To add a little something of an uplifting nature (for a change), I’ve added this short video which captures a group singing a great Christmas carol in a Capella! Pretty talented!!
That’s Christmas to Me
Monthly Archives: November 2014
Preparing For 2015+
“To be forewarned, is to be forearmed.” — unknown
Although people today primarily focus on ‘feeling good’, they should consider things may not be the same tomorrow as they are today. (i.e., the ‘normalcy bias‘.) We here in the U.S. are changing… rapidly — economically as well socially. And to prepare financially is a wise consideration for the near future.
I have read several articles on this subject and learned of numerous financial prognosticators’ projections for the 2015-2025 time-frame. To say the least, none of them are good. As such, I am including a few links here for your reading to hear what is expected. Being safe is better than being sorry. And being prepared for the worst and hoping for the best has served me well for several decades. These are links you won’t typically see elsewhere.
Everything Is Just Fine…? — We hear things are good, are they?
The Last Gasp — What is happening globally?
The Seven Year Cycle — There are cycles in economies.
Economic Cycle Theorists — Economic cycles do exist, about four of them.
Living and Working in the U.S.A. — Part II
It is understandable that corporations have the motivation to survive, just like any other human. However, like their human counterparts, they should consider the ‘other guy’ as well as themselves.
As a continuation of my recent article ‘Living and Working in the U.S.A.‘, I received an update from the friend who sent the email included in that article. Just when you think you are totally shocked at how a corporation could be so calloused and impersonal, you see even worse behavior.
His update (paraphrased for security reasons) goes something like this:
After working a little more than 15 hours per week all year, they were told that their salary (hourly wage) would be cut by 30%, effective immediately, until January.
In their notification, they were told that this action was of a ‘confidential nature’ and that they could not share it with anyone inside or outside of IBM. In short, if the tree falls in the forest and no one is told, I guess the tree really didn’t fall..?
I guess the main reason I enter this article is to inform the public that corporate America is really in trouble. If one of the top bluechip corporations in this country behaves in this manner, one should ask who else takes such actions. And, how much of a recovery do we really have?
And for those of you who invest in IBM, you should find the following article by Forbes to be of import.
Death Of The (IBM) Salesman
Regulating The Internet — aka, Net Neutrality
You’ve heard the politicians discuss this subject on radio and TV. But why would it be bad? Ted Cruz explains in the brief video below. Although he approaches the subject from a practical standpoint, I would argue the politicians want to quiet the opposition so that they will only hear the propaganda the government wants us to hear! Let’s hear it for those Stalin wanna-be’s. “Don’t taz my message bro!”
Living and Working in the U.S.A.
We constantly hear how the economy is improving and things are going to be great any day now. And those of us who are still working are happy with our situation. If we’re retired, we’re probably not happy with interest rates and our income — not to mention the cost of living. (But hey, the CPI is till way below 2%, right?!)
In 1993 I was working for one of the top IT service bureaus in the U.S. Although we were doing great, the corporation wasn’t. Once things got desperate enough, they sold the IT division off via an outsourcing contract to IBM to whitewash their books — and it worked… for awhile.
So, one day I had my old badge taken and I was given a shiny new IBM badge. I thought, “Great this should be a good deal in the long run. Right?” Not so fast, it was about that time that IBM hired Lou Gershner as their new CEO (aka, the ‘hatchet man’).
Shortly after he started his ‘house cleaning’. In 1993 IBM had 400,000 employes world wide. Of them, 250,000 were inside the U.S. When Lou was done, he had cut 150,000 employes!! Wow! Those were lean days!
Since, IBM has grown back to 400,000 employes. However there are now only 60-90K within the U.S. (depending on who you ask). BUT, there are rumors afoot suggesting they intend to cut another 28% of employes within the U.S.!!! And people wonder why our economy is stalling..?!
The narrative below is from an email I received recently from a guy who I worked/consulted with (remotely). He once made about the same salary as I, but got laid off for over two years. He was subsequently called back at half his salary with no benefits!! But, he was at least glad he had stopped the hemorrhaging from his 401K to pay bills. Now today, he has been cut back to part-time employment and is back to struggling with day to day expenses.
My point is, he does not count when it comes to ‘ reporting unemployment‘. Read his update from him below (as an example) and learn the fate of thousands of people within this country (who’s stories are not reported) and ask yourself, how will these people survive in the near future?!
