A recent tickle from a former colleague on LinkedIn dredged up something from my distant past and sent me on a short tailspin into the Land of What Might Have Been. I'm going to feel sorry for myself, then go to bed and sleep it off. In the morning I'll go to my new job, where I am happy and content and working hard.
This former colleague "endorsed" me for a skill on LinkedIn. She hasn't seen me for about 15 years, so the endorsement doesn't mean much. So I ignored it. Then I fell into my tailspin.
In the late 1990s, I was an extremely competent engineer in my department at Hewlett-Packard. In fact, one year I was the top-rated engineer out of a peer group of about 80 engineers. I was sought after for my technical expertise, my problem-solving skills, and my communication skills. Engineers and non-engineers from other departments came to consult with me.
Our department had three engineering groups. One of the engineering group managers got a promotion, leaving his position vacant. My manager suggested I apply for the position. So did his manager.
I hadn't even considered such a move. I was happy being an engineer. But people had told me over the years that I would make a good manager, and many people had even said, "I would work for you if you were a manager." So I did some research, mainly sounding it out with other engineers and managers, even on the production/operations side, all people whose opinion I valued and trusted. I got unequivocal encouragement from all of them, including votes of confidence from all of the managers, and more "I would work for you" responses from my peers.
The managers' opinions were important to me, because some of them would be on the interview team.
So I applied for the job. I prepped for the interviews. And I did a great job in the interviews. And they gave the job to someone else - one of my fellow engineers was promoted.
Well, she turned out not to be a very good manager. In fact, seeing some of what she did as a manager, I wondered how she had ever gotten the job. I ended up sitting in meetings and on committees with her as the years went by, and - really, this is not sour grapes - she just wasn't very good at management or leadership.
Then HP and Agilent split. We endured wave after wave of layoffs. I never saw any managers get laid off, or any executives. You would think that the Powers That Be would do the math and figure out that they could save more money by firing one incompetent executive than by laying off ten innocent production workers. Or five hard-working engineers. F#$&ing idiots.
Here's the sorry-for-myself "What Might Have Been" part:
Ten years after leaving Agilent, I am still an engineer, but I am making $10,000 a year less than I was back then, and after ten years of struggle, my personal and family financial situation is precarious.
If I had gotten that promotion, I would now be high up in the management ranks at HP or Agilent. I would be a highly respected manager and leader. I would be making $150,000 a year - or more. We would still be living in that big brick house. And my wife would still have the luxury of being a stay-at-home mom, with all the benefits that go with that. My daughters would not have had to scrimp on their weddings. My musical daughter could have gone to Ithaca College instead of the University of Northern Colorado. We would be living free of debt or other financial worries. And we could be using our time and our wealth to help our children and other people, something we have always wanted to do. Instead, we struggle.
That other engineer that got the job? She has changed employers. At least twice. She has changed careers. She has changed husbands. She has changed her last name. She has even changed her first name. And she has changed her appearance so drastically that I don't even recognize her photo on LinkedIn. And she has parlayed that promotion into a Chief Technology Officer position in another state. I don't really know her anymore.
Showing posts with label economy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label economy. Show all posts
Sunday, September 22, 2013
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
I didn't vote for Grover Norquist
Here's a great illustration of why we should despise, and even get rid of, the unelected powermongers who prowl the streets of Washington, New York City, London, and other seats of power in the world.
Grover Norquist is the president of an organization called "Americans for Tax Reform." Twenty years ago, he started pushing newly elected Republican Congressmen (and women), or those who were running for election, to sign a pledge that they would never vote to raise taxes.
After 20 years of fiscal irresponsibility on the part of both the executive and legislative branches of the federal government, our country finds itself in a difficult financial position. We need to implement our own "austerity measures" before they are dictated to us by someone else — like international banks and foreign governments. We are facing a fiscal crisis which can be resolved in several ways, most of them painful. One of the least painful ways is a combination of spending cuts and tax increases.
I didin't say it was "painless." I said it was "one of the least painful." Don't be stupid.
You will recall that, on August 2, 2011, the U.S. Congress set up a bipartisan "supercommittee" that was supposed to break through the Congressional gridlock and come up with a solution to this fiscal problem while there was still time to act. As an incentive to getting things done, Congress wrote a Plan B into the legislation, a bitter pill that the nation would have to swallow on January 2, 2013 if the supercommittee failed in their mission. This was no secret to anybody — nor was the timing of Plan B, two convenient months after a critical national election. Congress as a whole may be a pack of idiots, but they're clever idiots.
At any rate, the supercommittee proved to be as fractious and stubborn as the body which had created it, and they hit their deadline without completing their mission. So Plan B kicked in, and the automatic spending cuts and other measures that it specified will also kick in, on January 2, 2013. These automatic measures, if activated, will severely impact the still-fragile economy and could drive the country back into a recession. Some wag coined the term "fiscal cliff" to describe the country's situation, and now everybody is saying it. I'm so sick of hearing the term that I get the urge to chew my leg off every time someone says it.
Now that the election is over, the executive and legislative branches are scrambling to find a way to deactivate this time bomb before it goes off. As I said earlier, one solution involves raising taxes.
Enter Grover Norquist.
In general, Democrats have always been eager to raise taxes, and Republicans have been just as eager to cut taxes, or at least not to raise them. For the most part, every tax vote that has come up in Congress for the past 20 or so years has gone right down party lines. Now, for the sake of the country, some Republicans are warming up to the idea of raising taxes on some people. This includes some powerful Congressmen who signed Norquist's pledge 20 years ago, such as John McCain, R-Ariz, and Lindsay Graham, R-N.C.
Now, Norquist is holding their feet to the fire, insisting that the pledge lasts forever and that they can't back away from it just because it's no longer practical or convenient. He compares the power of the pledge to the power of a mortgage or a marriage vow. (It's ludicrous that he should pick these two analogies, when homeowners are walking away from underwater mortgages and the ratio of divorces to marriages in this country exceeds 50%.) But a pledge not to raise taxes is not as sacred as a marriage vow, nor as legally binding as a mortgage commitment. And it ignores the fact that, in politics, practicality has to win out over ideology. We've had four years — actually, we've had 20 years, but the last four years are a representative sample — of a Congress ruled by ideologues, and you can see what a mess it has gotten us into.
Norquist has been in the news a lot this week, sounding like someone who's in charge of Congress. He is attempting to enforce his will through threats, blackmail, and innuendo. His tax pledge is an ideology that has blinded him to the current reality. He cannot see past the tax pledge, to what is really important for the country. He is no better than the members of the supercommittee, who couldn't see past their own positions and party platforms to work out a compromise and act in the country's collective best interests. Actually, he's worse than they were, because we didn't elect him.
Our Congresspeople should be accountable to us, the voters, not to some unelected lobbyist or to the president of a lobbying organization like Americans for Tax Reform. I didn't vote for Grover Norquist. I don't want him running the country. To grant him any measure of power in Washington is just plain wrong. We as Americans should stand up and, in one loud voice, tell Grover Norquist to "SHUT UP!"
UPDATE:
John Cassidy, of the New Yorker, apparently beat me to the punch, publishing this analysis of Norquist two days ago.
POSTSCRIPT:
While we're at it, here are some other people who should shut up and keep their power-hungry paws and their fat, padded asses out of the halls of power in Washington, D.C.:
And here are some people that we should see and hear more of in Washington. Somehow, these people come across as wise, as speaking up in behalf of the American people instead of themselves. Both the legislative and executive branches would do well to heed their advice.
POST-POSTSCRIPT:
Some of those paws are money-grubbing paws, not power-hungry paws. But the first rule of power is "Power follows money," so in my mind there's not a lot of difference between them.
Grover Norquist is the president of an organization called "Americans for Tax Reform." Twenty years ago, he started pushing newly elected Republican Congressmen (and women), or those who were running for election, to sign a pledge that they would never vote to raise taxes.
After 20 years of fiscal irresponsibility on the part of both the executive and legislative branches of the federal government, our country finds itself in a difficult financial position. We need to implement our own "austerity measures" before they are dictated to us by someone else — like international banks and foreign governments. We are facing a fiscal crisis which can be resolved in several ways, most of them painful. One of the least painful ways is a combination of spending cuts and tax increases.
I didin't say it was "painless." I said it was "one of the least painful." Don't be stupid.
You will recall that, on August 2, 2011, the U.S. Congress set up a bipartisan "supercommittee" that was supposed to break through the Congressional gridlock and come up with a solution to this fiscal problem while there was still time to act. As an incentive to getting things done, Congress wrote a Plan B into the legislation, a bitter pill that the nation would have to swallow on January 2, 2013 if the supercommittee failed in their mission. This was no secret to anybody — nor was the timing of Plan B, two convenient months after a critical national election. Congress as a whole may be a pack of idiots, but they're clever idiots.
At any rate, the supercommittee proved to be as fractious and stubborn as the body which had created it, and they hit their deadline without completing their mission. So Plan B kicked in, and the automatic spending cuts and other measures that it specified will also kick in, on January 2, 2013. These automatic measures, if activated, will severely impact the still-fragile economy and could drive the country back into a recession. Some wag coined the term "fiscal cliff" to describe the country's situation, and now everybody is saying it. I'm so sick of hearing the term that I get the urge to chew my leg off every time someone says it.
Now that the election is over, the executive and legislative branches are scrambling to find a way to deactivate this time bomb before it goes off. As I said earlier, one solution involves raising taxes.
Enter Grover Norquist.
In general, Democrats have always been eager to raise taxes, and Republicans have been just as eager to cut taxes, or at least not to raise them. For the most part, every tax vote that has come up in Congress for the past 20 or so years has gone right down party lines. Now, for the sake of the country, some Republicans are warming up to the idea of raising taxes on some people. This includes some powerful Congressmen who signed Norquist's pledge 20 years ago, such as John McCain, R-Ariz, and Lindsay Graham, R-N.C.
Now, Norquist is holding their feet to the fire, insisting that the pledge lasts forever and that they can't back away from it just because it's no longer practical or convenient. He compares the power of the pledge to the power of a mortgage or a marriage vow. (It's ludicrous that he should pick these two analogies, when homeowners are walking away from underwater mortgages and the ratio of divorces to marriages in this country exceeds 50%.) But a pledge not to raise taxes is not as sacred as a marriage vow, nor as legally binding as a mortgage commitment. And it ignores the fact that, in politics, practicality has to win out over ideology. We've had four years — actually, we've had 20 years, but the last four years are a representative sample — of a Congress ruled by ideologues, and you can see what a mess it has gotten us into.
Norquist has been in the news a lot this week, sounding like someone who's in charge of Congress. He is attempting to enforce his will through threats, blackmail, and innuendo. His tax pledge is an ideology that has blinded him to the current reality. He cannot see past the tax pledge, to what is really important for the country. He is no better than the members of the supercommittee, who couldn't see past their own positions and party platforms to work out a compromise and act in the country's collective best interests. Actually, he's worse than they were, because we didn't elect him.
Our Congresspeople should be accountable to us, the voters, not to some unelected lobbyist or to the president of a lobbying organization like Americans for Tax Reform. I didn't vote for Grover Norquist. I don't want him running the country. To grant him any measure of power in Washington is just plain wrong. We as Americans should stand up and, in one loud voice, tell Grover Norquist to "SHUT UP!"
UPDATE:
John Cassidy, of the New Yorker, apparently beat me to the punch, publishing this analysis of Norquist two days ago.
