far more advanced than it is now."
Since the first historical Parliament of the World’s Religions in 1893 and its millennium commemoration held at the Chicago Art Institute in 1993, of particular note is the recent inclusion of Native American religious figures and other Earth centered religionists. It would not be until the 1993 Parliament that these religions and spiritual traditions would be represented, as they now continue to be held in a regular series.
Who says religion and politics don’t mix? They are inseparable. They’re as intertwined as a Calvinist twisted up like a pretzel on some mat in a yoga class. The problem all world religions attempt to transcend lies somewhere along the spectrum of humanity’s seven deadly sins. As mere mortal human beings struggle to overcome life’s physical challenges of hunger and shelter, they are often at odds with disparate dogmas which too often, in the words of the Swami, tend to send whole nations into fanaticism and violence he spoke of.
Religious conflicts mask unmet needs underlying the basic human condition: when people of any country are deprived of basics like food, water, shelter and means of support, they have nothing to "cling" to but "guns and religion", to quote our modern day sage, President Obama. (It was his arrogance and blatant disregard to these needs of Americans whom he despises that put off many Democrats during his campaign.)
The religious/political question now becomes “why is the U.S. fostering MORE war which breeds more violence and death in Afghanistan and Pakistan when we could bring our troops home and apply those funds to much needed programs for our own citizens?” When was the last time, for example, an Hispanic or European country stuck its nose into regional affairs elsewhere in the world? Why is it that the U.S. government is the world’s greatest busy body?
The U.S. has squandered its moral imperative, dragging down along with it the “superpower” rating it once enjoyed under the false premise of “God and Goodwill.” And what about the Swami’s concept of “karma”? My previous post Globalization: Spreading Democracy, Killing Your Jobsoffers some insights into the conflicting and contradictory messages from our government as it pledges “aid” to those in other countries while it ruins the lives of those in the U.S. via outsourcing American jobs. It’s not our divine right to stoke the fires of religious extremism in this latest escalation of Muslim and Hindu tension in Afghanistan and Pakistan under the guise of playing “peacekeeper” for our Hindu friends in India who this country’s elites are profiting wildly over as they import their citizens to replace American workers. Why is the amorally bound U.S. government so hell-bent on being the world’s largest importer of cheap slave labor to the detriment of its own citizens? Show me the morality…
Since the recession started in 2007, millions of Americans have lost their jobs. President Obama has expressed no intention to reduce legal immigration during his first term, despite the exodus of jobs. Millions of legal immigrants—not counting however many million non-immigrant employment visa holders are allowed to enter—are in line to come to the U.S. over the next four years. So whatever “stimulus” these big spending programs may give to the American economy, more new legal job-seeking immigrants will enter our contracting job markets, swamping whatever jobs are created or saved. Long-term economic security must include concern for numbers. The American economy cannot recover without a long time out from mass immigration. This report at the Economic Populistexplains:
"While the labor market has shed 5.1 million jobs since the start of the recession, it is important to keep in mind that in those 15 months, the population has continued to grow. Just to keep up with population growth, the economy must add approximately 127,000 jobs every month, which means 1.9 million jobs, should have been added over this period. In other words, the economy is now 7 million jobs below what is needed to maintain pre-recession employment levels."
The separation of church and state is as unlikely as the REAL Santa Claus bringing a pony for every boy and girl on the planet. The world’s most vaunted religious leaders provide, if nothing more – the ultimate pageantry that inspires the downtrodden with hopelessly grand and mysterious, mythological fantasies that our politicians, ironically, also never fail to deliver upon. If only our political leaders would make it their business to start minding our business. For a change.
Rupert Murdoch’s Secret “Pay to Play” Global Content Plan: “Global Propaganda Times Select”
Breaking News
LWOH has learned the code name for Rupert Murdoch’s secret online, global content scheme:
"Global Propaganda Times Select."
