“The Council on Competitiveness is the only group of corporate CEOs, university presidents and labor leaders committed to the future prosperity of all Americans and enhanced U.S. competitiveness in the global economy”

The council is headed by the CEO of GE, Jeffrey R. Immelt.  GE is a mega-corporation most of whose product lines are made, supplied, or assembled outside the U.S.  GE has been in the news lately about returning some of those jobs back to the U.S., but guess what?  Only in areas where the government will pay them to do so (with tax incentives, etc) which constitutes only a tiny percentage of the overall outsourcing.

Then we have a couple reps from the major labor unions which in my opinion are probably one of the biggest problems in job creation in America today. Labor unions are notorious for their single-minded anti-ownership anti-management views. American products are priced uncompetitively high in union shops just to cover the demands made by the unions who want basically all-or-nothing for their members.

We have a couple of members representing academia, none of whom has ever been in a position to start/run/operate a business, yet all of whom consider themselves business experts. ” Those who can, do…those who can’t, are in academia.”

Then we have several members like John Doerr and Steve Case who, on the surface, may look like good business advisors because of their past entrepreneurial experiences and successes.  But here’s the thing about entrepreneurs…if they are wonderfully successful, as these are, they morph into “big business”; once their little businesses hit it big, their focus changes from running the business to running the board of directors.  I believe it would be fair to say that any entrepreneur who can claim to be on one or more boards of directors is too far removed from the business operation to be a reliable business advisor.

Then we have a couple of members representing….are you ready?….the financial industry.  That’s right; the folks who brought all this misery into our lives are now advising our President on how to recover from the mess they created.  That’s just sarcastically wonderful.

So, from a logical perspective, then, who SHOULD comprise this council on job creation and competitiveness?  The people responsible for 60%-75% of ALL jobs in America; the people who represent 97% of all hiring companies in America; the people who represent 70% of the tax revenue generated by businesses in America.  Who are these people?  People like Darlene Miller…America’s small business owners.  While most of the council members are advocating outsourcing of American jobs, America’s small business owners are busy keeping America’s economy afloat.  We should be de-regulating them and untaxing them and asking them for help, but our President seems to want to ignore them and tax them into oblivion.

So, when President Obama creates a council to create jobs in America, and improve competitiveness in America, who does he reach out to?  He reaches out to the people who represent the problems in America…the guys who outsource American jobs to foreign countries.  The guys who teach business but who have never run a business.  The guys who fight management rather than work to improve management. The guys who created the mess we are in.

What does this say about our President and his view on American job creation?  It says he is totally unaware of what drives our economy and who hires our workers. He is turning to the wrong people for the wrong answers.  And then he blames other people when the problems become worse or don’t resolve.  It is really sad President Obama is so adept at making speeches about America’s economic problems, but then goes and hires the exact wrong set of people to advise him on these problems.

My advice, plain and simple: get rid of the council of idiots and instead, show Americans that you are serious about job creation by creating a council of successful small business owners like Darlene Miller (the only small business member on the council) to advise you.  And then, do what they say.  Problem solved!

Whatever the reason, by creating a contest on Facebook, you are precluding a large percentage of your customer base from participating, and I can tell you that we feel it is simple discrimination.  Just because we don’t use Facebook, why should we be precluded from entering your contest?  It creates negative feelings, and leaves a bad taste in our collective mouths.   So think twice, or even thrice, before creating a Facebook contest.  It may be working against you in ways you never even see.

And, think twice before creating a Facebook page.  You are giving your personal information away to strangers who use it however they want to.  Would you give your life details to a stranger if he walked up and asked for it?  No.  But that is exactly what you are doing on Facebook.  Not cool.

1.  It ain’t a spill.  It is a leak.  At this point, a deliberate leak.  If you will take note of BP’s response since the leak started, ALL of their efforts have been involved in “Oil Recovery”.  You never hear about BP working (earnestly) to plug the hole.  It’s always involved in recovering the oil.  Why?  I think it’s because BP is in the oil business.  They make $0 by plugging up oil wells.  However, by allowing the oil to continue spewing, they get to recover some small percentage and, therefore, make some money, which, of course, helps to offset all those cleanup costs.  All of the serious BP efforts so far have been about building “top hats” and “towers”, all expensive gadgets to -recover- oil.  With all of their engineers and all of their undersea robots, I have absolutely no doubts…zero…that BP COULD HAVE developed a feasible plug.  There have been lots of smart engineering people sending in suggestions, too.  BP ignored them all.  Oil recovery; that’s what it’s all about.  Screw the animals and the seafood industry.  Let’s get that oil!

