America's New Royalty

This is the time of year when companies reveal to the public the salaries of their top executives. Have you noticed the amazing sums that the CEO's and other senior executives are paid these days? It is truly extraordinary. They now live the kind of fantastic surrealistic lifestyles that used to be reserved for royalty.

Back in the mid-1700's, Americans fought a little skirmish against the British called the War of Independence. Perhaps you've heard of it. It was in all the papers. It culminated in the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States of America to establish this country as a sovereign nation separate from Britain.

Why did we do this? Well, it wasn't just that Americans didn't like king George III - the king at the time, but rather that they didn't like the very idea of royalty. It was because they rejected the core philosophy of an elitist group of people that governed them and was held superior over them. Taxation without representation. The royals were lining their own pockets at the commoner's expense. The monarchy and all their royal elites were wealthy beyond measure while they taxed Americans into poverty.

So the people rose up and fought against that economic tyranny. They pushed off British rule and established their own government. A government by the people and for the people, as the paper says.

So isn't it ironic that now, after 230 years, we find ourselves in a somewhat similar position again? We have another elite privileged group - but this time it's the corporate CEO's and other C-level executives. They are in some ways very much like a modern version of an extended royal family for America.

They are paid literally millions of dollars per year, and then are also given houses, palaces really, to live in. Some are provided by the company as a perk, some are purchased out of their staggering salaries. Bill Gate's house is a custom-made high-tech palace of 66,000 feet. Larry Ellison's Japanese-style palace was listed for $25,000,000, but he has purchased 5 adjacent lots in Malibu beach for $65,000,000 to build his new castle on the sea. This was the largest residential real estate transaction in US history - and it didn't even include his house yet. Donald Trump has the most expensive house, listed at 125 million dollars in Florida. They own and drive the finest cars, and are also given limos to ride in, and even corporate jets to use for personal use - in many cases to commute to work each week. Larry, in fact, has his own Russian MiG fighter jet just as a toy, and both he and Bill Gates have ocean racing yachts worth tens of millions of dollars. Gate's old partner in Microsoft, Paul Allen, has the most expensive super-yacht in the world, called The Octopus, worth more than 100 million dollars. These corporate royals lead lives of unbelievable luxury, with people to see to their every whim. They are very much like the royal families of old, in this sense.

And they do conduct wars like the old royals did. But the wars they conduct are all financial. They do hostile takeovers of other companies and the raid the treasure chests of other kings of industry, and their foot soldiers are the legions of tens of thousands of employees that they send out to generate their wealth and expand their empires - just like the old days. The game is the same, just the details have changed a bit.

Queen Elizabeth II of England is paid the equivalent of 11 million dollars per year. That may seem like a lot of money, but keep in mind that that is about what the AVERAGE CEO in America is paid these days. And the perks are pretty similar as well. Some CEOs are compensated far beyond that. Larry Ellison of Oracle, for example, only has a salary of a few paltry million per year, however, his bonus package paid him 703 million in the last year I checked.

And these salaries are paid despite the uneven or even poor performance of the companies that they run, and despite the hardships these leaders may impose upon their subjects. The year that Ellison was paid 703 million, the company was laying off literally thousands of workers.

At Northwest Airlines the executives have just maneuvered the unions into taking a $195 million dollar cut in pay to help the company get out of chapter 11 bankruptcy. In exchange for the concession, they are giving the employees a $185 million equity charge against the company in case of complete bankruptcy. Of course when a company goes completely bankrupt, they are insolvent, and the creditors split up the assets and get just a few cents on the dollar for their equity invested. So I guess we don't know how much that equity would be worth in this case.
It's an interesting concession - in the case of a bankruptcy, the company's assets would be sold at a fraction of the original value, typically. And then the creditors split these proceeds. Well, if they go bankrupt, then the company execs give up the whole company anyway - regardless of who is standing in line to be paid. So this concession actually costs them nothing. And in fact, by promissing the employees a share of the proceeds of such a sale, what they are really doing is devaluing the interest that all their other existing creditors have in the company. In other words - they just bought their union concession with someone else's money and without their permission.

