How patriot are you?

[ar81]

US is in crisis. Americans are losing jobs.
You are manager of a divison of your company or even a CEO.
It looks like you might like to show higher profits for the company.
You have the option of firing 10% of your employees (downsizing).
That would mean 10% of American workers in your company that will become unemployed, stressed and facing uncertain future while having to feed their families.

How big is your patriotism?
Would you fire those people or would you show less profits for the company?

 

[Urwumpe]

Hell yeah! If these americans don't work as hard as Germans, I will sure fire them. Maybe even earlier as other Germans.

 

[Bj]

No, but poverty is a result of an economic process, which even Obama can't stop. A single worker can produce much more products per day, as he can buy. You need less workers every years for producing the same amount of products and you can't employ more, as people don't buy more of your products. Even worse: if you reduce the number of workers, and these stay unemployed, this often means that you have less people buying your products - a vicious circle.

Now, the problem is: How to break the circle? Welfare? Will only accelerate the process. Poverty? Will also accelerate the process. In this dimension, you can't solve the problem, you need to find a new one. And I don't know any new dimension yet.

Hell yeah! If these americans don't work as hard as Germans, I will sure fire them. Maybe even earlier as other Germans.

Whats this? you say downsize so your company gets more profit? I don't disagree when the employees aren't doing their work, but downsizing just to get more profit?

Didn't you just say something about a poverty circle? :huh:

Now, downsizing because you are not getting any profit is ok, but just to get more profit may help you immediately, but in the long run, your going to lose money because you lost your customers.

 

[ar81]

Hell yeah! If these americans don't work as hard as Germans, I will sure fire them. Maybe even earlier as other Germans.

Not because of hard work, but becuase of "efficient resource allocation".
Either because of decreasing volume or because you found a cheaper labour price in a neighbor country for your operations.


-----Posted Added-----

Whats this? you say downsize so your company gets more profit? I don't disagree when the employees aren't doing their work, but downsizing just to get more profit?

Didn't you just say something about a poverty circle? :huh:

Now, downsizing because you are not getting any profit is ok, but just to get more profit may help you immediately, but in the long run, your going to lose money because you lost your customers.

To keep shares high and look good as a CEO before shareholders you may need to fire people.

Acquisitions and company merging also force some downsizing as merged companies may have duplicated functions and downsizing is needed, not only for profit, but also to keep stock prices in a good level. This stock prices crisis was a good time for acquisitions, so it is likely that many CEOs will have to do something about it.

 

[Bj]

Not because of hard work, but becuase of "efficient resource allocation".
Either because of decreasing volume or because you found a cheaper labour price in a neighbor country for your operations.

What you mean like outsourcing?

There again it comes to my point, If you lay off all the jobs in the USA who's going to buy these products from the company's? If I cannot get a job then I have no money to pay the companies for whatever unessentials they want to sell, let alone food.

Surely the people getting employed in neighboring countries will not come to the USA and say I want to buy this thing that has the same value of a years worth of food.

To keep shares high and look good as a CEO before shareholders you may need to fire people.

But how would firing people make you look good?
When I see Star-bucks close 600 stores and lay off 12,000 employees, that really doesn't look good I don't think...

 

[Urwumpe]

Not because of hard work, but becuase of "efficient resource allocation".
Either because of decreasing volume or because you found a cheaper labour price in a neighbor country for your operations.

You don't believe, I would fire the hardest working and most profitable workers... I will start at the most superfluous.


-----Posted Added-----

But how would firing people make you look good?

Simple: When you have 15000 workers, who are not at peak capacity, but have only demand for products which could be build by 10000 workers, you could fire 5000, and you would reduce your costs. Of course, when demand rises again, you might need again 5000 workers... which you could hire for less than the old workers.

Of course, the system is far more complex, but managers think like that.

 

[Donamy]

I can see laying off workers to stay in business. If the business goes under, everybody loses their job.

 

[ar81]

Manager and CEO bonuses often rely on keeping profit high.
That is an incentive to lay off and then collect a huge bonus.
I was told by someone from another forum that banks in Germany were doing this in areas where they had "not profitable enough customers" (private customers).

Multinational banana companies in Costa Rica also have that practice, as well as many others. I was once part of such a 10% of employees in a previous job.

Nowadays my current job is outsourced from US. So I have a job because an american does not, and the company is far from being at the brink of extinction. It is not my fault, but I am not sure if I like to be passive about this. This is why I started this thread.

Americans are good people. I saw on BBC news a graduated girl who had to take a job at a cafeteria because it was the best that this place could offer. The crisis made her branch to close, so now she has to travel 30 extra miles a day to work in another branch. I have passed through this in the past here, so I do not feel comfortable seeing others suffering that, even if they are hundreds of km away.

 

[Andy44]

What does running a business have to do with patriotism?

 

[Jarvitä]

What does running a business have to do with patriotism?