I’ve been working 32-hour weeks most of the year. I managed to get a full 40-hour week only three weeks this year (it was only 13 weeks last year). Then in mid-September, as part of cost cutting, I was told to stop support of all of the internal systems (there were well over 100 separate mainframe systems involved). My management escalated this decision to a fairly high level They said “Nope. And if things break, they break. So be it.”
But it gets even better. I was also told I could not fill the week with the commercial accounts I support. I can only work the average of what I billed to commercial the past quarter. So, since the first of October, I am limited to working a little over 15 hours per week (that’s 38% of a normal work week). So I only work Mondays and Tuesdays. And I’m also back to taking early withdrawals from my retirement savings to pay the bills. I don’t
have much left after dipping into it the two years I was unable to find work when I was first let go.
On top of that, my teammate was also told to take off over 27 days without pay from mid-October until the end of the financial year (and the four days the company is closed
around Thanksgiving and Christmas do not count). So he is basically working only 42% of a regular schedule. So there isn’t much coverage at all.
Who knows what’s going to happen after the first of the year? Rumor has it on the site where employees are posting what else is happening that there could be another massive layoff between now and the end of February.
I was talking to someone in one of the security auditing groups today, and even though their work levels have not gone down, their headcount has been reduced in the past year from 40 people to 13. That could explain why it took them four months to complete a simple userid request I submitted back in July.
Even though the company publicly gave up on that “Road Map 2015” plan and the $20 EPS goal, they are still in cutting mode. I suspect they still have bonuses and stock options geared to the stock price, as they just announced that they are going to spend
another $5 Billion buying back the stock! And that’s not cash they have on hand. They’re going to BORROW the money to do that!
It reminds me of the famous line that Wimpy used to say in the old Popeye cartoons: “I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.” Only I suspect that none of the people
in Armonk plan to be anywhere in sight when Tuesday rolls around.
It’s obvious that all they are interested in is raiding all of the money possible for themselves, then they will bail, with no concern with the thousands of lives they have destroyed.
The modern day version of rape and pillage.
Meanwhile, Google announced that they will INVEST $1.2 Billion in things like space exploration, aviation, rover/robotics and other emerging technologies.
I’m in job search mode – AGAIN – and it is worse than it was for me in 2005. Of course, I’m now nine years older (I turned 59 last month). As you probably know from your own job searches, no one cares about your overall knowledge. You can only do what you’ve done the last 2, 3, or 5+ years. There is no room for learning anymore. If you didn’t do it full time, it doesn’t count.
Part of this may be that “con game” I’ve read so much about the past few years. Companies post job openings with a laundry list of unrealistic requirements, then bemoan the fact that there are
supposedly no qualified Americans for those jobs. Next they go begging the government for more H-1B visas to bring over here “skilled” workers from foreign countries. Which was their goal all along — bring in basically slave labor at the expense of the hard working and dedicated Americans.
Unfortunately I’m now singing the comedian Dennis Leary’s song “It’s a Merry F***ing Christmas”. Ho. Ho. Ho.
Considering that 70% of our current GDP consists of ‘consumption’ within the U.S., how will this situation improve our national economy? If we don’t get more people back to work in this country, how will we survive in the long run?
P.S.
Maybe it would be a good idea to get rid of that IBM stock you’ve grown so fond of.?!
Plan to Destroy America
I have stated numerous times that everyone evaluates people with one standard, from the time they’re old enough to make the slightest decisions — ‘actions speak louder than words‘.
If the American public were to use that most basic standard of evaluation with our president, they would see a terrifying revelation — that he has a less than positive objective for this country. And apparently I am not alone in this view.
Although not new, I am making an interview (audio file) available for your review. Former Colorado Governor Richard Lamm (D) was interviewed on October 18, 2003 and made these statements on air. His comments were made available to the public on Mar 26, 2014 via Mark Levin. If Lamm (D) gets it, one would hope everyone would get it. But based on what I hear on radio and TV, the public is still apparently in denial and/or the dark.
Please click on the link below. It should be frightening to most..?
Quote of the day by Dianne Feinstein
I find it amazing how disingenuous the left can really be. Elitists just seem to have no shame nor limits to the level arrogance they can reach and/or project!?!
Diane Feinstein, as an example, continually fights to take 2nd amendment rights away from her constituents and the American people. Yet, besides any security she has personally, she carries a .380 auto handgun with her everywhere she goes.!? She exemplifies the degree to which one person can loath the American people from her lofty perch. Please read the following quote by her in the Los Angeles Times.