And for the excellent job they've done in leading the company (into bankruptcy), and then cutting the pay of all it's workers, The executives at Northwest are well-paid. CEO Steenland at Northwest has a total compensation package of $1.46 million per year. That's roughly 7 times as much as the job of President of the United States pays. This is what they pay this CEO to run a single company. And it's a FAILING company at that.

Is it that the job of CEO is so complicated that only a genius can do it? Is there some aspect to the job such that only some super-human being can hope to perform the daily tasks? Why do stockholders feel compelled to pay these king's ransom-like salaries? Are there no cheaper alternatives? Is there no one qualified to do the job willing to take less than millions upon millions of dollars per year?

Where is the effect of competition that the capitalist system is so famous for? These are not capitalist investors for the most part - these are just employees. They go from company to company doing the job of CEO, CFO, COO, etc. Why is there no competition for the position that would lead to a lower cost? Is there a shortage of CEO-level people in this country? Capitalism is normally based on supply and demand.

The capitalist system was designed to compensate the innovative risk-taker entrepreneurs who invest CAPITAL (hence the name) into a company and are therefore entitled to the rewards if they absorb the risks and run it well. But usually, these CEO's are not the original capital investors that founded the companies anymore. More often, they are simply hired professional managers. The capitalists are those that invested in the stock market.

So are professional managers entitled to the same returns and perks as the capital investors in this system now? Are they truly entitled to make more money than world-class political leaders who run entire countries? Is running Germany, or England, or Australia less important or less complicated? Is running the United States less demanding? Less important? And are these CEOs entitled to these amazing salaries and perks even as their companies spiral down into ruin and their employees are forced into the street, or are forced to accept pay cuts? Even in total failure, to get them out of their positions, the shareholders must again pay millions and millions in exit clause payouts of staggering proportions.

Is this fair? Is this what we had in mind when our forefathers threw off the yoke of servitude to royal elitists?

I don't think so.

I like a capitalist system in general. I like the concept that if someone invests the money into a company then they should get the reward. They assume the risks, and they may win or lose depending upon how clever, innovative, and imaginative they are in producing products and services that are needed. That system rewards those who do things that benefit the marketplace and the society, because they provide better quality products and services. It sure beats a communist system, where everything is controlled by bureaucrats who have no incentive to excel.

But it seems that this situation of having a hired executive class of employees that are paid sums of royal weight regardless of their performance, ingenuity, innovation, or problem solving skills is counter to the actual goals of capitalism itself. This is a system of fat cats rewarding their buddies. This is elitism. This is the old royal club in a new form. This is essentially the core principles of what we fought against and rejected 230 years ago.

I think maybe we need a new system. What do you think?

Salaries and the Effects of Competition

Do you wonder if you are making the right amount of income for the job you do?

I think just about everyone thinks they are underpaid, under-utilized, and under-appreciated. It's part of the human condition.

In the articles I read the other day about the H1-B quotas, there were some letters written in response, and most were from people in the IT industry who are upset because they are not making as much money as they used to make in the 1990's, and they feel this is due to the foreign workers here on H1-B's.

One letter in particular caught my attention. It was from a very angry young man who does C# programming for a living. He points out that he runs his own business and is making between $30K to $35K per year, but that he gets unsolicited offers all the time from headhunters offering him $50/hr which translates to $100K per year, but he refuses because he says that ten years from now, $100K will mean nothing.

Well, that kind of broken logic and flawed thinking makes me wonder how good his programming skills are. It is completely non-sequitur. And it is an emotional response. He can't seem to see that $100K NOW is better than $35K NOW and that 10 years from now, both may be higher.

But quite aside from that, he talks about how he is making $35K/yr as a programmer and yet truck drivers make over $50K. And why should C# programmers make only slightly more than driving a truck? He invites anyone to open a book on C# and on AJAX and tell him that that stuff is easy. Tell him that that is anywhere close to the simplicity of driving a truck. So why does it only pay slightly more on average? He blames H1-B's for this. Since employers can hire people from other countries to come at a lower salary to do the programming work, then they don't have to pay him more. Furthermore, he has a girlfriend who is a lawyer in another country, and she says that $30K is a lot of money in her country. So he is fed up with the US and is moving to her country. He says that here in THIS country a lawyer would not go out with a programmer anymore because there is now too much of a class difference. They just don't make enough money to interest a lawyer, despite the fact that being a programmer is every bit as complex and intelligent a vocation as being a lawyer - in fact probably much moreso.