Stryker McGuire offers this insightful report at the Daily Beast entitled “Murdoch’s Secret Plan to Charge for Content” about “digital immigrant” Murdoch’s stealth plan to charge for “global” content, just like the New York Times’ doomed “Times Select.” Why DID those bastards of the universe deny the poor, news-starved plebeians the privilege of paying $40.00 per month to read all those magnificent screeds from very important pompous people like Tom Friedman, anyway? The Daily Beast reveals:
“Murdoch’s News Corp. has set up a global team, based in New York, London, and Sydney, to create a system for charging for online content in an environment where consumers have come to expect to get it for free.”
We need news, but who needs free “news” about what’s happening in our country when we “consumers” can pay money for online “content” framed by someone around the globe for les$? The Times of India explains how offshoring U.S. News jobs to India will reach $12 billion plus by 2012 as they succeed in siphoning Tier 1, 2 and 3 U.S. journalism jobs:
Brilliant! U.S. news isn’t “news” unless is it is first shipped out and then approved and “recreated” by third world “content” peddlers with a laptop who edit it and transcribe it and have a vested interest in undercutting U.S. journalist’s salaries. How efficient – especially for the legions of U.S. journalists. At least they won’t be burdened by working in a field they studied and invested in. Besides, U.S. “news” is overrated, particularly when we're so collosally in the hole to China that they ought to be its rightful owners and would be if only more people around here knew how to read Mandarin.
Not too long ago I would pick up copies of Mexican and European newspapers and read the same news stories *shock* with different slants. How could that be?
Never fear. Guys like the enterprising, Rupert “Groupthink” Murdoch are here to level out “the news” to make it a glorious, global group hug – a “one size fits all” propaganda pulpit, by and for elitists. Investigative journalism? Foreign Correspondence? That’s so last century…
Oh, btw…which global stooges do you think will get stuck with the biggest price tag for the privilege?
"I bought and ate the cake (even paid taxes on it) and look what it got me..."
-American White Collar Professional-
Redmond, WA Heads are rolling again into the moat of Microsoft. Mwahahahaha…
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is axing heads by the thousands, and who knew he would refuse to outsource himself? Or his master, Bill “The Reamer of Redmond” Gates?
This Computerworld article reports that Microsoft Corp. today laid off 3,000 workers, the second wave of a major reduction the company announced in January. And in a memo to employees, CEO Steve Ballmer said MORE cuts “are possible.” So why all the layoffs?
Aside from the ususal profit hording at the top, consumer confidence is at an all time low, and contrary to what the insulated, gated community of neo-frat boys wants to believe, their inhumane and counterproductive hiring practices are adversely affecting their brand demand. Never mind the negative impact this shoddy hiring practice of replacing American professionals with cheap foreign labor has on the actual “quality” of their products, as nobody needs to invoke Vista or Windows 7 or Zune to conclude that Gates & Co. is no stranger to every neo-frat boy’s dirty secret, the human trafficking profit center or the Cash Cow of Indian Outsourcing.
Ballmer wrote a confirmed e-mail that was reconfirmed by an unnamed, unconfirmed Microsoft “spokeswoman” below:
"As we move forward, we will continue to closely monitor the impact of the economic downturn on the company and if necessary, take further actions on our cost structure, including additional job eliminations. As part of the plan we announced in January to reduce costs and increase efficiencies, today we are eliminating additional positions across several areas of the company. While job eliminations are always difficult, we are taking these necessary actions in response to the global economic downturn."
So who’s getting the axe? Ballmer’s email provides a partial explanation, stating that half of the 3,000 workers are in the U.S. and the half are “elsewhere”:
“The 3,000 employees notified today are split between workers in the United States and elsewhere, said a spokeswoman. "With this announcement, we are mostly but not all done with the planned 5,000 job eliminations by June 2010," Ballmer wrote.
The cuts are said to be scattered among all levels of the organization, according to this CNET News report. What Ballmers’s email does not explain is how many of those in the U.S. are H-1B visa holders, contractors (a-dash or v-dash) or American citizens? With this recent layoff of 1,500 workers in the U.S., what is to stop Microsoft from going one further step down the legalized slave wage arbitration food chain to replace those 1,500 “slots” via other even cheaper slave labor wage import programs known as the F-1 and OPT student visas?