Dianne Feinstein: “All vets are mentally ill in some way and government should prevent them from owning firearms.”
Yep, – she really said it on Thursday in a meeting in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee…. and the quote below from the LA Times is priceless. Sometimes even the L.A. Times gets it right.
Kurt Nimmo: “Senator Feinstein insults all U.S. Veterans as she flays about in a vain attempt to save her anti-firearms bill.”
Columnist Burt Prelutsky, Los Angeles Times
“Frankly, I don’t know what it is about California, but we seem to have a strange urge to elect really obnoxious women to high office. I’m not bragging, you understand, but no other state, including Maine, even comes close. When it comes to sending left-wing dingbats to Washington, we’re Number One. There’s no getting around the fact that the last time anyone saw the likes of Barbara Boxer, Dianne Feinstein, Maxine Waters, and Nancy Pelosi, they were stirring a cauldron when the curtain went up on ‘ Macbeth ‘. The four of them are like jackasses who happen to possess the gift of blab. You don’t know if you should condemn them for their stupidity or simply marvel at their ability to form words.”
This woman in my opinion epitomizes the new label I have coined for people of her ilk ‘Communist Lite’.
Republican Economics in Hindsight
The following was copied from a newsletter I receive often regarding our economy and current world economics. The quotes presented here below were intended to offset the grossly ‘spun’ numbers presented by two economists from Berkley, California.
… a now-famous study by Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez, professors of economics at the Paris School of Economics and the University of California, Berkeley, respectively. Whether the issue is climate change or income inequality, however, problems with the underlying data significantly distort the debate. [Click on ‘study‘ above to read the full report. The retort to this study follows.]
… America is the freest and most dynamic society in history, and freedom and equality of outcome have never coexisted anywhere at any time. Here the innovator, the first mover, the talented and the persistent win out—producing large income inequality. The prizes are unequal because, in our system, consumers reward people for the value they add. Some can and do add extraordinary value, others can’t or don’t [won’t?].
How exactly are we poorer because Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and the Walton family are so rich? Mr. Gates became rich by mainstreaming computer power into our lives and in the process made us better off. Mr. Buffett’s genius improves the efficiency of capital allocation and the whole economy benefits. Wal-Mart stretches our buying power and raises the living standards of millions of Americans, especially low-income earners. Rich people don’t “take” a large share of national income, they “bring” it. The beauty of our system is that everybody benefits from the value they bring.
Yes, income is 24% less equally distributed here than in the average of the other 34 member countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). But OECD figures show that U.S. per capita GDP is 42% higher, household wealth is 210% higher and median disposable income is 42% higher. How many Americans would give up 42% of their income to see the rich get less?
Vast new fortunes were earned in the 25-year boom that began under Reagan and continued under Clinton. But the income of middle-class Americans rose significantly. These incomes have fallen during the Obama presidency, and not because the rich have gotten richer. They’ve fallen because bad federal policies have yielded the weakest recovery in the postwar history of America.
Yet even as the recovery continues to disappoint, the president increasingly turns to the politics of envy by demanding that the rich pay their “fair share.” The politics of envy may work here as it has worked so often in Latin America and Europe, but the economics of envy is failing in America as it has failed everywhere else.
Mr. Gramm, a former Republican senator from Texas, is a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. Mr. Solon was a budget adviser to Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell and is a partner of US Policy Metrics.
Imagine if we could get out of the current ‘Carter era’ mentality economics and return to the Reagan approach. You too could possibly be a mere 42% richer in income in the near future..!? You’d probably love that compared to the current estimated 6% increase (high estimate) the average American has received since 2009!!
Connecting The Dots — Unbelievable Obama Coincidences
I don’t normally copy emails sent to me, but in this case I will make an exception. It doesn’t take a great deal of study to realize that the points made in the following text are real and very believable (given what we already know about Obama). For years now we have had questions regarding birth, background, etc. of our current mysterious president. But, the following facts regarding his personal connections is, in total, shocking.