Well, there are several things wrong with this whole mindset and his whole argument. Let's just list them quickly:
1) He is not limited to $30K per year. He already said that he has had offers of up to $100K
2) He seems to think that a job should pay according to how difficult or complicated it is. Tell that to professional baseball players. They play a simple game that 8 yr old kids play, but they make more money than the political leaders that run the country - an order of magnitude more. Income is NOT tied to complexity of the work. Look at schoolteachers. Look at musicians. The list goes on.
3) He blames income inequality for keeping men and women from being attracted to each other. He must just not get it if he hasn't seen exceptions to this in his life so far. Plenty of couples have one working and the other doesn't work at all.
4) He seems to think that programmers should make far more than truck drivers. Now THIS is the most interesting thing to talk about here, I think. This is where I want to make a point.

He is laboring under some delusion that you should be paid according to how complex a job is. What he apparently does not understand is that job salaries, like every other aspect of the economy, may flow up and down according to the laws of supply and demand. If there is more supply than demand, then the price goes down. For example, if there are too many people doing shoe repair, then people charge less and less to compete for a shrinking number of customers and so the overall income of shoe repair people goes down. This is the same for every type of work.

Right now, in my area, it generally costs about $30/week for someone to cut my grass for my house. I actually cut my own grass now, but I used to use a service. If suddenly twice as many grass cutting services enter the local market, then they have to compete to get the work. That means they have to cut prices or provide some other incentives to get the business - like trimming the bushes for free, or doing the weed & feed after cutting, or whatever. essentially - they provide more value for the money either by adding services, or cutting prices. Let's say that the cost of cutting my grass goes down to $15 this way. Now, suddenly the same people who used to work full time at the old rate, are still working full time, but only getting half the money. That starts to make it difficult for the grass-cutters to make a living. They are earning much less money now. So, predictably, they begin to leave that market. They either go elsewhere to another market where there are fewer grass-cutting services, or they switch into a different business that is not so competitive. Once the number of competitors drops again, the prices for the services again rises to meet the demand. That is the so-called "Invisible hand" of the economy that Adam Smith (the founder of economics) talked about in his famous book "The Wealth of Nations" over 200 hundred years ago.

That is the law of supply and demand in a nutshell.

In this case, we have a programmer complaining that there is too much labor supply brought on by the additional H1-B workers in the local economy and that is why he cannot make his $150K to $200K per year that he apparently expects to make in order to be on par with the average lawyer, rather than earning a salary that is more on par with a truck driver.

The problem is not so much that there are a few H1-B workers in town that can do the work. It's that programming is something that can now be done anywhere in the world. If not done by him in California, then it can be done by Michal in Poland, or by Ramesh in Bangalore, or by Chai in Shanghai. They have computers too, and are also on the internet. Suddenly, they are in his backyard so to speak. In other words, they are his competitors for the work he hopes to do. If he is competing with them, he cannot afford to charge MUCH more than them for the same work, or else employers will simply go to them. And they do - in droves. That's why there has been such a huge rush to use offshore outsourcing, or offshore globalsourcing (that's where the company doesn't give the work to an Indian company, but instead opens up an office in Bangalore and hires the Indian programmers locally there, so they are shifting the work to the cheaper workers in that country, but not giving it outside the company.)

But the truck driver doesn't have that same pressure, does he? His work is local, by definition. Specifically, a truck driver in Sacramento is not competing with a truck driver in Calcutta to be able to take a load of peaches to Boise. So his competitors are only the other local trucking companies. You can train someone quickly to drive a truck, and therefore the so-called "barriers to entry" of that vocation are low - however, companies cannot outsource it to people that live in a cheaper economy and therefore can live on a MUCH lower salary.

So therefore, the truck driver has a smaller competition base in his market space, and the competition have to live and eat in the same economy as he does, so presumably they need about the same amount of money as he does to eat, therefore his salary stays roughly the same.