2.  BP has absolutely no management in the cleanup business here on the coast.  They are paying millions of dollars to private boat owners to drive around in the water and “report” any sightings of oil.  A few days ago, I personally watched as about 10 of these private boat owners left the marina on their “oil patrol”.  I watched them as they all filed out of the harbour, went about a mile (off the east corner of Deer Island) and dropped anchor.  They all sat there for hours.  Fishing, or jawing, or partying…who knows?  But the one thing they were NOT doing was patrolling for oil.  BP desperately needs leadership on the Gulf cleanup.  They desperately need to set out a grid system and assign each boat owner a grid location to patrol.  Rather than sending out 200 boats to all look at the same patch of water.  Plain stupid

Another example of sucky management…BP has hired thousands of workers to walk up and down the beach looking for tar balls.  Sometimes they walk 4 abreast, all looking at the same patch of sand.  No organized effort to spread them out, no organized effort to assign them a stretch of beach to patrol.  Nope…throw money at them and hope that maybe one of the 100 people walking on the same piece of beach finds something so the other 99 can stand around and watch him scoop it up.

Another observation.  When the oil washed ashore the other day, they sent out 100s of people with scoops and plastic bags.  One guy in a Bobcat front-end loader could have been 10 times faster and more effective than all of these people.  But no.  Pay hundreds of people rather than a couple of guys with Bobcats.  I know the obvious response to that observation would be “We’re just trying to subsidize the economy by hiring all of the unemployed people”.  Well, that’s just fine, but when they FIND the oil, then subsidize a couple of Bobcat owners too…they would be a lot more effective picking up the thousands of pounds of beached oil and dead sea critters.

3.  BP, in my opinion, is not putting any serious efforts into this whole mess.  They SAY they are, but I haven’t seen it.  The shrimpers I speak to haven’t seen it.  BP’s marketing department can talk a good game, and they pay off the politicians to stay at arm’s length, but they really have not put forth an ORGANIZED effort to plug the well, clean the beaches, clean the gulf bottom where the shrimp and oysters and crabs are dying off…all talk, no effective effort. 

4.  Thinking of visiting the Mississippi or Alabama Gulf Coast?  Don’t.  Unless, of course you like the smell of oil in the morning.  Or you’re coming to gamble, or help clean up.   But if you want to come for the beaches, go to Destin or Panama City.   I live here…I wouldn’t go in the water.  The “weathered oil” that is washing up all over is only the tip of the iceburg.  There are also millions of gallons of toxic dispersant in the water too.  And millions of gallons of gasoline and kerosine and diesel fuel and God knows what else.  You see, as the oil weathers, it releases the “high-end” products like gasoline.  And, whereas you can see the yucky “weathered oil”, you can’t see the high-end products which are all mixed in there somewhere, too.  And forget deep sea fishing…all the good spots are closed.  Plus, who in their right mind would eat a fish which has been swimming in this toxic soup??  Sure, lots of tourist groups will be saying “hey, come on down, the water’s fine!”  But they have an agenda, don’t they?  Let’s be brutally honest…they don’t really care about your long term health, only the money you carry.

5.  The politicians are being “subsidized” into silence, in my observed opinion.  Congressman Gene Taylor, a man I have always respected as being in touch with the people, is amazingly out of touch.  Some of his most memorable comments:

    After taking a (subsidized?) airplane trip over the oil spill, his remark was “It’s really not as bad as I thought it was.”  OMG, Gene!  Biggest disaster in American history here!

   Gene was asked if he thought the Gulf drilling should continue unabated, and he responded “Absolutely!  I don’t want to be dependant on foreign oil anymore so we need to keep drilling.”   OMG Gene!   Are you aware that the amount of domestic oil that we use is something like 10% of the total amount we use?  Those Gulf oil wells don’t even put a TINY dent in our foreign oil usage!   If you were absolutely serious about getting away from foreign oil, you would be pushing Compressed Natural Gas as the logical alternative to oil.  It’s cheap, it’s totally available in the U.S.A., and every car on the road today can burn American Natural Gas.  To make that comment, on camera, only goes to show that 1), you think we are all idiots; 2), you are being paid to make those sorts of absurd comments; or, 3) you really do believe that the Gulf oil will make us independent of foreign oil (in which case you REALLY need to visit this web site IMMEDIATELY!!!   http://www.cngnow.com/EN-US/PickensPlanCNG/Pages/default.aspx