This Computerworld article written by Patrick Thibodeau in March, 2009, (make sure not to miss the comments) explains that Microsoft’s counsel, Brad Smith, notes that the U.S. has “large enrollments of foreign students” essentially and presumably waiting in the wings to cut in front of Americans for Microsoft’s job slots. The article explains an exchange Smith had with SenatorChuck Grassley, R-Iowa, who “insists that the software maker has an "imperative" to ensure that American workers "have priority in keeping their jobs over foreign workers on visa programs." Thibodeau explains:
“Citing the large enrollments of foreign students in graduate and doctoral programs and its need to hire these graduates, Smith told Grassley that "we do not expect to see a significant change in the proportion of H-1B employees in our workforce following the job reductions."
This race to the bottom is planned and fueled from the top, and the biggest question remaining is will Microsoft hire Americans to fill these positions or continue its war on America’s white collar middle class?
“Microsoft also pointed out that its planned job cuts are not as bad as they seem. Microsoft, which is based in Redmond, Wash., laid off 1,400 employees in January, more than 800 of whom are in Washington state.
But during the same 18-month period in which it will cut 5,000 jobs, Microsoft said it plans to hire 2,000 to 3,000 people, meaning the potential net payroll reduction may be no more than 2,000 jobs. The company did not say what percentage of those new hires will be in the U.S. It employs about 90,000 people worldwide, and about half of those workers are in the U.S.”
So how to restore the Social Contract? With elitist sociopaths running sociopathic politicians for fun and profit, one Computerworld article commenter raised the spectre of the decline of our civilization below:
"No snowflake in an avalanche feels responsible." There is no longer an ideal or society that people and companies feel obligated to uphold. If hiring H-1B's can trim G&A and rise profits another 10%, there is not an executive around that wouldn't do this today. It makes them look better to superiors or stockholders and ultimately raises stock value (and thus, their pocket).
Local papers including the Rocky Mountain News and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer across the country are hitting the skids. Save a tree, gag a local journalist is the 21st Century new media mantra that has spawned a new generation of profits over people inspired, pseudo journalism contained under the big skirt of Blogger and Tooberville.
"From the moment the Times Co. purchased The Globe in 1993, it has treated New England's largest newspaper like a cheap whore," former Globe columnist Eileen McNamara wrote last month in the Herald. "It pimped her out for profit during the booming 1990s and then pillaged her when times got tough. It closed her foreign bureaus and cheapened her coverage of everything from the fine arts to the hard sciences."
People are sick of being lied to by newspapers who have excelled at the dark art of misinformation and no information. They are glorifed PR machines for a few wealthy insiders. The MSM model has proven that it is all too willing to promote and accommodate the lies of the U.S. corporofascist government instead of challenging the neo-frat boy, One World pack of slick weasels. The Globe’s demise comes as no surprise, yet another casualty of its ownership by a cadre of corporate elites whose sole interests are profits rather than serving the public as watchdogs of crony capitalism and government.
"a new global, independent news and information service whose role is to inform, educate and improve the state of the world."
Hmm. Investigative journalism or propaganda? The Council never explained that. Talk about "self-censorship"...
According to the Boston Newspaper Guild, instead of corporate elites at the top taking a hit, The Times Co. employed “bullying tactics” that put the unions under “fierce pressure” to produce additional savings. Why would the Times Co. put the screws to The Globe?
“Some industry observers have expressed skepticism that Times Co. Chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr. would want his legacy to include the shuttering of the Globe, which his company bought in 1993. But the Times Co. itself is under strong financial pressure. It recently mortgaged its new Manhattan headquarters, borrowed $250 million from a Mexican billionaire at 14 percent interest, laid off 100 newsroom staffers and cut salaries by 5 percent.”
McNamara, who now teaches journalism at Brandeis University, ridiculed Pinch Sulzberger as
"the boy genius whose crack management skills have helped drive the parent company of two of journalism's most respected newspapers to the brink of bankruptcy."