THIS is why truck drivers make almost the same money as computer programmers. It's not about who is smarter or which job is more difficult or more complicated. It's just about supply and demand. Who's job is more local, and therefore has less competition. People that do construction, home repairs, plumbing, electrical, etc. all need to be physically present and so they don't compete overseas for business. They only compete locally with other people who have to live in the same economy and pay the sames prices for food, clothing, and housing as them, so they are somewhat protected.

This is a one of the reasons that I have encouraged my daughter to go into medicine and become a doctor. She wants to be a surgeon. Lab analysis can be outsourced to India, but not direct hands-on surgery.

Of course this effect propagates down. As people here figure this out, then they will all want to go to local-based skills and services, and that will increase competition locally, which also starts to drive down the cost of salaries again. After all - it's all about supply and demand, right?

I think as awareness of this global vs local market phenomenon grows, there will be more consideration of this as the kids make their choices in school courses.

H1-B Work Visas and Jobs in the U.S.

There is an article in IT Business Edge to which I felt compelled to respond.
It is about how companies are complaining that the quota of 65,000 for H1B's is too low, but the author points out that there are another 7,000 reserved for those with Masters degrees from US universities, but they are not being used, and she proposes that this is because companies are not really interested in hiring the best and brightest, they only use the H1B program to hire cheap labor, and that's all they are interested in.

Then there is a raft of responses, the first of which actually appears to be from Bill Gates. I think it is just someone with the same name as THE Bill Gates, though.

Most of the responses are from Americans who feel that H1B people should not have jobs here, because there are Americans to do those jobs, and that they are just keeping the salaries low because companies want to hire cheaper H1B people. As an example, one guy said that there are plenty of Americans to do programming, but not for 15 bucks an hour, like the H1B people get.

These people are misinformed. That's simply not how it works. However, I noticed that the grammar and communications skills of those people were terrible. Not just inaccurate, but it was literally difficult to follow what they were even saying.

I felt compelled to respond, and this was my response:

Apparently there are at least two common misperceptions about H1B visas. Allow me to state two simple facts, and then add some other points:

1) Besides stating the steps they took to try to hire an American worker to do the job first, employers are also required to prove that the salary offered to an H1B candidate is equal to or higher than what they already pay other Americans for that same position. They must list the names and salaries of others in similar positions and show that the proposed salary for the new H1B staff is in that same range. The reason for that is so that companies DON'T use H1B's as a way to get cheaper labor. If labor is cheaper now, it is because supply and demand has shifted to force that.

2) Companies are in a global competition now. It's not just about America anymore. Their products and prices must compete with those of other companies from China, India, Malaysia, Poland, etc. And these places all have cheaper labor.
Would you rather that the companies here simply outsource everything to factories and offices in those countries? No? Well, then the alternative is to have some of those people come here. If H1B people are HERE, then they spend their money HERE in THIS economy, not in India, or Poland, or wherever. Keeping the money circulating in this country stops the bleeding of wealth out of the country.

3) I have been in a position to hire IT professionals for many years(I have 30 years experience in the IT field) and I must tell you that I have never given preference to anyone based upon their nationality, race, background, gender, age, etc. Nor have I discriminated. Also, as a manager of people hiring new employees, I have never said to my bosses - "hey I want to hire this one because he's cheaper. He is on H1B and so we can take advantage of that. " The corporate system simply doesn't work like that. At least not for large companies. The salaries for the positions are already set in the payroll salary ranges. So we pay what we pay. And the negotiation over salary comes AFTER we have already chosen a person based on their fit to the job. If the job pays $60-65K, and the candidate wants, $70K, we tell them that the range is only up to $65K for that position, and they decide if it's worth it for them. Or, if it's a special situation and they cannot go cheaper and we REALLY need that position and it's a perfect fit, I might go back to my management and negotiate and build a case to try to get an extra 5K. It's all about fit to the job. It has nothing to do with H1B - EXCEPT - to be perfectly honest, there are two factors which make it undesirable for employers to hire an H1B. One is the paperwork. The legal paperwork for an H1B employee is extensive, and expensive. Legal fees are expensive. It is $4500 for a 3 yr H1B application. Plus some administrative hassle. The other factor is accent. Most people prefer to work with people they can understand, and if the person cannot communicate very well - that is a deal-killer. To be completely honest, I HAVE discriminated against some people because of that. But frankly, I think that is fair. It has nothing to do with race, color, gender, religion, age, hair color, body weight, or anything else. It is their basic ability to communicate. I think that it is a job requirement to speak and write English clearly in order to communicate with other employees well. I think that is a fair requirement.