   President Obama, where are you?!?   I know that Mississippi is a conservative state and most of us didn’t vote for you, but hey…we are part of the USA!  You swore to “protect and defend us from all enemies, foreign and domestic”.  Doesn’t oil leaking onto the shores of your country, causing a social, economic, and ecological disaster, constitute an enemy?  Many foreign countries have offered to assist by providing oil skimmers and other equipment, but you have refused to accept their offers, OR, offer up emergency legislation to allow their assistance.  You are failing us, Pres.   I can only assume that you, too, have made some back-room deals with Big Oil (through your DNC, of course) to only offer lip service but no real help.  Where, for example, is FEMA???   Is this not a federal emergency?  Is it not FEMA’s role to help in federal emergencies?  I guess not under the Obama administration.

This Oil leak is a really sad affair.  The whole thing is messed up.  BP is failing miserably.  Government is failing as usual.  Time to put me in charge.  But be prepared… I kick ass and take names.

But before I go there, I need to get back to that colonoscopy thing, because I know you’re waiting for the tie-in.

Being old, and somewhat responsible, I have had many colonoscopies.  And if you’ve never had one, let me tell you that the actual procedure is totally painless and only lasts for about 1 second.  Okay, that is technically a lie, they really last longer than a second, but I was actually referring to my perception of the process.  You see, when I go in for a colonoscopy, after the prep part, they wheel you into the operating room and plug you up to the knock-out drugs.  There is this little spigot on the drug line and once they are happy with your position and such, the anesthesiologist cranks open the spigot and you feel a little chill as the drug enters your arm.  And then you wake up…it seems like the period of time between that moment and the next conscious moment is maybe 1 second.  In other words, my brain was “off” and totally unaware of the passage of time.  I was awake, then maybe a second later I was awake again, even though for the rest of the world, 45 minutes had passed between those two points in time.

By now, you probably have a notion where this is headed, so let’s cut to the chase.  I think that when you die, your brain switches off and time stops, just like in the colonoscopy.  Your sense of being stops.  Your sense of existence and presence ceases.  Your brain is no longer able to comprehend the passage of time so effectively time stops and your existence stops in your last living moment.  You never know anything ever again.  For you, time just stops.

But what about souls and spirits and heaven and hell and all the stuff we’re taught all our lives?  They are the inventions of a creature who likes being alive, who cannot fathom an existence that they are not a part of.  As human beings, we don’t want to die.  We like our lives and our families and all the things we value in life, and we don’t want to stop living even when our bodies do.  So, our churches and our collective societies have all banded together and, over time, we’ve  formulated a set of rules that explain to our satisfaction what happens after we die.  These rules, when followed, would allow us to continue to exist and watch over our loved ones from afar, and this makes us happy; it satisfies our need to not want to die…ever.  And truthfully, that’s fine, because the rules teach us that good people are rewarded, and bad people are punished, for eternity, so as a result, in most societies, people try to do good so they will be rewarded with eternal happiness. That’s not really such a bad thing.

But it isn’t practical.  My colonoscopy taught me that.  Time, thought, sense of being, it all stops during that procedure for 44 minutes 59 seconds.  Thanks to colonoscopies, I can put my existence in perspective  and, frankly, it is satisfying to know because being totally “off” wasn’t such a bad feeling.

Not that I’m in a rush or anything…for either one.

So, we have the U.S. automakers, and they are suffering because they are fat and spoiled and stodgy and generally lacking in common business sense. 

Next, we have President Obama and the Democratic Senate worrying about the automakers going out of business because of…(see reasons above).

And so, all of these people collaborate and decide the best course of action is to send billions of dollars to these companies to “bail them out” of their bad business practices.  And, they do exactly that…they send billions of dollars to the same people who blew their own money on big homes and fancy airplanes and frivolity abundunt.

So, you are probably now starting to ask about my point.  It is this:

Wouldn’t it make a whole lot more sense to take those billions of dollars and use them to offer government-sponsored incentives to U.S. citizens who purchase an automobile built by a U.S. automaker?  Seriously…if President Obama told me that he would send me a check for, say, $10,000 if I bought a Ford  or GM automobile, I’d do it.  In a heartbeat.  Even though I don’t even need a car right now, if I thought I could get a brand new car for $10,000 off, I’d do it!   And I bet a lot of other people would, too.