Unless that Mexican dude wants to pony up some more dough to prop up The Globe (and with such an attractive 14% usurious rate, I might add) things don’t look so good for workers of the Boston paper. Has anyone else noted a marked reduction in the quality and accuracy of “truthful” news reporting over issues that affect people? Who needs journalists, anyway, when we now have, courtesy the neo-frat boy controlled government -- circus clowns on both the Right (Michelle Malkin, Ann Coulter, etc.) and the Left (Kos, its spawns, MoveOn, etc.) tripping over each other on their stampede to the trough to fill the void? Both sides desperate to manipulate and “lead” a woeful posse of rubes with, yeah, more lies and gatekeeping…Meet the New Boss, ya know?
So who needs the Globe? When the locals begin to realize that they are being manipulated with the same old lies and gatekeeping, why bother to pay for the privilege? When you can view opinion news shows on cable or satellite, why restrict yourself to just one newspaper or even to a newspaper at all?
Until our local newspapers realize that people are sick and tired of being lied to by journalists promoting propaganda fluff/gatekeeping pieces for greedy corporate and political insiders, newspapers are never going to be able to swim out of the swamp that is swallowing them alive.
Are American journalists (not these pseudo hacks/”big bloggers”) smart enough to demand change or are they just as complicit and cowardly and greedy as their corporate paymasters unwilling to admit their own faults? Don’t answer.
In the meantime, at least for now – there are a few non co-opted blogs out there still speaking truth to power.
Government needs revenue to provide the basic infrastructures vital to its citizens living in our communities including roads and bridges, social services, jobs, and healthcare. While the U.S. undergoes this economic depression, much thought is being given as to how we can pay for such much needed services and overdue reforms. So they tax a lot of stuff, including entities like corporations (offering them gratuitous loopholes), back peddle on high speed rail and work 24/7 to eliminate job opportunities for millions of too kewl for gruel American workers.
President Obama is now raising an ambitious question: who will pay for America’s infrastructure? Will his administration show up those GOP windbags and do the right thing?
People at the top end of the spectrum don’t make their money by the dreadful pastime called work but instead through investments. The way our current tax code is structured, rank and file workers do the heavy lifting while corporate executives including CEOs and board members by comparison get a free ride. Just tweet hedge fund “real worker” Chelsea Clinton, who can explain this phenomenon a whole lot better than moi, in spades. (Yours truly btw is a fan of theClinton family with one exception to the Clintons’ role in the wholesale sell out of American white collar jobs to the India/tech lobby. For them, the expression “Put American Workers First” means underneath an eighteen wheeler.) We hope, albeit w/o bated breath, that they reevaluate this treasonous and inhumane position.
Back to Obama’s push to levy taxes on overseas profits and to offer a simple solution…The rich are always whining about how they hate something called double taxation. “Double taxation” simply means that the government taxes, say, my humble company – LWOH -- and THEN turns around and taxes me AGAIN when I take money out of my own company.” Boo-effing-hoo, indeed.
But civil and social infrastructures aren’t handed down from Santa or Jesus or Yahweh or Allah or the Easter Bunny or the Buddha - although many fundamentalist believers might argue they should be -- and that’s why the human condition created such modern day mythological, hero-worship, luminary figures like Bono, Obama and The Gay Swami. The stark reality is that even our new president knows (better than our last one, much to his credit) that they have to be paid for by somebody…and even though corporations are taxed as entities like people, they are not taxed at the same crunch rate and get a lot better tax breaks than Joe Q. Non-Portfolio. Now, I don’t mind being taxed at a higher rate just as long as I know my money is being spent on infrastructures and social programs via policy reforms designed to sustain, improve and even enrich my life and those of my family and others in my community.
So here’s the solution:
Let’s not tax companies at all but in exchange, let’s BRING BACK the top tax bracket to 90% to get rid of THE DOUBLE TAXATION PROBLEM. YOU ASKED FOR IT, YOU GOT IT.
I’d be happy if government didn’t tax corporations at all but instead stuck it to the non-working class, multimillionaire portfolio community by bringing back the 90% tax bracket.
We can all live with resurrecting the 90% tax bracket, along with shutting down the Caymen Islands money laundry chute.
We can take it at the top, President Obama. Et tu?