So why not choose American workers? Of course I choose American workers, if they are qualified and available. Why wouldn't I? That saves me the delays, and hassle, and costs of the paperwork for the H1B. I have directly hired probably over 50 people in my career, and (I'm guessing here, but) I would say that about half were Americans. There were also a lot of Indians. Some Canadians, some Brits, some Chinese/Asians, etc.

It is a simple fact that most of the candidates for IT jobs in the past 10 years have been Indians. Period. The reality of the situation is that if I advertise a job now for a Java programmer and it pays say, 65K per year, and I get 15 applicants for it, then 10 of them are probably Indian, 2 are Southeast Asian and 3 are American-born. Probably none are female. THAT is the reality.

As I am evaluating their credentials, I don't much care about their education, really. This is because by the time they have accumulated enough experience to be useful to me, (10 yrs or more), the college degree they got 10 years or more earlier is now obsolete and irrelevent. Usually the school curriculums are a few years behind the real world anyway - so even if it's current, it's not. Really, I care far more about their experience - especially their RECENT experience.

I look at projects they've worked on, and tools they've used. I look for inconsistencies in the facts of their resumes to see if they are lying. Then I interview ALL the ones who are qualified. Statistically, since 2/3 of them are Indian, there is a 66% chance that the person selected will be Indian. However, if the accent is really thick and hard to understand, then I would probably prefer to look at another candidate.
Then I select the first choice and second choice, find out their salary requirements, and if they are in line with our budget for that position, then schedule a few other interviews with technical peers, and other management, and maybe my boss. Then go to my management and try to get a signature on the offer to hire.
It's that simple folks. There is no back-room sneaky stuff. There is no wink-and-nod, and secret handshake. There is no hidden old-boys club. This is EXACTLY how it really works. Those of you who hire staff know what I'm talking about.

Frankly, if I am hiring a project manager, I get a different mix of candidates. More Americans, more Europeans, more females - it's a management type job. Less technical, so a different demographic shows up, and that determines who gets hired.

You hire from the pool of available options. If it's mostly Inuit that show up for a particular skill set, then chances are, you're probably going to end up hiring an Inuit.

Also, most people need to wake up and realize something else. Other than small companies - there are very few "American" companies anymore. That is an outdated leftover concept from decades ago. Nowadays, they are multinational companies. They have offices, plants, factories, distribution centers and sales locations all over the world. The company I work for right now has IT staff in the US, UK, Poland, and India. And the project I am working on at the moment has teams in all those places.

My last big company was a large database and apps company which has offices in 109 countries. I was a regional director for them for many years, and that is where I did most of my hiring. GM is all over the world, as is Ford, and GE, and Coke and Pepsi, IBM, HP, and you name it. All the big companies operate in many countries. So they can shift their internal work from one country to another almost seamlessly.

People think the president should do something about offshore outsourcing - but he can't. If the US government tries to stop offshore outsourcing, or globalsourcing by applying tax penalties on them, they can simply make one of their foreign offices their new headquarters and start paying taxes in THAT country. Suddenly GE is a Bangalore-based company with branch offices in the US. Do you see?

Multi-national or global corporations are, by definition, beyond the purview of the legislation of a single country to control them.

Even if you threaten to cut them off from doing business entirely in the lucrative US market, the real fact is that only 4% of the world's people are here in the US. The other 96% are out there in other countries, and frankly, THAT is where the big growth markets and big opportunities are. The US has a strong consumer base - but it is a relatively saturated market for products. However, India, China - these countries need lots of products and services and now they have the money to buy them. The Chinese government alone has over 1.2 trillion US dollars that they about to start spending. That is more than the entire US national debt was when Bush became president 6 years ago. They have LOTS of cash to spend. So that is where a significant market opportunity is. And places like Dubai, UAE is where the big oil companies are spending their money and focusing their attention and some are moving there. That is where the opportunities are now in that industry.