Obama
- just happened to know 60s far-left radical revolutionary William Ayers, whose father
- just happened to be Thomas Ayers, who
- just happened to be a close friend of Obamas communist mentor Frank Marshall Davis, who
- just happened to work at the communist-sympathizing Chicago Defender with Vernon Jarrett, who
- just happened to later become the father-in-law of Iranian-born leftist Valerie Jarrett, who Obama
- just happened to choose as his closest White House adviser, and who
- just happened to have been CEO of Habitat Company, which
- just happened to manage public housing in Chicago, which
- just happened to get millions of dollars from the Illinois state legislature, and which
- just happened not to properly maintain the housing which eventually
- just happened to require demolition. (Not to mention that this is the property that would have been the grounds that hosted the Olympics had Obama’s efforts been successful.)
Valerie Jarrett also
- just happened to work for the city of Chicago, and
- just happened to hire Michelle LaVaughan Robinson (later Mrs. Obama), who
- just happened to have worked at the Sidney Austin law firm, where former fugitive from the FBI Bernardine Dohrn also just happened to work, and where Barack Obama
- just happened to get a summer job.
Bernardine Dohrn
- just happened to be married to William Ayers, with whom she
- just happened to have hidden from the FBI at a San Francisco marina, along with Donald Warden, who
- just happened to change his name to Khalid al-Mansour, and Warden/al-Mansour who
- just happened to be a mentor of Black Panther Party founders Huey Newton and Bobby Seale and a close associate of Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, and al-Mansour
- just happened to be financial adviser to a Saudi Prince, who
- just happened to donate cash to Harvard, for which Obama
just happened to get a critical letter of recommendation from Percy Sutton, who just happened to have been the attorney for Malcolm X, who - just happened to know Kenyan politician Tom Mboya, who
- just happened to be a close friend of Barack Hussein Obama, Sr., who
- just happened to meet Malcolm X when he traveled to Kenya .
Obama, Sr.
- just happened to have his education at the University of Hawaii paid for by the Laubach Literacy Institute, which
- just happened to have been supported by Elizabeth Mooney Kirk, who
- just happened to be a friend of Malcolm X, who
- just happened to have been associated with the Nation of Islam, which was later headed by Louis Farrakhan, who
- just happens to live very close to Obamas Chicago mansion, which also
- just happens to be located very close to the residence of William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, who
- just happens to have been occasional baby-sitters for Malia and Natasha Obama, whose parents
- just happened to have no concern exposing their daughters to bomb-making communists.
Obama
- After attending Occidental College and Columbia University, where he
- just happened to have foreign Muslim roommates, Obama moved to Chicago to work for the Industrial Areas Foundation, an organization that
- just happened to have been founded by Marxist and radical agitator Saul the Red Alinsky, author of Rules for Radicals, who
- just happened to be the topic of Hillary Rodham Clintons thesis at Wellesley College, and Obamas $25,000 salary at IAF
- just happened to be funded by a grant from the Woods Fund, which was founded by the Woods family, whose Sahara Coal company
- just happened to provide coal to Commonwealth Edison, whose CEO just happened to be Thomas Ayers, whose son William Ayers
- just happened to serve on the board of the Woods Fund, along with Obama.
Obama
- Also worked on voter registration drives in Chicago in the 1980s and
- just happened to work with leftist political groups like the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and Socialist International (SI), through which Obama met Carl Davidson, who
- just happened to travel to Cuba during the Vietnam War to sabotage the U.S. war effort, and who
- just happened to be a former member of the SDS and a member of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism, which
- just happened to sponsor a 2002 anti-war rally at which Obama spoke, and which
- just happened to have been organized by Marilyn Katz, a former SDS activist and later public relations consultant who
- just happened to be a long-time friend of Obamas political hatchet man, David Axelrod.
Obama
- Joined Trinity United Church of Christ (TUCC), whose pastor was Reverend Jeremiah Wright, a fiery orator who
- just happened to preach Marxism and Black Liberation Theology and who delivered anti-white, anti-Jew, and anti-American sermons, which Obama
- just happened never to hear because he
- just happened to miss church only on the days when Wright was at his most enthusiastic, and Obama
- just happened never to notice that Oprah Winfrey left the church because it was too radical, and
- just happened never to notice that the church gave the vile anti-Semitic Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan a lifetime achievement award.
Obama
- Although no one had ever heard of him at the time, Obama
- just happened to receive an impossible-to-believe $125,000 advance to write a book about race relations, which he
- just happened to fail to write while using the cash to vacation in Bali with his wife Michelle, and despite his record of non-writing he
- just happened to receive a second advance, for $40,000, from another publisher, and he eventually completed a manuscript called Dreams From My Father, which
- just happened to strongly reflect the writing style of William Ayers, who
- just happened to trample on an American flag for the cover photograph of the popular Chicago magazine, which Obama
- just happened never to see even though it appeared on newsstands throughout the city.