POSTSCRIPT:
While we're at it, here are some other people who should shut up and keep their power-hungry paws and their fat, padded asses out of the halls of power in Washington, D.C.:
- Donald Trump
- Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton
- Bank presidents, bank lawyers, banking organizations, and lobbyists acting on behalf of banks
- Uh, the same thing, this time substituting "auto company" for "bank" and "banking"
- The same thing again, this time substituting "insurance company"
- The same thing again, this time substituting "investment firm" or "finance company"
- Any special-interest group representing a privileged minority of Americans
- Actors, musicians, sports superstars and anyone else trying to parlay their fame into power - unless they run for office and get elected
And here are some people that we should see and hear more of in Washington. Somehow, these people come across as wise, as speaking up in behalf of the American people instead of themselves. Both the legislative and executive branches would do well to heed their advice.
- Warren Buffett
- Mitt Romney, the private citizen
- Meg Whitman
- Wow, this is a frightfully short list!
POST-POSTSCRIPT:
Some of those paws are money-grubbing paws, not power-hungry paws. But the first rule of power is "Power follows money," so in my mind there's not a lot of difference between them.
Monday, February 6, 2012
Don't get me wrong about China
Please don't think that I'm anti-China.
I did write an article exposing the Beijing Olympics for their dishonesty, and held them up as a symbol for everything that's wrong with China.
I did write an article warning about the new economic bubble that is China, a bubble whose eventual bursting will spell catastrophe for the entire world.
I did write about the Chinese government's attempted bullying related to the Dalai Lama's visit to Washington D.C.
There's a lot that is good about China. Without a doubt, many of its woes come from trying to handle the largest population in the world. India, with the world's second-largest population, has its own set of problems. And the United States, coming in a distant third, is not without its share of problems either, and I haven't been shy about writing about them. (The U.S., that is. I don't know enough about India to write intelligently about that country.)
However, having acknowledged those arguments, I see that the rest of the world is selling its soul to China, becoming dependent on China for so many economic advantages - and the Chinese nation is ignoring its future, or perhaps flushing its future down the river, in a mad attempt to take over the world.
It's not a good thing for anybody. As I've said before, it's driven by greed - both inside China and out. It's a complicated problem, and not easy to fix. It's so complicated that entire books have been (hastily) written about the subject, and I'm not even going to try to explain or analyze it here. But take my word for it: it's a bad thing, and one day the entire civilized world have cause to regret it.
I did write an article exposing the Beijing Olympics for their dishonesty, and held them up as a symbol for everything that's wrong with China.
I did write an article warning about the new economic bubble that is China, a bubble whose eventual bursting will spell catastrophe for the entire world.
I did write about the Chinese government's attempted bullying related to the Dalai Lama's visit to Washington D.C.
There's a lot that is good about China. Without a doubt, many of its woes come from trying to handle the largest population in the world. India, with the world's second-largest population, has its own set of problems. And the United States, coming in a distant third, is not without its share of problems either, and I haven't been shy about writing about them. (The U.S., that is. I don't know enough about India to write intelligently about that country.)
However, having acknowledged those arguments, I see that the rest of the world is selling its soul to China, becoming dependent on China for so many economic advantages - and the Chinese nation is ignoring its future, or perhaps flushing its future down the river, in a mad attempt to take over the world.
It's not a good thing for anybody. As I've said before, it's driven by greed - both inside China and out. It's a complicated problem, and not easy to fix. It's so complicated that entire books have been (hastily) written about the subject, and I'm not even going to try to explain or analyze it here. But take my word for it: it's a bad thing, and one day the entire civilized world have cause to regret it.
Friday, November 4, 2011
Dear Congressman: The Whole World is Watching, and They Know You're Going to Fail
I sat down this morning to write an article about the next budgetary challenge facing the Congress of the United States. Once again, they have the chance to prove how fiscally irresponsible, and politically hopeless, they are. The Supercommittee's first deadline, November 23, is only three weeks away, but five days before that, the Congress has to pass the 2012 budget. You and I both know how that's going to turn out, right?
Anyway, I was going to give you an analysis of the situation, when I ran across an article online. The article appeared on yahoo.com, and it was written by Jay Newton-Small, of Time.com. Jay says exactly what I was going to say - even with my voice, right down to the "You gotta love" near the end. It's as if I discovered a kindred spirit. If I get the author's approval, I'll reprint the whole article here. For now, here's the link to the article.
As Congress Squabbles, Another Shutdown Looms
Read and enjoy.
Anyway, I was going to give you an analysis of the situation, when I ran across an article online. The article appeared on yahoo.com, and it was written by Jay Newton-Small, of Time.com. Jay says exactly what I was going to say - even with my voice, right down to the "You gotta love" near the end. It's as if I discovered a kindred spirit. If I get the author's approval, I'll reprint the whole article here. For now, here's the link to the article.
As Congress Squabbles, Another Shutdown Looms
Read and enjoy.
Friday, September 23, 2011
Dear Congressman: It's official. You really are IDIOTS.
To all the members of the Congress of the United States:
Actually, "idiot" is the best G-rated word I can think of to describe all 535 of you right now.
On Wednesday, the House of Representatives voted that all 435 of its members are idiots.
On Friday, the Senate followed up with their own vote, confirming that all 100 of its members are idiots.
I can't believe we entrusted you with this one, simple thing, and you couldn't deliver. You had the chance to compromise, to truly work together to make something happen.
And you chose words over deeds. You chose to do nothing. Instead, you're going to tell us why you did nothing. Well, We The People are sick to the point of nausea of hearing you talk, of reading your words, of seeing you in front of a microphone or a television camera. We just want you to shut up and do something, for a change.
Do you not understand what is at stake here? Lemme quote Yahoo! News to you:
Actually, "idiot" is the best G-rated word I can think of to describe all 535 of you right now.
On Wednesday, the House of Representatives voted that all 435 of its members are idiots.
On Friday, the Senate followed up with their own vote, confirming that all 100 of its members are idiots.
I can't believe we entrusted you with this one, simple thing, and you couldn't deliver. You had the chance to compromise, to truly work together to make something happen.
And you chose words over deeds. You chose to do nothing. Instead, you're going to tell us why you did nothing. Well, We The People are sick to the point of nausea of hearing you talk, of reading your words, of seeing you in front of a microphone or a television camera. We just want you to shut up and do something, for a change.
Do you not understand what is at stake here? Lemme quote Yahoo! News to you:
The dispute throws into question lawmakers' ability to find common ground on the more painful choices they will have to confront in the coming months as a special bipartisan committee searches for trillions of dollars in budget savings.Now do you get it? We don't think you can do it. You don't have what it takes to do it. You are SO fired, you incompetent bunch of chimpanzees.
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Dear Congressman: You did it again! Good grief, how stupid ARE you?
To all members of the Congress of the United States:
On Wednesday, September 21, the House of Representatives voted that all 435 of its members are idiots. We're waiting to see if the Senate comes up with something similar.
Once again, a serious deadline looms: the federal government will be out of money - operating funds, that is - on October 1, little more than a week from now. Another emergency budget bill was presented for a vote in the House of Representatives on Wednesday. Forty-eight Tea Party Republicans voted against the bill because it didn't cut taxes. (That's not what it was intended to do! Idiots!) Almost all Democrats voted against the bill because it didn't spend enough money. (Haven't you learned? That's the last thing we need to be doing right now: spending more money. How do you think we got into this problem in the first place? Idiots!)
And you, the empty-headed, drooling, mouth-breathing, slope-headed, beetle-browed, lawyers and millionaires, whom We The People naively elected to "represent" us in the Congress of the United States, you are back to Business as Usual.
Party politics. Brinksmanship. Obstructionism. Ultimatums. Tantrums. Narrowmindedness. Selling of favors. Catering to special interests. Everything except the cooperation and compromise that we expect of you. Didn't you MORONS learn ANYTHING from the debt-ceiling debacle?
It was a simple thing! All you had to do was pass a bill! You couldn't even do that!
Once again, you are going to wait until just before midnight on September 30 to do something that you are perfectly capable of doing right now, because you're too stubborn, too immature, and too fond of power.
Listen to me carefully. I want you to remember these words. The American people have lost all confidence in their Senators and their Representatives. (This time, it's the Representatives' fault. Senators, I'm sure your turn is coming.) This November, and in the next five Novembers, We The People are going to show you what you can do with that power which you think you possess. We are going to kick all of you out of Washington, D.C. and send you back home, where you won't cause any more trouble. We will replace you with people who know what it's like to try to survive and keep a family together in these times, who know how to get something done.
You obviously don't know, and you apparently don't care. And for that reason alone, you are unworthy to hold office. You're all fired.
UPDATE, FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 23: The House of Representatives stayed up past midnight, and finally got a version of the bill passed. The vote went right down party lines, revealing that, even though they were able to pass the bill, all 435 members of the House of Representatives are still idiots. Stupid. Morons. Mental disasters. Buck-toothed jackasses, braying and kicking and blocking the trail.
The bill does contain a compromise: $1 billion of a requested $3.6 billion spending increase for disaster aid now, and another $2.6 billion in fiscal year 2012, which starts October 1. See, that wasn't so hard, was it? And they even threw in some spending cuts to appease the Tea Partiers.
Today, the bill goes to the Senate, where the Senate is expected to vote to reject it. As in the House, the vote will go right down party lines. Like I said at the beginning of this post, today the United States Senate is going to vote that all 100 of its members are flaming idiots, just like their counterparts down the hall. Here's why. An unnamed aide to a Democratic Senator gives this hypocritical, two-faced, self-serving comment in a CNN article:
Once again, to all members of the Congress of the United States: Today, the Senate will vote on whether or not you are idiots. And the money's riding on a "yes" vote.
With the screeching sound of the Eurozone crashing and burning in the background, the whole world is watching you, the Congress of the United States. Nobody is watching Europe. They're all focused on Washington, and wondering whether a nation so gridlocked, and so mismanaged, can long endure.
On Wednesday, September 21, the House of Representatives voted that all 435 of its members are idiots. We're waiting to see if the Senate comes up with something similar.
Once again, a serious deadline looms: the federal government will be out of money - operating funds, that is - on October 1, little more than a week from now. Another emergency budget bill was presented for a vote in the House of Representatives on Wednesday. Forty-eight Tea Party Republicans voted against the bill because it didn't cut taxes. (That's not what it was intended to do! Idiots!) Almost all Democrats voted against the bill because it didn't spend enough money. (Haven't you learned? That's the last thing we need to be doing right now: spending more money. How do you think we got into this problem in the first place? Idiots!)
And you, the empty-headed, drooling, mouth-breathing, slope-headed, beetle-browed, lawyers and millionaires, whom We The People naively elected to "represent" us in the Congress of the United States, you are back to Business as Usual.
Party politics. Brinksmanship. Obstructionism. Ultimatums. Tantrums. Narrowmindedness. Selling of favors. Catering to special interests. Everything except the cooperation and compromise that we expect of you. Didn't you MORONS learn ANYTHING from the debt-ceiling debacle?
It was a simple thing! All you had to do was pass a bill! You couldn't even do that!
Once again, you are going to wait until just before midnight on September 30 to do something that you are perfectly capable of doing right now, because you're too stubborn, too immature, and too fond of power.
Listen to me carefully. I want you to remember these words. The American people have lost all confidence in their Senators and their Representatives. (This time, it's the Representatives' fault. Senators, I'm sure your turn is coming.) This November, and in the next five Novembers, We The People are going to show you what you can do with that power which you think you possess. We are going to kick all of you out of Washington, D.C. and send you back home, where you won't cause any more trouble. We will replace you with people who know what it's like to try to survive and keep a family together in these times, who know how to get something done.
You obviously don't know, and you apparently don't care. And for that reason alone, you are unworthy to hold office. You're all fired.