I'll have to agree. Capitalism should not be compatible with the imaginary concept of "nations", which is are nothing but loose cultural/geographical constructs and are paid way too much attention in modern politics. With globalisation, the nation-state is has become thing of the past, and patriotism is nothing but the last remnants of the bourgeoisie clinging to their position through populist nationalism.

 

[ar81]

What does running a business have to do with patriotism?

The dilemma between being a patriot towards your country and being a patriot towards your company is something that I came to think since a few years ago. But the time came now, when I see that about half of people are patriots towards companies. So the idea of profit, bonus and business is more powerful than patriotism.

The fact that I have a job that an american does not, is something that started in USA, not here. I just got the effect of something that happens elsewhere. So it is up to americans to see how to prevent more jobs to go overseas, when half of people in US would prefer their company over their nation.

I can see laying off workers to stay in business. If the business goes under, everybody loses their job.

In Japan, Sanyo suffered an earthquake several years ago.
Instead of firing workers (they consider the company as family) they calculated losses and divided it by the amount of employees. So employees had to sell that amount to save the company, and therefore their family.

In USA (and here in my country too) it does not happen. Companies are like submarines, where scarsity of food makes the captain to throw sailors off the deck into the stormy seas of recession and unemployment.

I'll have to agree. Capitalism should not be compatible with the imaginary concept of "nations", which is are nothing but loose cultural/geographical constructs and are paid way too much attention in modern politics. With globalisation, the nation-state is has become thing of the past, and patriotism is nothing but the last remnants of the bourgeoisie clinging to their position through populist nationalism.

Are you suggesting that in the future companies will be our countries?
And governments will become decoration?

I started this thread so those who prefer to be patriots do something about jobs that are still going overseas.
Americans have enough problems with current unemployment. Americans do not need more.

 

[jedidia]

With globalisation, the nation-state is has become thing of the past, and patriotism is nothing but the last remnants of the bourgeoisie clinging to their position through populist nationalism.

Allthough you're expressing this a bit too radical for my taste, I have to say that Bosnia is in dire need of people who think in those lines...

 

[Urwumpe]

You need the right amount of patriotism in a globalised world. When a company is able to improve it's global wealth, by making you locally pay for it, it is wrong. But the same processes are also the reason why you can today buy a color laser printer for 1/10th of the money they cost 10 years ago.

Are you willed to pay more money for products, which are "nationally correctly" produced? Look at the USA - they will, you can be sure, pay much more for their direly needed refueling plane program after the decided indirectly that Boeing needs to get the contract anyway and no European/US cooperation (Though such cooperations had been pretty profitable for both US and Europe in the past, for example the current Marine One).

But that's the price for nationalism (not patriotism. As Patriot, you would buy, which offers your country most advantages, even if it is not from your own country).

Of course, business needs ethics. While your money does not care, how you earn it and shareholders are generally not knowing what you are doing as they only see your numbers, customers and workers do. And don't underestimate the power of unhappy workers.

 

[Andy44]

Are you willed to pay more money for products, which are "nationally correctly" produced? Look at the USA - they will, you can be sure, pay much more for their direly needed refueling plane program after the decided indirectly that Boeing needs to get the contract anyway and no European/US cooperation (Though such cooperations had been pretty profitable for both US and Europe in the past, for example the current Marine One).

The problem with that example is that it's a government purchase, not a private one. Governments tend to waste lots of money, because they do not place the bottom line at the top of their priorities, they are hindered by lots of "fairness" rules, and of course, they are political animals and subject to the influence of large political donors (like Boeing) and domestic labor unions (like those that work at Boeing). The patriotism excuse is the one that Boeing places on their ads, whch you can see in magazines like Aviation Week and on the walls of the Washington, DC, Metro train system stations. In this case, "patriotism" means, "give me the contract, not the Europeans", which is a good way to sell a lousy airplane.

But you sure got one thing right: the government will pay way too much for a bunch of glorifed jetliners. The thing is, parts of both planes will be built in various countries, anyway.

 

[joeybigO]

The problem with that example is that it's a government purchase, not a private one. Governments tend to waste lots of money, because they do not place the bottom line at the top of their priorities, they are hindered by lots of "fairness" rules, and of course, they are political animals and subject to the influence of large political donors (like Boeing) and domestic labor unions (like those that work at Boeing). The patriotism excuse is the one that Boeing places on their ads, whch you can see in magazines like Aviation Week and on the walls of the Washington, DC, Metro train system stations. In this case, "patriotism" means, "give me the contract, not the Europeans", which is a good way to sell a lousy airplane.

But you sure got one thing right: the government will pay way too much for a bunch of glorifed jetliners. The thing is, parts of both planes will be built in various countries, anyway.

The problem with that statement is that it's an opinion of a type of aircraft.

Those pieces of crap have been flying around for a lot longer than the other pieces of crap that come from Europe.

Boeing does not produce censored aircraft, in my opinion it produces a high quality of aircraft, both technologically and structurally sound. The aircraft that Boeing is producing have been flying around people for quite awhile before they hit the lines to be modified into tankers.