Wouldn’t this stimulus do the same thing that the President is trying to do, only better?  It would significantly increase auto production, save jobs, stimulate the economy, and even better, keep that money out of the pockets of those spoiled, fat-cat automaker CEO’s!

I ain’t no business or economic genius, but I sure don’t see the downside of this plan, and even if there was one, it probably wouldn’t have anywhere near the downside of the current plan!  So what am I missing?

I am following up on my earlier blog comment about U.S. Carmakers being Idiots.  They are, of course.  But the latest rounds of corporate bailouts just reinforces that fact (yes, it is a fact). The Big-3 companys are failing because they are idiots.  We are bailing them out (because we are idiots).  And the Big-3 uses the bailout money in typical fashion, to pay huge salaries to the CEOs (who are idiots); for extravagant corporate retreats (obviously full of idiots); and, finally, for producing…..what?  Nothing new.  Same old rhetoric as before…99.9% petroleum cars, 0.1% alternative fuel cars, lots of eyewash and phoney advertising, no real effort or expenditures on what people really want/need…cheap cars that run on something other than gasoline.  The very first condition of the bailout SHOULD have been…fire the top four levels of management.  They are clueless and stupid and stuck in their old stodgy unsuccessful ways.  They are failures.  They should not be rewarded, for anything.  If you need a definition of the term “Loser”, there you go…look no further than the upper management at our own Big-3.  Yep…they are still idiots.

We as a society, in my opinion, have swung too far the other way.  Yes, we need to protect our children from harm, certainly, but our definition of harm has become convoluted.  When a child has earned the right to be punished for nonacceptable behavior, then they should be rewarded with the punishment they have earned.  When a child physically assaults another human being and then gets away with it (because of his age), then he has learned a lesson he will carry with him throughout his life, all the way to prision.  That isn’t fair. 

We should have processes in place to help those children whose parents are, for whatever reason, failing to teach their offspring the limits and boundaries our society has imposed on us as adults.  Limits and boundaries.  Hitting another person is wrong. Recognizing that an adolescent brain is not always equipped to handle rational, abstract reasoning, we should be prepared to handle misbehavior in more understandable terms when that fails. 

I misbehaved in high school, one time.  I was sent to the principal’s office, slapped on the rear-end twice with a big wooden paddle, and sent back to class.  I never did that again.  I totally understood the consequenses of my actions in very clear terms. 

When we fail to allow schools to take acceptable action for unacceptabe behavior, we as adults are failing our children by not allowing them to learn the rules of society.  Children are classified as ‘minors’ for a reason, primarily, I believe, because it has been widely recognized for centuries that until the age of majority, a child’s brain is not equipped to make good and rational decisions.  They still test their limits and boundaries well into their teens, so we as adults must be equipped to teach those limits and boundaries imposed on us by our form of society.  When we fail, they fail.  The bulging prision system is testament to that failing. 

Spitting on people is not acceptable behavior.  Assaulting people is not acceptable behavior.  Screaming in a room full of people is not acceptable behavior.  This is true at any age.  Yet our children are doing these things without consequence.  Or, if there is consequence, it is more likely in the form of pushing them away, getting rid of them, attempting to apply reason to a 14 year old brain that is totally unequipped to understand the abstract complexities of societal norms, or worst of all, mental torture (we call it ‘time out’ which is actually nothing less than solitary confinement). 

I see absolutely nothing wrong or improper with using the age old and time proven methods of negative reinforcement for appropriate negative behavior.  Further, I would even go so far as to say that parents who disagree with that are not being parents, but are instead more concerned with being their child’s best friend. 

A parent is a teacher and a percentage of parents are neglecting that role and raising confused little people who have no respect for other people’s boundaries.  Worse, when those confused little people enter our public school system, those parents expect the school system to apply that same level of nonconsequential punishment.  Only later, when those confused people misbehave as an adult, do we finally remove their rights and punish them.  Why do we wait so late?

Idiots.