UPDATE, FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 23: The House of Representatives stayed up past midnight, and finally got a version of the bill passed. The vote went right down party lines, revealing that, even though they were able to pass the bill, all 435 members of the House of Representatives are still idiots. Stupid. Morons. Mental disasters. Buck-toothed jackasses, braying and kicking and blocking the trail.
The bill does contain a compromise: $1 billion of a requested $3.6 billion spending increase for disaster aid now, and another $2.6 billion in fiscal year 2012, which starts October 1. See, that wasn't so hard, was it? And they even threw in some spending cuts to appease the Tea Partiers.
Today, the bill goes to the Senate, where the Senate is expected to vote to reject it. As in the House, the vote will go right down party lines. Like I said at the beginning of this post, today the United States Senate is going to vote that all 100 of its members are flaming idiots, just like their counterparts down the hall. Here's why. An unnamed aide to a Democratic Senator gives this hypocritical, two-faced, self-serving comment in a CNN article:
On Thursday night, senior Senate Democratic leadership aide said the party's caucus is united against Republican-tailored versions of the measure. "We are looking for a real attempt to compromise, not just an attempt to appease their own people," the aide said.Nobody in the Senate - on either side of the aisle - is interested in compromise, as they have made clear. For either party to suggest that they are is an insult to the intelligence of the American people. This is a do-nothing Congress. All they can do is talk and talk, and they do way too much of that. We The People want deeds, not words.
Once again, to all members of the Congress of the United States: Today, the Senate will vote on whether or not you are idiots. And the money's riding on a "yes" vote.
With the screeching sound of the Eurozone crashing and burning in the background, the whole world is watching you, the Congress of the United States. Nobody is watching Europe. They're all focused on Washington, and wondering whether a nation so gridlocked, and so mismanaged, can long endure.
Friday, September 16, 2011
The new bubble: China
In the wake of the dotcom bubble of 1995-2000, and the real-estate-bubble catastrophe of 2003-2008, economists and policymakers are looking around anxiously, trying to predict the next bubble to burst. In all their casting about, they are quietly ignoring the dead moose lying right there on the coffee table in the middle of the room: China.
Consider the dotcom bubble for a minute. The bubble was caused by a bunch of entrepreneurs who jumped on the make-money-fast-on-the-Internet bandwagon (the ".com" suffix, pronounced "dot-com," became a new word and a label for the whole fiasco), and all the investors who fed them money. Greed fueled the dotcom bubble. Even people who should have known better, smart and educated Wall Street professionals, bought into the boom. Some college professors and very conservative investment advisors warned that both the entrepreneurs and the speculators were ignoring the basic principles of investing, but others said that the dotcom boom had rewritten the rules. I actually heard several "experts" on public radio saying, "This time it's different."
Well, that time, it was no different. Most of the dotcom businesses went bankrupt in a few years. The entrepreneurs and the investors lost everything. The money simply disappeared, along with everything built on that money.
When you get right down to it, the cause of the dotcom bubble was pure and simple greed: people wanted to get rich quick.
The real estate bubble was the same way: Before the bubble began, mortgage lending was governed by strict rules. A potential homebuyer had to have a large enough down payment to indicate a serious intent to keep the property, and a demonstrated ability to make the required monthly payments. Potential lenders did serious evaluations of buyers' ability to pay: the credit appraisal. Millions of homebuyers have experienced the anxious waiting period while their credit appraisal was being completed, wondering what kind of credit risk the lender would assess them at, and what mortgage terms they would be offered as a result.
Suddenly, almost overnight, the lending rules changed. The required down payment dropped from 20 percent, to 10 percent, then five percent, and finally zero percent. No down payment was required to get into a house. At the same time, credit terms were relaxed. There was no longer any need to demonstrate that a buyer could sustain a mortgage payment - not for one month, let alone for 30 years. And finally, an insidious form of mortgage which had been quietly gaining in popularity for 30 years seemed to take over the market. This was the negative-amortization loan, which allowed a buyer to make smaller payments than the minimum required by the traditional formulas, with the accrued interest being added to the principal, so that the buyer owed more and more money as time went on. Some of these negative-amortization loans had a a schedule of gradually increasing payments as the years went on. Some only had a term of three to five years, with a huge "balloon" payment at the end, with the unwritten (but oft-spoken) mutual expectation that the buyer would arrange new and better financing before the loan expired.
Two things happened as a result of this relaxation of the rules. First, people who should never have been buying houses started buying houses. Second, everybody - well, almost everybody - started buying houses bigger than they could afford. Then sellers started realizing that they could get a lot more money for their property than they were expecting, and so they started jacking up the prices of their homes. Home prices had been rising steadily for decades anyway, but suddenly the prices accelerated their upward trend.
Everybody was getting rich. Buyers were getting bigger houses than they could afford. Sellers were making lots of money. Lenders were getting lots of mortgages - meaning that they owned lots of homes. Then the sellers, mostly banks, started bundling the mortgages together (think of the physical metaphor, all of those paper mortgage agreements, stacked up and held together with rubber bands) and selling them to each other as investment instruments. Heck, if all those buyers actually made their payments for 30 years, those mortgages represented a lot of income for the lenders!
(We haven't even talked about China yet. Stay tuned.)
So buyers, sellers, lenders, and stockholders saw the chance to get really rich, really quick, and they jumped on it. Once again, as with the dotcom bubble, people ignored the safe and sensible rules of investing, caught up in the chance to make money off the rapid rise in property values. Builders built, banks lended, flippers flipped, and real estate agents (and their friends, the mortgage brokers) paid cash for fancy new cars and stuff. As before, greed ruled the day.
This entire house of cards was built on a foundation of borrowers - home buyers - who couldn't afford to pay back the money they had borrowed. When these people eventually ran out of money and defaulted on their loans, the lenders exercised the terms of the mortgage, kicked them out of their homes, and took over their property. But foreclosed property doesn't make the banks any money. They try to get rid of it as quickly as they can. But the banks had acquired so many homes that they couldn't sell them all - not quickly, not slowly, and not for anywhere near their appraised value. That's because the home values had been horrendously inflated in the price runup that was the bubble.
Now the banks had the properties, but not the cash flow that the properties were supposed to generate. Without money coming in, the banks couldn't take care of their own financial obligations. So the banks started failing, or at least were in danger of failing. The only way they could generate money in a hurry was by selling some of their investments. And the vast majority of investments were those bundles of mortgages - "mortgage-backed securities," they were called - and since those mortgages were in default, they were worthless pieces of paper. Nobody wanted to buy them.
So the homeowners lost their homes, the banks lost their money, and the investors lost their money. Banks couldn't afford to pay their bills or their employees. All the money that went into the real estate market disappeared and was gone forever. The ripple effects from this disaster led to failures in other, tightly connected industries, such as investment broker Merrill Lynch, insurance company AIG, and automaker General Motors. That's when all the banks, the investment companies, the insurance companies, and the automakers ran crying to the government, saying "we're too big to fail."
In case you haven't figured it out yet, I'll say it again. The entire dotcom bubble and bust was caused by greed. The entire real estate bubble and bust was caused by greed.
And that brings us to China. I speak of China here as one monolithic entity, encompassing its government, its financial institutions, and its industries. Some of you may object if I include Taiwan and Hong Kong in the monolith, but for now that's what I'm doing. I may lump the Chinese people in here as well, because the individuals are what make up the aforementioned institutions.
China is the next big bubble, and when it busts, the results will be a worldwide catastrophe. And as with the dotcom and real estate bubbles, the driving force behind it all is greed.
China has systematically undercut prices for manufactured goods all over the world. Because of the low prices offered by Chinese manufacturers, many American companies have moved all their manufacturing from North America to China. It saves the American companies lots of money, which shows up in their corporate profits. Besides, it lets them sell their goods to American consumers more cheaply, and American consumers like "cheap." Most American consumers prefer "cheap" over "quality," but I don't think we'll get into that here.
As a result, most, if not all, of the American companies who make their goods in China are trapped. For example, all of Apple's iPads and iPhones are made in China. They could not stay in that business segment if they were suddenly forced to make them here. Even if they could set up an assembly line, they couldn't run it without the components - the display, the batteries, and so on - because the components are also made in China.
(There was a great article in Forbes recently, called "Why Amazon Can't Make a Kindle in the USA.")
Much of today's high-tech gadgetry, including the cheapest cellular phone on the market, depends on some exotic minerals known as rare earth elements to operate. Those rare earths used to be mined in Africa, Russia, and North and South America. Several years ago, China started mining them and selling them at drastically reduced prices. The other mines could not compete and shut down, leaving China as the sole source for these rare earths. Recently, China has been talking about jacking up the price or restricting the supply of these minerals. Guess what would happen to Nokia and other (non-Chinese) cellphone manufacturers if rare earths became too expensive to buy, or simply unavailable? That's right!
Recently, I wanted to buy my wife a new kitchen mixer. I went to three department stores here in the western U.S. Every single mixer I looked at was made in China. The venerable domestic brands like Sunbeam, and the classy European brands like, um, Braun (I think) all had "Made in China" stamped on the box somewhere. And they were all made in China because it's cheaper.
Our first vacuum cleaner was a Hoover. It was made in America (or Canada, I think) and it was mostly made of metal. Our second vacuum cleaner was also a Hoover. It was mostly made of plastic, but it was still made in America. Together, those two vacuum cleaners lasted over 30 years. They were sturdy machines, and we used them A LOT. Now we're shopping for our third vacuum cleaner. We looked at the offerings from Hoover. They're made mostly of plastic. They're made in China. They have a terrible reputation for workmanship, reliability, and vacuum-ability. Why should we buy Hoover again? We won't.
Hoover's not the worst, nor is it the cheapest. There are cheaper vacuum cleaners. They don't work very well, either. And guess where every single one of them is made?
It gets worse. Shall we look at automobiles? The concept of a "made in America" automobile, even a manly American pickup truck, is laughable. All of the electronics are made in China, or assembled in the U.S. (or Mexico or another country) from components made in China. The bumpers and fenders may be made in the U.S. (or Mexico or Ohio), but the raw materials for those metal bumpers and plastic fenders were shipped to the U.S. from overseas - mostly from China! Even the fabric or vinyl upholstery for the seats comes from China. The light bulbs! The floor mats! Detroit has outsourced all of it, in an effort to make a buck.
(John Deere, in Iowa, still makes a lot of their own components. But Chinese electronics are starting to make inroads there, even.)
How did the U.S. government finance the bailout of the companies that got caught in the 2008 financial crisis following the bust of the real estate bubble (especially the "too big to fail" companies that should have been allowed to fail, or else cut up into smaller pieces that were no longer "too big to fail")? They sold government-backed securities to other countries. And which country bought the lion's share of those securities? Which country was so flush with cash (or the promise thereof - remember how the real estate bubble worked!) that it could step in and buy billions of dollars of U.S. treasury bonds without flinching? Well, China, of course!
And guess where China got all that money from? From America, of course! They sell us their stuff, they collect our money, and then they buy our country and our future.
But it's all a house of cards, just like the dotcoms and the housing boom. China has looked into their future and they're forecasting massive growth - so massive that they've gone out into the countryside and carved out entire cities from nothing. Street lights, apartment buildings, government buildings and shopping centers have risen out of the pastures and are waiting for people to move into them. These "ghost cities" can be seen on Google Maps, and they're eerily empty. The Chinese are mining coal and burning it at a furious rate, to literally fuel their growth. They are damming rivers and gouging out strip mines to supply their hungry industries with raw materials.