However if you check your reference, you will see that Boeing lost the contract to produce the new generation of Tankers. That contract will go to the Scarebus, technology still working it's way into the future. By golly, i'm not sure how were going to buy those fuel sensors that phantomly go out almost every other flight and give you a caution and warning, but wholly crap were going to pay for them.
In my reference to the Scarebus it's a turd that flies, that's all I have to say about it. It's an avionics nightmare, and the only thing good about it is....

NOTHING...
The only reason that they have not dropped from the sky a whole lot more is that the FAA put stringent regulations regarding their certification here in the US. Thats why....

Oh wait, forgot something...
Were getting that parts from the country that produces the Exocet missile, France. Real flipping smart, but that's business, that's why Boeing lost that contract. Give it the Euro's they need the work.

 

[Urwumpe]

Those pieces of crap have been flying around for a lot longer than the other pieces of crap that come from Europe.

That is not true. The Nimrod maritime patrol plane of the UK is a direct conversion of the first passenger jetliner, the Comet.

And don't ask the age of some german C-160 Transall planes. They are often older as their pilot.

We know WHY we want to replace this stuff ASAP. And why we even considered buying Ukrainian planes as replacement, as the A400M was already pretty expensive before the first metal was cut.

 

[Jarvitä]

Are you suggesting that in the future companies will be our countries?
And governments will become decoration?

I'm not saying that's the optimal process. Optimally, all entities holding unwarranted authority - that is, the concepts of government, corporations and private property would slowly degrade in importance. The degradation of only one of them - the government, while the other two grab up what's left of it, is nothing but another step towards fascism.

 

[joeybigO]

That is not true. The Nimrod maritime patrol plane of the UK is a direct conversion of the first passenger jetliner, the Comet.

And don't ask the age of some german C-160 Transall planes. They are often older as their pilot.

We know WHY we want to replace this stuff ASAP. And why we even considered buying Ukrainian planes as replacement, as the A400M was already pretty expensive before the first metal was cut.

Sorry I should have specified, the A-340 series vs. the Boeing B767 series.

 

[Urwumpe]

Sorry I should have specified, the A-340 series vs. the Boeing B767 series.

Wrong weight class. If I remember correctly, the EADS tanker projects used the smaller A330 as base.


Both A330 and 767 are pretty similar planes, due to the fact that the A330 was designed to compete with the 767. That's also why the A330 (and the parallel developed A340) are from 1992, while the Boeing 767 is already from 1981.

I think, the problem is more the military package as the civilian airliner. Both planes uses similar avionics packages and hydraulic systems (in capability), but the Boeing plane should already be further stressed to keep up with technology, that means: Less room for extra components, and heavier modding needed.

Also, I don't know if the 767 has Fly-by-wire... newer 767 use a glass cockpit, but it should initially not have had FBW and glass cockpit does not mean FBW automatically.

A refuel plane with FBW would be far better suited as it is a pretty demanding job to keep a plane stable in the air while refueling.

 

[ar81]

patriotism is nothing but the last remnants of the bourgeoisie clinging to their position through populist nationalism.

That's funny... My wife was given (by university professors) some readings to analyze at university that are plagued with Latin American leftism... One of the authors refer to Costa Rican bourgeoisie liberal government intervention in popular culture.

Government intervention is not liberal but socialist and intervention in popular culture is more typical of Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez than it is in a liberal regime. So it looks like this author was referring to liberal socialsm or socialist liberalism...

The curious thing is that they make interpretations of colonial and post independence history using socialism as reference, but socialism came much later. So it would be like understanding early India "arian" slavery in the light of a socialist (left) vs liberal (right) society.

The most interesting thing is that communist leaders in Costa Rica had their sons studying in private schools and one of them studied in Washington D.C. One socialist union leader owns the stocks of a company that provides services to the government company where he works. So they are socialist bourgeoisie with a government job, not proletarian leaders who struggle to get out of poverty.

Unions with leftist leaders here collect money from workers to organize protests where those who pay are not paid for the day thay protest,and banners are made by workers. So it is a great business of collecting money, and then use free workers to make more money that is tax free and free of audits. It is what I would call a "socialist bourgeoisie scam".

Latin American leftist intellectuals claim to defend national identity, but socialism is indeed an imported ideology.
I haven't seen any of those intellectuals referring to the findings made by Russians after the social experiment of having tried to implement communism in Russia...

In Venezuela you have "bolivarian socialism" and Simon Bolivar was rich, well educated, a follower of Rousseau, who was liberal and Republican and Marx was a teen when Bolivar died. So how could Simon Bolivar be socialist if he admired a liberal and was rich? How could Marx influence Bolivar and move him into socialism? So you have "bolivarian liberal socialism" in Venezuela: The country had millions of petrodollars and medicines that are supposed to be free are absent from hospitals and poverty reaches 30% and annual inflation reaches 27%.

Inflation is caused by a government that spends petrodollars, not by the poor who get the harm of such alck of wealth distribution in a regime that is supposed to be socialist.


-----Posted Added-----
On a side note...

US jobless rate at 14-year high

See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7715873.stm