I mean, why are they under “economic stress” anyway? Is it because they make a product that people want? No. Is it because they make a fuel efficient automobile? No. Is it because they have an aggressive engineering shop who has the latitude to design the cars people actually want? No. it is the opposite. Economic stress means that they aren’t making money. And they aren’t making money because they aren’t making cars that people want. And they aren’t making cars that people want because they are, and always have been, terrible and horrible at responding to peoples actual needs, even though those needs are visible even to a box turtle years in advance. I mean, how long have most of us known that gasoline was reaching unreasonable levels? 3, 4 years?

Idiots.

The response from the “Alliance of MudHeads Who Make Excessively Big Cars” is less of a response to a good proposal and more of a list of excuses why they don’t want to stop making big cars with big engines which burn big fuel. Meanwhile the Japanese are busying themselves improving and producing hydrogen cars; the French and Indians are producing cars that run on compressed air; the Brazilians are running their cars on Ethyl Alcohol. And the American Carmakers? Living as usual in the side pockets of the Arabs who just keep getting richer and richer as they drive the U.S. into recession and eventual depression.

Idiots.

Why is it that the American car industry is Always behind the power curve when it comes to knowing what people want? Americans are faced with $6.00 per gallon gasoline in the not-to-distant future, and what is the “Alliance of Big Heavy Petroleum Burning Cars” doing? Supporting the industry; an industry that is still producing Hummers and Escalades and Silverados, even while used car lots are filling up with these vehicles because nobody can afford them anymore.

Idiots.

Why is it that the automobile manufacturers are posting record losses this year? Hint: it is NOT because people want gas hogs. Yet gas hogs are what the automobile manufacturers keep producing and will produce until they finally get jolted from their ignorant bliss by imported hydrogen cars.

Idiots.

Instead of bellyaching and crying and whining about the government’s “unrealistic” proposal, you would think that the car industry would be on the leading edge; that their marketing gurus would be yelling at the top of their lungs, “Stop the manufacturing lines! We need to retool!”. Nope. They want to whine. They want to complain. They want to keep making 15 MPG cars and then are actually confused when nobody buys them. They just keep thinking that everything will be alright. It isn’t, and it hasn’t been for a long time.

Idiots.

I want these idiots to wake up. At least one of them, anyway. How about you, Chrysler? You brought Lee Ioacoca back to bail your stupid butts out (again). Hey Lee…have you thought about any alternative fuel autos yet? Well, probably not. Excuses are easier to make than profits. And “Big Oil” would get laws passed even if you did.

So I guess we are the bigger idiots for not making more noise.

Last night, because CBS can’t follow their own programming schedule, I actually watched the end of Big Brother.  OMG!!!  What a piece of tripe!  These pseudo-acters prancing around pretending to be “real” (it probably took multiple takes to get some of those scenes to be believable).  Jeeze-Louise, CBS…surely you can come up with something…anything…better than this!  Advertisers…get a clue!  I am definitely not alone in this opinion.  Use your money for R&D or college grants…something that is actually beneficial and educational!  Big Brother sucks!  It’s about as close to ”reality” as a Superman cartoon and one tenth as interesting (unless you are a student of bad acting, whereupon it is great material!)

The days of “Reality” television are over.  Like Wrestling, everybody knows they are staged productions, and let’s face it…they lost their novelty years ago.  Move on, CBS!

Last night I settled down to watch 60 Minutes.  Sure enough, per usual, I was stuck watching the absolute most boring sport in the history of televised sports….Golf.  I don’t care about Golf.  The very most I would ever want to see pertaining to a golf match might be 5 minutes of highlights.  The rest of it is….boring.

But the same thing happens with all televised sports on CBS…if it runs long, nobody at CBS cares.  Nobody at CBS gives a Carp about the audience and our lives and our schedules.

If I was running the network, that would stop.  Sports can be stuck in the same schedule block as any other program. There should be no preference of sports fans over normal people (you read that right).  If the sport runs long, tough!  Read about it in the paper.  Or purchase ESPN or the 143 other cable/satellite sport channels.  I have every right to watch 60 Minutes at the scheduled time, and certainly my rights are no less important than those of any sweaty, overweight couch potato.  

When it comes to programming, a television program should come on when you say it will, CBS.  I bet the advertisers who spend big bucks on prime time advertising are peeved when their ads get shoved out to late-night.  CBS doesn’t care.  I am certainly peeved that I can’t expect CBS to stick to their own program schedule.  Again, CBS doesn’t care.

I am the voice of the aging Baby Boomer, CBS.  We carry a big $$$tick.  Get a clue.