And they are engaging in a centuries-long tradition of imitation and deception. They take products made in the West, try to figure out what makes them work, and then try to come up with a copy that looks the same - right down to the trademarks, the colors and the textures. Some of the patented and trademarked cable that my own employer makes has appeared in counterfeit form in Asia - made in China.
In the ultimate irony, they duplicate not only Apple's computers and handheld products (and remember, the legitimate ones are also made in China), but they sell them in 22 imitation Apple stores. The stores are not affiliated with Apple Computer in any way, but their layout, decor, and even employee uniforms and name badges are exact duplicates of what you will find in real Apple stores. The deception is so complete that some of the store employees think they are really working for Apple Computer.
I have already written about the sham (and the scam) that was the 2008 Beijing Olympics. It was a plastic imitation of the real thing, a shameless ripoff of other people's hard work, enabled by the duplicity of the Chinese government and the gullibility of the rest of the world. In the same way, the duplicity of monolithic China and the willingness of the rest of the world to be led around by the nose (or other body parts) has contributed to the growth of the house of cards that is the Chinese bubble.
Actually, that's not completely accurate. At the core of everything, it is the greed of monolithic China and the greed of the rest of the world that have contributed to the Chinese bubble.
One day, the U.S. government or another government will not be able to make good on the financial instruments that China holds. China will find out that it is holding on to worthless pieces of paper, and that China does not have enough real money to keep operating. With no money to pay its own obligations, power plants and mines will shut down. Trains will stop operating. With no way to get raw materials, factories will shut down and send their workers home. With no jobs and no money to spend, Chinese people will stop buying their own goods. With nothing to ship, ships will stop crossing the ocean, and Americans will no longer be able to buy Hoover vacuum cleaners, Sunbeam mixers, or Apple iPhones. Without the raw materials and components from China, American automakers (and Japanese and German ones, too) will no longer be able to build cars.
Printing presses, computers, traffic lights, tables, chairs, dishes, cutlery, light bulbs, furniture, clothing: all of it will come to a stop until alternative sources can be found or tooled up. Those alternative mines and factories will spring up all over the world, but they won't start producing overnight. They will take years. And the wealth, or commerce, or economic prosperity - the money - that was lost forever will take even more years to replace.
It may take a decade for the bubble to burst. Some people will argue with me and say it will never happen. But it ony took 15 years for the gigantic Japanese economic machine, which was also supposed to take over the world, to come crashing down. It surely did, and the Chinese one will come crashing down just as surely. And when it does, it will take years for the world to recover.
From its own greed.
Consider the dotcom bubble for a minute. The bubble was caused by a bunch of entrepreneurs who jumped on the make-money-fast-on-the-Internet bandwagon (the ".com" suffix, pronounced "dot-com," became a new word and a label for the whole fiasco), and all the investors who fed them money. Greed fueled the dotcom bubble. Even people who should have known better, smart and educated Wall Street professionals, bought into the boom. Some college professors and very conservative investment advisors warned that both the entrepreneurs and the speculators were ignoring the basic principles of investing, but others said that the dotcom boom had rewritten the rules. I actually heard several "experts" on public radio saying, "This time it's different."
Well, that time, it was no different. Most of the dotcom businesses went bankrupt in a few years. The entrepreneurs and the investors lost everything. The money simply disappeared, along with everything built on that money.
When you get right down to it, the cause of the dotcom bubble was pure and simple greed: people wanted to get rich quick.
The real estate bubble was the same way: Before the bubble began, mortgage lending was governed by strict rules. A potential homebuyer had to have a large enough down payment to indicate a serious intent to keep the property, and a demonstrated ability to make the required monthly payments. Potential lenders did serious evaluations of buyers' ability to pay: the credit appraisal. Millions of homebuyers have experienced the anxious waiting period while their credit appraisal was being completed, wondering what kind of credit risk the lender would assess them at, and what mortgage terms they would be offered as a result.
Suddenly, almost overnight, the lending rules changed. The required down payment dropped from 20 percent, to 10 percent, then five percent, and finally zero percent. No down payment was required to get into a house. At the same time, credit terms were relaxed. There was no longer any need to demonstrate that a buyer could sustain a mortgage payment - not for one month, let alone for 30 years. And finally, an insidious form of mortgage which had been quietly gaining in popularity for 30 years seemed to take over the market. This was the negative-amortization loan, which allowed a buyer to make smaller payments than the minimum required by the traditional formulas, with the accrued interest being added to the principal, so that the buyer owed more and more money as time went on. Some of these negative-amortization loans had a a schedule of gradually increasing payments as the years went on. Some only had a term of three to five years, with a huge "balloon" payment at the end, with the unwritten (but oft-spoken) mutual expectation that the buyer would arrange new and better financing before the loan expired.
Two things happened as a result of this relaxation of the rules. First, people who should never have been buying houses started buying houses. Second, everybody - well, almost everybody - started buying houses bigger than they could afford. Then sellers started realizing that they could get a lot more money for their property than they were expecting, and so they started jacking up the prices of their homes. Home prices had been rising steadily for decades anyway, but suddenly the prices accelerated their upward trend.
Everybody was getting rich. Buyers were getting bigger houses than they could afford. Sellers were making lots of money. Lenders were getting lots of mortgages - meaning that they owned lots of homes. Then the sellers, mostly banks, started bundling the mortgages together (think of the physical metaphor, all of those paper mortgage agreements, stacked up and held together with rubber bands) and selling them to each other as investment instruments. Heck, if all those buyers actually made their payments for 30 years, those mortgages represented a lot of income for the lenders!
(We haven't even talked about China yet. Stay tuned.)
So buyers, sellers, lenders, and stockholders saw the chance to get really rich, really quick, and they jumped on it. Once again, as with the dotcom bubble, people ignored the safe and sensible rules of investing, caught up in the chance to make money off the rapid rise in property values. Builders built, banks lended, flippers flipped, and real estate agents (and their friends, the mortgage brokers) paid cash for fancy new cars and stuff. As before, greed ruled the day.
This entire house of cards was built on a foundation of borrowers - home buyers - who couldn't afford to pay back the money they had borrowed. When these people eventually ran out of money and defaulted on their loans, the lenders exercised the terms of the mortgage, kicked them out of their homes, and took over their property. But foreclosed property doesn't make the banks any money. They try to get rid of it as quickly as they can. But the banks had acquired so many homes that they couldn't sell them all - not quickly, not slowly, and not for anywhere near their appraised value. That's because the home values had been horrendously inflated in the price runup that was the bubble.
Now the banks had the properties, but not the cash flow that the properties were supposed to generate. Without money coming in, the banks couldn't take care of their own financial obligations. So the banks started failing, or at least were in danger of failing. The only way they could generate money in a hurry was by selling some of their investments. And the vast majority of investments were those bundles of mortgages - "mortgage-backed securities," they were called - and since those mortgages were in default, they were worthless pieces of paper. Nobody wanted to buy them.
So the homeowners lost their homes, the banks lost their money, and the investors lost their money. Banks couldn't afford to pay their bills or their employees. All the money that went into the real estate market disappeared and was gone forever. The ripple effects from this disaster led to failures in other, tightly connected industries, such as investment broker Merrill Lynch, insurance company AIG, and automaker General Motors. That's when all the banks, the investment companies, the insurance companies, and the automakers ran crying to the government, saying "we're too big to fail."
In case you haven't figured it out yet, I'll say it again. The entire dotcom bubble and bust was caused by greed. The entire real estate bubble and bust was caused by greed.
And that brings us to China. I speak of China here as one monolithic entity, encompassing its government, its financial institutions, and its industries. Some of you may object if I include Taiwan and Hong Kong in the monolith, but for now that's what I'm doing. I may lump the Chinese people in here as well, because the individuals are what make up the aforementioned institutions.
China is the next big bubble, and when it busts, the results will be a worldwide catastrophe. And as with the dotcom and real estate bubbles, the driving force behind it all is greed.
China has systematically undercut prices for manufactured goods all over the world. Because of the low prices offered by Chinese manufacturers, many American companies have moved all their manufacturing from North America to China. It saves the American companies lots of money, which shows up in their corporate profits. Besides, it lets them sell their goods to American consumers more cheaply, and American consumers like "cheap." Most American consumers prefer "cheap" over "quality," but I don't think we'll get into that here.
As a result, most, if not all, of the American companies who make their goods in China are trapped. For example, all of Apple's iPads and iPhones are made in China. They could not stay in that business segment if they were suddenly forced to make them here. Even if they could set up an assembly line, they couldn't run it without the components - the display, the batteries, and so on - because the components are also made in China.
(There was a great article in Forbes recently, called "Why Amazon Can't Make a Kindle in the USA.")
Much of today's high-tech gadgetry, including the cheapest cellular phone on the market, depends on some exotic minerals known as rare earth elements to operate. Those rare earths used to be mined in Africa, Russia, and North and South America. Several years ago, China started mining them and selling them at drastically reduced prices. The other mines could not compete and shut down, leaving China as the sole source for these rare earths. Recently, China has been talking about jacking up the price or restricting the supply of these minerals. Guess what would happen to Nokia and other (non-Chinese) cellphone manufacturers if rare earths became too expensive to buy, or simply unavailable? That's right!
Recently, I wanted to buy my wife a new kitchen mixer. I went to three department stores here in the western U.S. Every single mixer I looked at was made in China. The venerable domestic brands like Sunbeam, and the classy European brands like, um, Braun (I think) all had "Made in China" stamped on the box somewhere. And they were all made in China because it's cheaper.
Our first vacuum cleaner was a Hoover. It was made in America (or Canada, I think) and it was mostly made of metal. Our second vacuum cleaner was also a Hoover. It was mostly made of plastic, but it was still made in America. Together, those two vacuum cleaners lasted over 30 years. They were sturdy machines, and we used them A LOT. Now we're shopping for our third vacuum cleaner. We looked at the offerings from Hoover. They're made mostly of plastic. They're made in China. They have a terrible reputation for workmanship, reliability, and vacuum-ability. Why should we buy Hoover again? We won't.
Hoover's not the worst, nor is it the cheapest. There are cheaper vacuum cleaners. They don't work very well, either. And guess where every single one of them is made?
It gets worse. Shall we look at automobiles? The concept of a "made in America" automobile, even a manly American pickup truck, is laughable. All of the electronics are made in China, or assembled in the U.S. (or Mexico or another country) from components made in China. The bumpers and fenders may be made in the U.S. (or Mexico or Ohio), but the raw materials for those metal bumpers and plastic fenders were shipped to the U.S. from overseas - mostly from China! Even the fabric or vinyl upholstery for the seats comes from China. The light bulbs! The floor mats! Detroit has outsourced all of it, in an effort to make a buck.
(John Deere, in Iowa, still makes a lot of their own components. But Chinese electronics are starting to make inroads there, even.)
How did the U.S. government finance the bailout of the companies that got caught in the 2008 financial crisis following the bust of the real estate bubble (especially the "too big to fail" companies that should have been allowed to fail, or else cut up into smaller pieces that were no longer "too big to fail")? They sold government-backed securities to other countries. And which country bought the lion's share of those securities? Which country was so flush with cash (or the promise thereof - remember how the real estate bubble worked!) that it could step in and buy billions of dollars of U.S. treasury bonds without flinching? Well, China, of course!
And guess where China got all that money from? From America, of course! They sell us their stuff, they collect our money, and then they buy our country and our future.