Obama
- Was hired by the law firm Miner, Banhill and Galland, which
- just happened to specialize in negotiating state government contracts to develop low-income housing, and which
- just happened to deal with now-imprisoned Tony Rezko and his firm Rezar, and with slumlord Valerie Jarrett, and the law firms Judson Miner
- just happened to have been a classmate of Bernardine Dohrn, wife of William Ayers.
Obama
- In 1994 Obama represented ACORN and another plaintiff in a lawsuit against Citibank for denying mortgages to blacks
(Buycks-Roberson v. Citibank Federal Savings Bank), and the lawsuit - just happened to result in banks being blackmailed into approving sub-prime loans for poor credit risks, a trend which
- just happened to spread nationwide, and which
- just happened to lead to the collapse of the housing bubble, which
- just happened to help Obama defeat John McCain in the 2008 presidential election.
Obama
- In 1996 Obama ran for the Illinois State Senate and joined the New Party, which
- just happened to promote Marxism, and Obama was supported by Dr. Quentin Yong, a socialist who
- just happened to support a government takeover of the health care system.
Obama
- In late 1999, Obama purportedly engaged in homosexual activities and cocaine-snorting in the back of a limousine with a man named Larry Sinclair, who claims he was contacted in late 2007 by Donald Young, who
- just happened to be the gay choir director of Obamas Chicago church and who shared information with Sinclair about Obama, and Young
- just happened to be murdered on December 23, 2007, just weeks after Larry Bland, another gay member of the church
- just happened to be murdered, and both murders
- just happened to have never been solved. In 2008 Sinclair held a press conference to discuss his claims, and
- just happened to be arrested immediately after the event, based on a warrant issued by Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden, who
- just happens to be the son of Joe Biden.
Obama
- In 2003 Obama and his wife attended a dinner in honor of Rashid Khalidi, who
- just happened to be a former PLO operative, harsh critic of Israel, and advocate of Palestinian rights, and who Obama claims he does not know, even though the Obamas
- just happened to have dined more than once at the home of Khalidi and his wife, Mona, and
- just happened to have used them as occasional baby-sitters. Obama reportedly praised Khalidi at the decidedly anti-Semitic event, which William Ayers
- just happened to also attend, and the event Obama pretends he never attended was sponsored by the Arab American Action Network, to which Obama
- just happened to have funneled cash while serving on the board of the Woods Fund with William Ayers, and one speaker at the dinner remarked that if Palestinians cannot secure a return of their land, Israel will never see a day of peace, and entertainment at the dinner included a Muslim children’s dance whose performances
- just happened to include simulated be-headings with fake swords, and stomping on American, Israeli, and British flags, and Obama allegedly told the audience that Israel has no God-given right to occupy Palestine and there has been genocide against the Palestinian people by (the) Israelis, and the Los Angeles Times has a videotape of the event but
- just happens to refuse to make it public.
Obama
- In the 2004 Illinois Democrat primary race for the U.S. Senate, front-runner Blair Hull
- just happened to be forced out of the race after David Axelrod
- just happened to manage to get Hulls sealed divorce records unsealed, which
- just happened to enable Obama to win the primary so that he could face popular Republican Jack Ryan, whose sealed child custody records from his divorce
- just happened to become unsealed, forcing Ryan to withdraw from the race, which
- just happened to enable the unqualified Obama to waltz into the U.S. Senate, where, after a mere 143 days of work, he
- just happened to decide he was qualified to run for President of the United States.
How’s that for coincidence folks..!?
Texas vs. California
I thought y’all might enjoy this audio clip from a radio show last week (Nov. 6th). I called into the radio station KSFO in San Francisco to talk to Brian Susseman. He was discussing California’s state congress and how they are a full time congress and get very little done. When he asked what Texas had for a congress, that’s when I called in.
You might find this interview funny to listen to. I showed a parallel between the two states and how we here in Texas are doing things the ‘normal’ (right) way, vs. the wild and weird Kalifornia way!!?
KSFO Radio Interview of Phil Vasile
The audio file is the Nov. 6th, 6am hour. Skip to the 16 minute point to hear the beginning of our talk.