But it's all a house of cards, just like the dotcoms and the housing boom. China has looked into their future and they're forecasting massive growth - so massive that they've gone out into the countryside and carved out entire cities from nothing. Street lights, apartment buildings, government buildings and shopping centers have risen out of the pastures and are waiting for people to move into them. These "ghost cities" can be seen on Google Maps, and they're eerily empty. The Chinese are mining coal and burning it at a furious rate, to literally fuel their growth. They are damming rivers and gouging out strip mines to supply their hungry industries with raw materials.
And they are engaging in a centuries-long tradition of imitation and deception. They take products made in the West, try to figure out what makes them work, and then try to come up with a copy that looks the same - right down to the trademarks, the colors and the textures. Some of the patented and trademarked cable that my own employer makes has appeared in counterfeit form in Asia - made in China.
In the ultimate irony, they duplicate not only Apple's computers and handheld products (and remember, the legitimate ones are also made in China), but they sell them in 22 imitation Apple stores. The stores are not affiliated with Apple Computer in any way, but their layout, decor, and even employee uniforms and name badges are exact duplicates of what you will find in real Apple stores. The deception is so complete that some of the store employees think they are really working for Apple Computer.
I have already written about the sham (and the scam) that was the 2008 Beijing Olympics. It was a plastic imitation of the real thing, a shameless ripoff of other people's hard work, enabled by the duplicity of the Chinese government and the gullibility of the rest of the world. In the same way, the duplicity of monolithic China and the willingness of the rest of the world to be led around by the nose (or other body parts) has contributed to the growth of the house of cards that is the Chinese bubble.
Actually, that's not completely accurate. At the core of everything, it is the greed of monolithic China and the greed of the rest of the world that have contributed to the Chinese bubble.
One day, the U.S. government or another government will not be able to make good on the financial instruments that China holds. China will find out that it is holding on to worthless pieces of paper, and that China does not have enough real money to keep operating. With no money to pay its own obligations, power plants and mines will shut down. Trains will stop operating. With no way to get raw materials, factories will shut down and send their workers home. With no jobs and no money to spend, Chinese people will stop buying their own goods. With nothing to ship, ships will stop crossing the ocean, and Americans will no longer be able to buy Hoover vacuum cleaners, Sunbeam mixers, or Apple iPhones. Without the raw materials and components from China, American automakers (and Japanese and German ones, too) will no longer be able to build cars.
Printing presses, computers, traffic lights, tables, chairs, dishes, cutlery, light bulbs, furniture, clothing: all of it will come to a stop until alternative sources can be found or tooled up. Those alternative mines and factories will spring up all over the world, but they won't start producing overnight. They will take years. And the wealth, or commerce, or economic prosperity - the money - that was lost forever will take even more years to replace.
It may take a decade for the bubble to burst. Some people will argue with me and say it will never happen. But it ony took 15 years for the gigantic Japanese economic machine, which was also supposed to take over the world, to come crashing down. It surely did, and the Chinese one will come crashing down just as surely. And when it does, it will take years for the world to recover.
From its own greed.
Saturday, September 3, 2011
Everything You Need to Know About the Debt Supercommittee
As part of the last-minute compromise on August 2 that resolved the debt-limit crisis, Congress set up a 12-person Super Committee. Officially called the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction,this committee was charged with coming up with a permanent fix for the budget and deficit problems facing the country and threatening the still-shaky economic recovery.
The idea that this Super Committee might come up with a "permanent" solution reminds me of some "permanent" solutions to other wide-ranging problems from the very early 20th century:
I can think of so many ways that the Super Committee idea will fail. All of them have to do with the inability of our elected officials to set aside their own agendas, ignore the Special Interests, be willing to compromise, work together for the common good, and act with foresight, courage and maturity. And if it does fail, the nation will be plunged into another economic crisis, and members of the Super Committee and Congress at large will stand around, pointing their fingers and blaming everyone but themselves for the failure.
In this article, I will give you the names of the twelve members of the Super Committee, and the timetable for the Super Committee and Congress. This is public information. I copied it from the National Journal and the Christian Science Monitor.
Members of the Super Committee
Timetable for the Super Committee
In a nutshell, the Super Committee has to come up with a plan for cutting the national debt by $1.5 trillion over x years. They have to present the formal, approved-by-all-twelve-members, plan to Congress by November 23. The House and Senate both have to vote to approve the plan by December 23. (I guess President Obama has to sign it into law by then, too.) If this doesn't happen, then the automatic spending cuts written into the August 2 compromise swing into action, much to the consternation of American citizens, other national governments, and banks worldwide.
Here are the details. You know who lives in the details!
Sept. 8: The committee holds its first organizational meeting; on the agenda will be setting the rules.
Sept. 13: First public hearing, which will include testimony on "The History and Drivers of Our Nation's Debt and Its Threats" from Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Elmendorf.
Sept. 22: Deadline for Congress to consider a resolution of disapproval for first $900 billion tranche of debt limit increase.
Oct. 1-Dec. 31: Timeframe in which both houses of Congress must vote on a Balanced Budget Amendment.
Oct. 14: House and Senate committees must submit recommendations to the committee by this date.
Nov. 23: Deadline for the committee to vote on a plan with $1.5 trillion in deficit reduction.
Dec. 2: Deadline for the committee to submit report and legislative language to the president and Congress.
Dec. 23: Deadline for both houses to vote on the committee bill.
Jan. 15, 2012: Date that the “trigger” leading to $1.2 trillion of future spending cuts goes into effect, if the committee’s legislation has not been enacted.
February 2012: Approximate time when the first $900 billion of debt ceiling increase runs out.
February/March 2012: During this period, 15 days after the president uses his authority in the bill to increase the debt ceiling a second time, is the deadline for Congress to consider a resolution of disapproval for the second tranche ($1.2-$1.5 trillion) of debt limit increase.
Fall/Winter 2012: The additional $2.1-$2.4 trillion of borrowing authority from this law runs out.
Jan. 2, 2013: OMB orders sequestrations for defense and non-defense categories of spending necessary to meet spending cuts required by the “trigger."
Good luck to all of us
Like the great-aunt who throws rice on the bride and groom and wishes them well, then turns around and mutters, "They'll be divorced in less than a year," I wish the Super Committee all the success in the world, but I expect them to fail miserably. I'd love to be proven wrong on this.
A note on Kerry "lobbying hard" to get on the Super Committee: I wouldn't be surprised if all twelve of them (and others who didn't get nominated) aspired, and pushed hard, to get onto this committee. However, I don't believe that anybody who did so, did so for primarily altruistic or patriotic reasons. I'd love to be proven wrong on this, too.
The idea that this Super Committee might come up with a "permanent" solution reminds me of some "permanent" solutions to other wide-ranging problems from the very early 20th century:
- World War I, the "war to end all wars."
- The League of Nations. (And its successor, the United Nations.)
I can think of so many ways that the Super Committee idea will fail. All of them have to do with the inability of our elected officials to set aside their own agendas, ignore the Special Interests, be willing to compromise, work together for the common good, and act with foresight, courage and maturity. And if it does fail, the nation will be plunged into another economic crisis, and members of the Super Committee and Congress at large will stand around, pointing their fingers and blaming everyone but themselves for the failure.
In this article, I will give you the names of the twelve members of the Super Committee, and the timetable for the Super Committee and Congress. This is public information. I copied it from the National Journal and the Christian Science Monitor.
Members of the Super Committee
- Sen. Max Baucus (D) of Montana - chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, which handles Medicare and tax policy.
- Rep. Xavier Becerra (D) of California -vice chairman of the Democratic Caucus and senior member of the House Ways and Means Committee. He voted against the August 2 debt-limit compromise.
- Rep. Dave Camp (R) of Michigan - member of the House Ways and Means Committee. He has a reputation as a moderate who is skilled at "working both sides of the aisle."
- Rep. James Clyburn (D) of South Carolina -member of the House Appropriations Committee and No. 3 in the House Democratic Caucus.
- Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R) of Texas - appointed as co-chair of the Super Committee. A "true-blue conservative" who is not known for any ability to compromise, or to work effectively with non-conservatives. To his credit, he broke with the Republicans and didn't buy into the "too big to fail" argument during the bail-out talks of the recent Great Recession.
- Sen. John Kerry (D) of Massachusetts - former presidential candidate, former chair of the Small Business Committee, current chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Rumor has it that he lobbied hard to get appointed to the Super Committee.
- Sen. Jon Kyl (R) of Arizona - Senate Republican whip and member of the Senate Finance Committee. He retires at the end of this term, so while he may be doing this to pad his résumé, he's not doing it to consolidate his power in the Senate. He may actually help the Super Committee do something useful.
- Sen. Patty Murray (D) of Washington - appointed as co-chair of the Super Committee. Chairwoman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. She probably got on the Super Committeeat least in part because she is trusted by Senate majority leader Harry Reid.
- Sen. Rob Portman (R) of Ohio - former Representative (for 12 years) and former member of the House Ways and Means Committee, this is his first term as Senator.
- Sen. Patrick Toomey (R) of Pennsylvania - also a former Representative (for 6 years) and freshman Senator. Sen. Toomey has a refreshingly independent voting record: he has voted with Democrats at times, and against his own party and the Tea Party at times, and he worked with a Democratic Senator to ban earmarks in spending bills.
- Rep. Fred Upton (R) of Michigan - chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, with a reputation as a "moderate conservative." He is suspected of planning to use his position on the Super Committee to further his agenda of weakening environmental protections and taking the teeth out of the Environmental Protection Agency.
- Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D) of Maryland - member of the House Budget Committee.
Timetable for the Super Committee
In a nutshell, the Super Committee has to come up with a plan for cutting the national debt by $1.5 trillion over x years. They have to present the formal, approved-by-all-twelve-members, plan to Congress by November 23. The House and Senate both have to vote to approve the plan by December 23. (I guess President Obama has to sign it into law by then, too.) If this doesn't happen, then the automatic spending cuts written into the August 2 compromise swing into action, much to the consternation of American citizens, other national governments, and banks worldwide.
Here are the details. You know who lives in the details!
Sept. 8: The committee holds its first organizational meeting; on the agenda will be setting the rules.
Sept. 13: First public hearing, which will include testimony on "The History and Drivers of Our Nation's Debt and Its Threats" from Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Elmendorf.
Sept. 22: Deadline for Congress to consider a resolution of disapproval for first $900 billion tranche of debt limit increase.
Oct. 1-Dec. 31: Timeframe in which both houses of Congress must vote on a Balanced Budget Amendment.
Oct. 14: House and Senate committees must submit recommendations to the committee by this date.
Nov. 23: Deadline for the committee to vote on a plan with $1.5 trillion in deficit reduction.
Dec. 2: Deadline for the committee to submit report and legislative language to the president and Congress.
Dec. 23: Deadline for both houses to vote on the committee bill.
Jan. 15, 2012: Date that the “trigger” leading to $1.2 trillion of future spending cuts goes into effect, if the committee’s legislation has not been enacted.
February 2012: Approximate time when the first $900 billion of debt ceiling increase runs out.
February/March 2012: During this period, 15 days after the president uses his authority in the bill to increase the debt ceiling a second time, is the deadline for Congress to consider a resolution of disapproval for the second tranche ($1.2-$1.5 trillion) of debt limit increase.
Fall/Winter 2012: The additional $2.1-$2.4 trillion of borrowing authority from this law runs out.
Jan. 2, 2013: OMB orders sequestrations for defense and non-defense categories of spending necessary to meet spending cuts required by the “trigger."
Good luck to all of us
Like the great-aunt who throws rice on the bride and groom and wishes them well, then turns around and mutters, "They'll be divorced in less than a year," I wish the Super Committee all the success in the world, but I expect them to fail miserably. I'd love to be proven wrong on this.
A note on Kerry "lobbying hard" to get on the Super Committee: I wouldn't be surprised if all twelve of them (and others who didn't get nominated) aspired, and pushed hard, to get onto this committee. However, I don't believe that anybody who did so, did so for primarily altruistic or patriotic reasons. I'd love to be proven wrong on this, too.
Dear Congressman: Grow up, already
To all the members of the Congress of the United States:
You haven't learned a single thing.
The compromise upon which you settled, in order to bring an end to the debt-limit crisis and avert a larger crisis, was admirable. We must give you credit for that. But the acrimony, the stubbornness, and the brinksmanship which preceded the compromise were deplorable and childish.
Or, in more common language, your behavior sucks. Your attitude sucks. You're acting like a bunch of little babies. If I were a private businessman, I would never hire someone like you to work for me. If I did, you would alienate all of my customers. My suppliers would refuse to do business with me, and my best employees would resign, all because of you. You would ruin my business.
Immediately after the compromise became law, you ran out of town en masse for your summer break - leaving undone all sorts of important tasks that had been repeatedly deferred because of your STUPID arguing over the debt limit. The most visible of these undone tasks was the FAA funding bill that needed closure, in order to pay air traffic controllers, repair many of the nation's runways, and generally keep air travel safe.
Once again, if you were a salaried employee at my business, I would fire you for such immature behavior. Even teenage burger flippers are more responsible than that. And we pay you, as senators and representatives, to get the important stuff done, not to punch a time clock. Hourly employees punch the time clock; salaried employees stay until the job is done. Do you not understand that?
If you don't understand that, then you've lived in Washington for too long. It's time for you to come home permanently, and not just for the summer.
Now, traditionally, on summer break, you meet with your constituents back home. This year, many of you are breaking with tradition and hiding from your constituents. The number of so-called "town hall" meetings you are holding has been sharply curtailed, and many of these meetings have been replaced with invitation-only events, or events which carry an admission charge, or carefully scripted and fiercely moderated Internet events. These events allow you (or your handlers) to control who has access to you, and what they're allowed to say to you.
In a way, I can understand the change. On CNN and other television news outlets, we've seen video of town hall meetings and other face-to-face events in 2011, which have been hijacked by organized groups and used to promote their own narrow agendas. Don't worry about those people. Let them hijack the events. The rest of us won't put up with it for long, and we'll use the power of We The People to shut down those disruptors. But for you to attempt to hide from your constituents, and to surround yourselves with fans and sycophants, is cowardly and immature. When we elected you, we thought you had more courage than that.
We can still vote you out of office. And believe me, we will. I'm surprised that none of you have faced a recall vote yet - my guess is that the inertia of the American voter is temporarily saving some of your hides. But in November 2012, We The People will definitely make our voices heard.
And don't tell us you didn't see it coming.
You haven't learned a single thing.
The compromise upon which you settled, in order to bring an end to the debt-limit crisis and avert a larger crisis, was admirable. We must give you credit for that. But the acrimony, the stubbornness, and the brinksmanship which preceded the compromise were deplorable and childish.
Or, in more common language, your behavior sucks. Your attitude sucks. You're acting like a bunch of little babies. If I were a private businessman, I would never hire someone like you to work for me. If I did, you would alienate all of my customers. My suppliers would refuse to do business with me, and my best employees would resign, all because of you. You would ruin my business.
Immediately after the compromise became law, you ran out of town en masse for your summer break - leaving undone all sorts of important tasks that had been repeatedly deferred because of your STUPID arguing over the debt limit. The most visible of these undone tasks was the FAA funding bill that needed closure, in order to pay air traffic controllers, repair many of the nation's runways, and generally keep air travel safe.
Once again, if you were a salaried employee at my business, I would fire you for such immature behavior. Even teenage burger flippers are more responsible than that. And we pay you, as senators and representatives, to get the important stuff done, not to punch a time clock. Hourly employees punch the time clock; salaried employees stay until the job is done. Do you not understand that?
If you don't understand that, then you've lived in Washington for too long. It's time for you to come home permanently, and not just for the summer.
Now, traditionally, on summer break, you meet with your constituents back home. This year, many of you are breaking with tradition and hiding from your constituents. The number of so-called "town hall" meetings you are holding has been sharply curtailed, and many of these meetings have been replaced with invitation-only events, or events which carry an admission charge, or carefully scripted and fiercely moderated Internet events. These events allow you (or your handlers) to control who has access to you, and what they're allowed to say to you.
In a way, I can understand the change. On CNN and other television news outlets, we've seen video of town hall meetings and other face-to-face events in 2011, which have been hijacked by organized groups and used to promote their own narrow agendas. Don't worry about those people. Let them hijack the events. The rest of us won't put up with it for long, and we'll use the power of We The People to shut down those disruptors. But for you to attempt to hide from your constituents, and to surround yourselves with fans and sycophants, is cowardly and immature. When we elected you, we thought you had more courage than that.
We can still vote you out of office. And believe me, we will. I'm surprised that none of you have faced a recall vote yet - my guess is that the inertia of the American voter is temporarily saving some of your hides. But in November 2012, We The People will definitely make our voices heard.
And don't tell us you didn't see it coming.
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Dear Congressman: you can still be fired, you know
To all of the members of the Congress of the United States:
Remember when I told you, on behalf of millions of fed-up Americans, that if you did not resolve this debt-limit crisis by the deadline, we would fire you? Well, you're not out of the woods yet.
The President and key Congressional leaders have hammered out a compromise solution to the crisis. Nobody is happy with it, but everybody can live with it. Our recommendation, the recommendation of WE THE PEOPLE, is that ALL OF YOU ELECTED REPRESENTATIVES approve the solution. Vote for it. Pass it.
It's a real shame that you had to wait until you heard the rumblings of the granite pillars on Wall Street, as the still-fragile US economy threatened to come crashing down again, before you finally got serious about this. You know, you can give all the speeches and press conferences and interviews that you want; you can talk and talk and talk because that seems to be THE ONLY THING YOU ARE ANY GOOD AT, but all that talk doesn't solve the nation's problems - and frankly, we're tired of hearing you talk.
I listened to an interview with a member of Congress on NPR this morning, and all this politician wanted to do was talk. He didn't want to answer the interviewer's questions, and he didn't want to report on how he was participating in resolving this crisis. He just wanted to talk. He wanted to make sure we all heard his side of the story. I just wanted him to SHUT UP AND GET TO WORK.
And that's why we elected you all in the first place. Shut up, roll up your sleeves, get to work, and fix things. That's what WE THE PEOPLE are doing, and you shouldn't be any different.
Oh, one more thing, in case you missed it: we, the people of the United States, are serious about this. And we're seriously pissed. At you.
Remember when I told you, on behalf of millions of fed-up Americans, that if you did not resolve this debt-limit crisis by the deadline, we would fire you? Well, you're not out of the woods yet.
The President and key Congressional leaders have hammered out a compromise solution to the crisis. Nobody is happy with it, but everybody can live with it. Our recommendation, the recommendation of WE THE PEOPLE, is that ALL OF YOU ELECTED REPRESENTATIVES approve the solution. Vote for it. Pass it.
It's a real shame that you had to wait until you heard the rumblings of the granite pillars on Wall Street, as the still-fragile US economy threatened to come crashing down again, before you finally got serious about this. You know, you can give all the speeches and press conferences and interviews that you want; you can talk and talk and talk because that seems to be THE ONLY THING YOU ARE ANY GOOD AT, but all that talk doesn't solve the nation's problems - and frankly, we're tired of hearing you talk.
I listened to an interview with a member of Congress on NPR this morning, and all this politician wanted to do was talk. He didn't want to answer the interviewer's questions, and he didn't want to report on how he was participating in resolving this crisis. He just wanted to talk. He wanted to make sure we all heard his side of the story. I just wanted him to SHUT UP AND GET TO WORK.
And that's why we elected you all in the first place. Shut up, roll up your sleeves, get to work, and fix things. That's what WE THE PEOPLE are doing, and you shouldn't be any different.
Oh, one more thing, in case you missed it: we, the people of the United States, are serious about this. And we're seriously pissed. At you.
Friday, July 29, 2011
Dear Congressman: get this done, or you're fired
To all of the members of the Congress of the United States:
I will make this simple. I speak for millions of Americans when I say this. Please listen carefully. Your jobs depend on it.
We are sick and tired of watching all the posturing and politicking that is going on in Washington right now. Your playing around with this debt-ceiling issue has to stop. You must put aside your party affiliations and your power-grabbing maneuvering. If you cannot do this one thing - that is, work TOGETHER to resolve this issue - then NONE OF YOU DESERVE TO HOLD your current jobs.
And we, the people, WE WILL FIRE YOU. We will elect a completely new slate of Senators and Representatives, a group who can and will work together for the common good, who know when it is time to set aside their differences and come up with solutions to complex problems, solutions that ultimately will benefit their constituents and the country as a whole.
If you were in private industry, you would have been thrown out on your asses long ago. Private enterprise would never stand for your stubbornness, your grandstanding, your ultimatums and your refusal to cooperate with each other.
Get it?
If you can't do this one thing, then you are a pathetic waste of taxpayer dollars, no matter how many other noble deeds you have done while in office. Ordinary Americans' livelihoods, not to mention the national economy, hang in the balance here, and you're farting around playing politics.
None of us want to hear your excuses. And don't bother blaming it on the other guys. We want deeds, not words. Get it done, or get out of the way so somebody else can get it done.
I will make this simple. I speak for millions of Americans when I say this. Please listen carefully. Your jobs depend on it.
We are sick and tired of watching all the posturing and politicking that is going on in Washington right now. Your playing around with this debt-ceiling issue has to stop. You must put aside your party affiliations and your power-grabbing maneuvering. If you cannot do this one thing - that is, work TOGETHER to resolve this issue - then NONE OF YOU DESERVE TO HOLD your current jobs.
And we, the people, WE WILL FIRE YOU. We will elect a completely new slate of Senators and Representatives, a group who can and will work together for the common good, who know when it is time to set aside their differences and come up with solutions to complex problems, solutions that ultimately will benefit their constituents and the country as a whole.
If you were in private industry, you would have been thrown out on your asses long ago. Private enterprise would never stand for your stubbornness, your grandstanding, your ultimatums and your refusal to cooperate with each other.
Get it?
If you can't do this one thing, then you are a pathetic waste of taxpayer dollars, no matter how many other noble deeds you have done while in office. Ordinary Americans' livelihoods, not to mention the national economy, hang in the balance here, and you're farting around playing politics.
None of us want to hear your excuses. And don't bother blaming it on the other guys. We want deeds, not words. Get it done, or get out of the way so somebody else can get it done.
Saturday, September 4, 2010
One Small Indicator that the Economy is Improving
Like the first birds of spring, that arrive even before the snow has started melting, I saw an early sign yesterday that the economy is improving.
I got called by a headhunter.
When employers are engaging headhunters to find talent among the ranks of the already employed, that's a harbinger of better times ahead.
I got called by a headhunter.
When employers are engaging headhunters to find talent among the ranks of the already employed, that's a harbinger of better times ahead.
Saturday, February 20, 2010
End of the Seven Years of Famine: I Got a Job!
After getting laid off seven years ago (exactly seven years ago!), I have worked as an engineering consultant, I have taught school, I have been involved in several abortive startups, and I have taken several temporary jobs. As the economy slowly recovers, I have been chasing a full-time job with a large semiconductor manufacturer. The chase has come to an end, but not in the way I expected. This is the full story.
WARNING! THIS WILL BE VERY BORING TO SOME OF YOU. But it may be useful to some others.
Okay, you have been warned.
In late 2008, I worked for 3 months at a small company in Fort Collins, called RLE Technologies. It was a great place to work: great people, a great management team, and a solid product line and business plan. I was working a temporary contract as a technical writer, but we had several discussions about my ambition to move into to a permanent engineering position.
Then the economy fell apart, and their sales projections for 2009 didn't justify adding another engineer. So I gave them good work until my contract ended, and we parted on good terms. I stayed in touch with the management team.
A year later, around Thanksgiving 2009, I got another temporary contract, this time with Micron Technology in Longmont -- formerly Displaytech, a small, successful company that had recently been acquired by Micron. I was working as a firmware engineer. I came home every evening full of excitement -- I told my family that I didn't know whether it was because "I'm working!" or because the work I was doing was that much fun.
As a large corporation, Micron is a great company to work for. Consciously or not, they are an "excellent company" in the model of Peters and Waterman's 1982 study. They treat their employees well. They seek to excel in every market they enter. They have entered several new markets -- CMOS image sensors, microdisplays, LED illumination and personal computers, among others -- without straying far from the things they do best: memory chips.
As a division, the Longmont office is a great place to work. Displaytech became very successful at making high-resolution, full-color computer displays smaller than a postage stamp. Their next success will be in picoprojectors: high-resolution, battery-powered, full-color projectors that fit inside an iPod or cellphone and project video anywhere. (At a recent conference, Micron used a flour tortilla as a projection screen.)
This division is composed of a group of people who are intelligent, excited about what they are doing, hard-working, easy to get along with, and, umm, well, really smart. Everybody shows up in the morning quietly enthusiastic and ready to go, and they work hard until it's time to go home -- sometimes later. It's not competition, just excitement.
I loved being a part of that. I completed my project ahead of time, and my co-workers were delighted with my work. I had made it clear that I'd like to stay there longer. Management added several extensions to my contract and found me other projects to work on. We were all trying to find a way to keep me there permanently.
They connected me with a manager in Boise who might have a couple of firmware openings. We met briefly one Friday when he was in Longmont, and then traded a few short emails before ... well, let's jump ahead to Thursday, February 18.
At 9 a.m., I had a phone meeting with the manager in Boise. He asked me to email him my resume, and two hours later, I was in a job interview with one of his people who just happened to be in Longmont. The interview went well, things were looking hopeful, and my friends at Micron shared my excitement.
That afternoon, I drove to Fort Collins. The recruiter who had gotten me into Micron also represented RLE Technologies, and RLE had asked him to arrange a meeting with me. The recruiter gave me the impression that it was a job interview. Wow, two interviews in two days.
The "interview" turned out to be a meeting with the management team, but not really an interview. RLE had survived 2009, and as 2010 began, they had found that several of their departments had more work than one person could do, but not enough work for two people. They had decided that they needed someone who was versatile and flexible, an engineer who could wear many hats. They contacted my recruiter, who gave them my name, and ... well, they were offering me a position at RLE Technologies. After an hour of talking with them, I accepted their offer.
Honestly, I could be happy at either place. Both are small, successful entities with good people and bright futures, where I can make a difference. That I ended up at RLE rather than Micron was just a matter of timing. I am content.
My contract with Micron ends on Wednesday, February 24, and I start with RLE Technologies on Monday, March 1.
Lessons I've learned while being unemployed:
"For the Record" - my previous posting about the job hunt
NoCoNet - Northern Colorado's premier network for job-seeking professionals
Micron Technology and Micron's Microdisplay Division
RLE Technologies
One of my startups
Rose Marie Studer - one of the best recruiters in the business
Volt Technical - an excellent recruiting firm for temporary and permanent positions
Aerotek - another excellent recruiting firm for temporary and permanent positions
SOS Staffing - another recruiting firm. They have a rather tough client in the Weld County, so I can't say whether or not they're "excellent." But my sister works for them in another state, so for that reason alone I'd say they're pretty darned good.
Larimer County Workforce Center - a government agency that actually does something useful! (Maybe I should write about them another time.)
WARNING! THIS WILL BE VERY BORING TO SOME OF YOU. But it may be useful to some others.
Okay, you have been warned.
In late 2008, I worked for 3 months at a small company in Fort Collins, called RLE Technologies. It was a great place to work: great people, a great management team, and a solid product line and business plan. I was working a temporary contract as a technical writer, but we had several discussions about my ambition to move into to a permanent engineering position.
Then the economy fell apart, and their sales projections for 2009 didn't justify adding another engineer. So I gave them good work until my contract ended, and we parted on good terms. I stayed in touch with the management team.
A year later, around Thanksgiving 2009, I got another temporary contract, this time with Micron Technology in Longmont -- formerly Displaytech, a small, successful company that had recently been acquired by Micron. I was working as a firmware engineer. I came home every evening full of excitement -- I told my family that I didn't know whether it was because "I'm working!" or because the work I was doing was that much fun.
As a large corporation, Micron is a great company to work for. Consciously or not, they are an "excellent company" in the model of Peters and Waterman's 1982 study. They treat their employees well. They seek to excel in every market they enter. They have entered several new markets -- CMOS image sensors, microdisplays, LED illumination and personal computers, among others -- without straying far from the things they do best: memory chips.
As a division, the Longmont office is a great place to work. Displaytech became very successful at making high-resolution, full-color computer displays smaller than a postage stamp. Their next success will be in picoprojectors: high-resolution, battery-powered, full-color projectors that fit inside an iPod or cellphone and project video anywhere. (At a recent conference, Micron used a flour tortilla as a projection screen.)
This division is composed of a group of people who are intelligent, excited about what they are doing, hard-working, easy to get along with, and, umm, well, really smart. Everybody shows up in the morning quietly enthusiastic and ready to go, and they work hard until it's time to go home -- sometimes later. It's not competition, just excitement.
I loved being a part of that. I completed my project ahead of time, and my co-workers were delighted with my work. I had made it clear that I'd like to stay there longer. Management added several extensions to my contract and found me other projects to work on. We were all trying to find a way to keep me there permanently.
They connected me with a manager in Boise who might have a couple of firmware openings. We met briefly one Friday when he was in Longmont, and then traded a few short emails before ... well, let's jump ahead to Thursday, February 18.
At 9 a.m., I had a phone meeting with the manager in Boise. He asked me to email him my resume, and two hours later, I was in a job interview with one of his people who just happened to be in Longmont. The interview went well, things were looking hopeful, and my friends at Micron shared my excitement.
That afternoon, I drove to Fort Collins. The recruiter who had gotten me into Micron also represented RLE Technologies, and RLE had asked him to arrange a meeting with me. The recruiter gave me the impression that it was a job interview. Wow, two interviews in two days.
The "interview" turned out to be a meeting with the management team, but not really an interview. RLE had survived 2009, and as 2010 began, they had found that several of their departments had more work than one person could do, but not enough work for two people. They had decided that they needed someone who was versatile and flexible, an engineer who could wear many hats. They contacted my recruiter, who gave them my name, and ... well, they were offering me a position at RLE Technologies. After an hour of talking with them, I accepted their offer.
Honestly, I could be happy at either place. Both are small, successful entities with good people and bright futures, where I can make a difference. That I ended up at RLE rather than Micron was just a matter of timing. I am content.
My contract with Micron ends on Wednesday, February 24, and I start with RLE Technologies on Monday, March 1.
Lessons I've learned while being unemployed:
- First: Pick a few good recruiters, and stay in regular touch with them. Phone them weekly, just to say hi. This will keep you on the top of their list. I got this advice from Bob Zoller, a friend and former member of NoCoNet. I tip my hat to Rose Marie Studer ("Studer the Recruiter"), Jackie Avitia and Ray Brown (Volt), Angie Joynt and Chris Palm (Aerotek), and all the rest of them.
- Actively involve yourself in multiple networks and professional societies. Be the "rainmaker" who passes job leads back and forth between your networks. Networking isn't a sterile exercise, and it isn't formulaic or algorithmic: it's being a friend and helping your friends to get jobs. Good things happen to you when you do this.
- Follow up!
- Never, EVER burn your bridges.
- Keep in touch with old bosses and co-workers.
- Sitting at home in front of a computer will not get you a job. Get on the telephone. And get out of the house.
- You HAVE TO tap into the hidden job market.
- Don't give up. This won't last forever. Find your anchor and hold on to it tightly, whether it be family, friends, or faith. You WILL make it through.
"For the Record" - my previous posting about the job hunt
NoCoNet - Northern Colorado's premier network for job-seeking professionals
Micron Technology and Micron's Microdisplay Division
RLE Technologies
One of my startups
Rose Marie Studer - one of the best recruiters in the business
Volt Technical - an excellent recruiting firm for temporary and permanent positions
Aerotek - another excellent recruiting firm for temporary and permanent positions
SOS Staffing - another recruiting firm. They have a rather tough client in the Weld County, so I can't say whether or not they're "excellent." But my sister works for them in another state, so for that reason alone I'd say they're pretty darned good.
Larimer County Workforce Center - a government agency that actually does something useful! (Maybe I should write about them another time.)
Thursday, January 22, 2009
For the Record
Okay, let me get the objections and arguments out of the way first, because some of my readers will want to make these points as they read.
1. I'm not whining or complaining. If you read this with a whiny tone, please go back and reread it with a dispassionate tone. I'm still rather upbeat and optimistic. I don't have time to whine.
2. I'm not sitting around, waiting for someone to offer me a job or a pile o' cash. I'm working hard, spending 60 hours a week on the job search.
3. I've heard all the advice. More advice won't fix the situation. Thanks anyway.
Now, for today's posting.
This economic downturn has created a job market different from all the job markets I've ever seen. In the past, when I've been out looking for a job, I have gotten lots of rejection letters, and a few rejection phone calls, that said: "Your qualifications are impressive, but we had lots of applicants for the position you applied for, and we chose one of them instead. Good luck looking elsewhere."
This time around, it's different. This time, what I'm getting in person and over the phone, is "We'd love to hire you. We need someone just like you. Unfortunately, we just got hit with a hiring freeze." Or "... our budget for that position has just been cut." Or "... our sales have dropped to near-zero and we may be closing our doors." Or, in the case of Avago, "... we just finished laying off 240 people instead of hiring anybody."
And nobody's lying about it. I've been able to verify most of their stories by independent means. Things really are tough all over.
The only people making money right now, I think, are the people writing books and articles and giving seminars and speeches with titles like, "How to Set Yourself Apart from Everybody Else and Get a Job in These Tough Times." I'm always wary of the people who write these things: what's their day job, and how did they get it? Did they follow their own advice?
One of the ironies of the current situation is that there are a lot of job openings out there. But those employers all require 3 to 5 years of experience in the specialized area that the job requires, and they're not willing to give a new hire 3 to 6 months -- or even one month -- to retrain and to learn the ropes. Employers used to be willing to take that chance, but not any more. Many of these job openings have been out there for months, some for a couple of years, and employers are still waiting for their Prince Charming to come along. It seems rather stupid to me: an employer could hire a versatile-but-obsolete professional and retrain them in less time than they've been waiting for Prince Charming.
The Northern Colorado Networking Group, http://www.noconet.org/, is a network of professionals who are either unemployed or seeking other employment. They meet every Monday morning in space donated by Faith Evangelical Free Church, in Fort Collins, Colorado. Normally their meetings are attended by about 80 people, and they normally get 3 to 5 new members each week. They consider themselves successful if they have a high turnover rate. For the last 4 to 6 weeks, however, their meetings have been standing-room-only, with between 100 and 200 people, and 20 new members each week. Like I said, things are tough out there.
It would be easy to give in to the discouragement, to fall into depression, and to sit at home all day in my grubby clothes, drinking (root) beer and watching the tube. To combat that tendency, I start each day by giving service to a group of high school students for an hour, running a couple of miles, eating a healthy breakfast, reading from the scriptures, and praying. I shave, I dress in business attire, and I spend the day doing all the things I can do to land a job.
(My wife keeps reminding me of what M. Scott Peck said in The Road Less Traveled, about insanity. He may have been quoting someone else, but it's something like this: insanity is when you keep doing the same thing, over and over, expecting to get a different outcome each time. I think there's a fine line between insanity and persistence, and I intend to stay on the persistence side of the line.)
I set aside some time in the evenings to work on a couple of entrepreneurial projects I'm involved in. But the payoff from those entrepreneurial projects is several months off, and I need a job today. So the job hunt takes priority.
1. I'm not whining or complaining. If you read this with a whiny tone, please go back and reread it with a dispassionate tone. I'm still rather upbeat and optimistic. I don't have time to whine.
2. I'm not sitting around, waiting for someone to offer me a job or a pile o' cash. I'm working hard, spending 60 hours a week on the job search.
3. I've heard all the advice. More advice won't fix the situation. Thanks anyway.
Now, for today's posting.
This economic downturn has created a job market different from all the job markets I've ever seen. In the past, when I've been out looking for a job, I have gotten lots of rejection letters, and a few rejection phone calls, that said: "Your qualifications are impressive, but we had lots of applicants for the position you applied for, and we chose one of them instead. Good luck looking elsewhere."
This time around, it's different. This time, what I'm getting in person and over the phone, is "We'd love to hire you. We need someone just like you. Unfortunately, we just got hit with a hiring freeze." Or "... our budget for that position has just been cut." Or "... our sales have dropped to near-zero and we may be closing our doors." Or, in the case of Avago, "... we just finished laying off 240 people instead of hiring anybody."
And nobody's lying about it. I've been able to verify most of their stories by independent means. Things really are tough all over.
The only people making money right now, I think, are the people writing books and articles and giving seminars and speeches with titles like, "How to Set Yourself Apart from Everybody Else and Get a Job in These Tough Times." I'm always wary of the people who write these things: what's their day job, and how did they get it? Did they follow their own advice?
One of the ironies of the current situation is that there are a lot of job openings out there. But those employers all require 3 to 5 years of experience in the specialized area that the job requires, and they're not willing to give a new hire 3 to 6 months -- or even one month -- to retrain and to learn the ropes. Employers used to be willing to take that chance, but not any more. Many of these job openings have been out there for months, some for a couple of years, and employers are still waiting for their Prince Charming to come along. It seems rather stupid to me: an employer could hire a versatile-but-obsolete professional and retrain them in less time than they've been waiting for Prince Charming.
The Northern Colorado Networking Group, http://www.noconet.org/, is a network of professionals who are either unemployed or seeking other employment. They meet every Monday morning in space donated by Faith Evangelical Free Church, in Fort Collins, Colorado. Normally their meetings are attended by about 80 people, and they normally get 3 to 5 new members each week. They consider themselves successful if they have a high turnover rate. For the last 4 to 6 weeks, however, their meetings have been standing-room-only, with between 100 and 200 people, and 20 new members each week. Like I said, things are tough out there.
It would be easy to give in to the discouragement, to fall into depression, and to sit at home all day in my grubby clothes, drinking (root) beer and watching the tube. To combat that tendency, I start each day by giving service to a group of high school students for an hour, running a couple of miles, eating a healthy breakfast, reading from the scriptures, and praying. I shave, I dress in business attire, and I spend the day doing all the things I can do to land a job.
(My wife keeps reminding me of what M. Scott Peck said in The Road Less Traveled, about insanity. He may have been quoting someone else, but it's something like this: insanity is when you keep doing the same thing, over and over, expecting to get a different outcome each time. I think there's a fine line between insanity and persistence, and I intend to stay on the persistence side of the line.)
I set aside some time in the evenings to work on a couple of entrepreneurial projects I'm involved in. But the payoff from those entrepreneurial projects is several months off, and I need a job today. So the job hunt takes priority.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
American automakers think we're stupid
Okay, the American economy is in meltdown. After 12 months, the experts finally decided to call it a "recession." Maybe this time next year they will have decided that it's not a recession, it's a depression. Those of us who are out of work must be smarter than those experts, because we already know it.
Credit is hard to get right now, because most of it is tied up in those "toxic securities" -- secret code for "bad mortgages," which the lenders and investors might as well write off and forget about, and start over.
The domestic automobile industry, at least that overweight segment of it known as The Big Three, has been in Washington D.C. twice begging for money to "bail them out," because they're too incompetent to bail themselves out of the mess they created. For years now they've been ignoring the signs of the times, the writing on the wall, the metaphor of your choice for the consumers who abandoned the Big Three in favor of Toyota, Honda and other Japanese (and Korean!) brands.
Detroit ceded the market for medium, small and subcompact sedans to Japan without a fight, choosing instead to concentrate on "luxury" cars, muscle cars, SUVs and manly pickup trucks. When gasoline jumped to $4 per gallon this summer and Americans suddenly stopped buying all those thirsty Detroit products, the Big Three's collective income fell far below their outgo, and they started losing money fast.
What Detroit should have done is instantly change their product mix and convert factories from making trucks and SUVs to making the smaller, leaner cars that Americans wanted. They should have noticed all the Priuses and Civic hybrids on the road and rushed to get their own hybrids into production. But they didn't have any smaller, leaner cars, and they didn't have any domestic hybrid options.
Actually, that's not strictly true. They didn't have any smaller, leaner cars that Americans wanted. What they offered for smaller cars was ugly and poorly put together. What they offered for hybrids got worse gas mileage than the Japanese non-hybrid alternatives, and again, they were poorly put together.
Our senators and representatives in Congress, bless 'em, were persuaded that giving Detroit zero dollars, while it would have been a bold and courageous move, might not be the right thing to do, but they were able to see past the Big Three CEOs' self-serving arguments and pare down their request to something more, um, realistic. I'd still like to see Congress try something bold and courageous for a change. But at least they got it down from over $30 billion to under $15 billion before the proposal got snagged on a tree branch.
In the meantime, while the car companies are crying to the government about all the money they're losing, Dodge aired a TV commercial this evening that makes one slap one's forehead and cry, "What in the world are you thinking?"
This was an advertisement for what Dodge called a "luxury truck": a dual-cab monstrosity with leather seats, built-in WiFi, a backup camera, built-in toolboxes, a really thirsty engine and a suspension that would do the Army proud.
Hey! Dodge! Which Americans are you trying to sell these air haulers to? Haven't you been listening to the majority of the American public? We don't want luxury trucks! We want vehicles that take less gasoline (or diesel), or no gasoline (or diesel) at all! These ain't them!
Dodge wants to push this "luxury truck" for one reason only: because of the profit margin. They make more money per sale on "luxury trucks" than on more sensible vehicles. I guess they don't expect people who need car loans to buy these things, do they? Because, according to the news and the CEOs themselves, car loans are hard to come by right now, so the buyers of these beasts will need cash.
The commercial, naturally, emphasizes the manliness of the truck, and appeals to the buyer's need to feel manly. The commercial goes over the top in an attempt to get the buyer's insecurity (or need to compensate for perceived deficiencies elsewhere) to override his caution and the frugal attitude so vital in this economic climate.
This truck is the reason why the majority of Americans don't want to give the Big Three one red cent of their money. It's symbolic of everything that's wrong with Detroit right now.
The first thing the Car Czar should do, once he's appointed and the Big Three get their bailout money, is fire the sorry idiots at Chrysler who approved the design and construction of the "luxury truck," and the sorry idiots who approved this advertising campaign, and the sorry idiots who signed the contract with the advertising company, and the advertising company itself.
After that, it wouldn't be a bad idea to go after the associated idiots responsible for the Cadillac Escalade, the Ford Excursion and supertrucks, and the Hummer product family.
Credit is hard to get right now, because most of it is tied up in those "toxic securities" -- secret code for "bad mortgages," which the lenders and investors might as well write off and forget about, and start over.
The domestic automobile industry, at least that overweight segment of it known as The Big Three, has been in Washington D.C. twice begging for money to "bail them out," because they're too incompetent to bail themselves out of the mess they created. For years now they've been ignoring the signs of the times, the writing on the wall, the metaphor of your choice for the consumers who abandoned the Big Three in favor of Toyota, Honda and other Japanese (and Korean!) brands.
Detroit ceded the market for medium, small and subcompact sedans to Japan without a fight, choosing instead to concentrate on "luxury" cars, muscle cars, SUVs and manly pickup trucks. When gasoline jumped to $4 per gallon this summer and Americans suddenly stopped buying all those thirsty Detroit products, the Big Three's collective income fell far below their outgo, and they started losing money fast.
What Detroit should have done is instantly change their product mix and convert factories from making trucks and SUVs to making the smaller, leaner cars that Americans wanted. They should have noticed all the Priuses and Civic hybrids on the road and rushed to get their own hybrids into production. But they didn't have any smaller, leaner cars, and they didn't have any domestic hybrid options.
Actually, that's not strictly true. They didn't have any smaller, leaner cars that Americans wanted. What they offered for smaller cars was ugly and poorly put together. What they offered for hybrids got worse gas mileage than the Japanese non-hybrid alternatives, and again, they were poorly put together.
Our senators and representatives in Congress, bless 'em, were persuaded that giving Detroit zero dollars, while it would have been a bold and courageous move, might not be the right thing to do, but they were able to see past the Big Three CEOs' self-serving arguments and pare down their request to something more, um, realistic. I'd still like to see Congress try something bold and courageous for a change. But at least they got it down from over $30 billion to under $15 billion before the proposal got snagged on a tree branch.
In the meantime, while the car companies are crying to the government about all the money they're losing, Dodge aired a TV commercial this evening that makes one slap one's forehead and cry, "What in the world are you thinking?"
This was an advertisement for what Dodge called a "luxury truck": a dual-cab monstrosity with leather seats, built-in WiFi, a backup camera, built-in toolboxes, a really thirsty engine and a suspension that would do the Army proud.
Hey! Dodge! Which Americans are you trying to sell these air haulers to? Haven't you been listening to the majority of the American public? We don't want luxury trucks! We want vehicles that take less gasoline (or diesel), or no gasoline (or diesel) at all! These ain't them!
Dodge wants to push this "luxury truck" for one reason only: because of the profit margin. They make more money per sale on "luxury trucks" than on more sensible vehicles. I guess they don't expect people who need car loans to buy these things, do they? Because, according to the news and the CEOs themselves, car loans are hard to come by right now, so the buyers of these beasts will need cash.
The commercial, naturally, emphasizes the manliness of the truck, and appeals to the buyer's need to feel manly. The commercial goes over the top in an attempt to get the buyer's insecurity (or need to compensate for perceived deficiencies elsewhere) to override his caution and the frugal attitude so vital in this economic climate.
This truck is the reason why the majority of Americans don't want to give the Big Three one red cent of their money. It's symbolic of everything that's wrong with Detroit right now.
The first thing the Car Czar should do, once he's appointed and the Big Three get their bailout money, is fire the sorry idiots at Chrysler who approved the design and construction of the "luxury truck," and the sorry idiots who approved this advertising campaign, and the sorry idiots who signed the contract with the advertising company, and the advertising company itself.
After that, it wouldn't be a bad idea to go after the associated idiots responsible for the Cadillac Escalade, the Ford Excursion and supertrucks, and the Hummer product family.
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