It's not just about the US anymore. This is NOT the center of the universe anymore.

Here is just one example: every year, India produces 1.5 million new engineers, and China produces over 3 million engineers. The US only produces 70,000, and half those are foreign students who will leave when finished. And the other 35,000 who are Americans will have trouble even finding jobs here. Because this is not where those kinds of jobs ARE anymore. Most of that kind of work is now over there. That's where the bulk of growth, innovation, and opportunity is now.

This is reality, folks. This is globalization. It affects everybody. Learn to live in this new world because we can't go back to the old one.

A Vision For The Future - A New Twist

I have a vision. It's about green. And greed.

Think back for a moment. When do you suppose was America's heyday? When were things the best for America? The 1950's? The 1960's? The 1970's? Sure there was the cold war, and Viet Nam, and there were social problems at home, too - but yet somehow people seemed happier. They seemed positive. In 1957, there was no doubt in anyone's mind that the next year would be better, and that every year after that would again be getting progressively better and better. What was it about that post-war era that made life so positive and hopeful and forward-thinking?

I think a large part of it was because the US lead the world in innovation, inventions, in technology. People talked about the space age, and Nasa was sending up missions to the moon, and we were inventing everything from microwave ovens, to pushbutton phones, digital watches, to the personal computer. We created networks to connect the computers together. There seemed to be no end to what technology would do for us, and America was king of technology.

Well, in the last 20 years, it seems we've lost some of that edge. Other countries have overtaken our lead and now THEY are the fountains of technological innovation. THEY have the cool new products coming out. THEY now lead the way and take the first steps. Much of the technical innovation seems to come from southeast Asia now. Japan, Korea, etc.

China has grown into a huge force on the world stage. They were a third world country just 15 years ago, and now they are the emerging giant of the world. They have done this primarily by keeping their currency cheap, and therefore their labor cheap, and therefore they have become a destination of choice for outsourcing manufacturing to, or for simply buying manufactured goods.

Let's look at one example:
It used to be that if you wanted to be a guitar-maker in the US, you would set up a little shop, design your guitars, buy your materials, make your guitars and sell them to people who would visit your shop. If you became bigger, and they became more popular, you would put them in other music shops and sell them that way.

Well, now it's done differently. You cannot possibly hope to make guitars for less money or more efficiently than they can in Korea or China. They have the high volume production equipment and economies of scale that you could not hope to match. So instead of trying to compete with them, you join them. You use what they have already put in place. So now you go to visit Chinese or Korean companies like Samick, who builds guitars for other companies under their labels. These are anything from Fender to Washburn, Schecter, Epiphone, Ibanez, Breedlove, Ovation, etc. Pretty much any guitar that said "Made in Korea" was actually made by Samick. They claimed at one point to make over 80% of all the guitars in the world. So you go to visit them, they show you a catalog of models, and you pick a handful of models, pick some combinations of features from their list, just so they are slightly different from other models they are making for other labels already. Then you agree to minimum volumes, and delivery guidelines, and sign a contract for production.

Then they make up a few samples with your name brand on the headstock to take back with you to the US, and you go visit the buyers of guitars for the major music store chains like Guitar Center, Sam Ash Music, etc. and you show them the guitars, and then you make a deal for the retail side. They agree to a price they will pay. You line up some advertising to start to create a demand. So you call up Guitar Player magazine, and Guitar, and Guitar One, and Guitar World, etc. and you put in some glossy ads for your new guitar products. Then the ads go out, the orders start coming in from the retail side, then you start fulfilling them from your Korean friends at Samick. They can either manufacture as required, or in batches for less money per unit, but then you pay up front.
You have become a middle-man. You are just moving "units". It no longer matters whether they are guitars, or toasters, or lighting fixtures. It is an inventory sku, and it has pricing and fulfillment limits set and the system flows - from manufacturing through distribution, through retail, to the consumer. You are not a guitar maker, you are a business man.
And that is how business is done, mostly now.

But where is the innovation? This is not innovating. This is not pushing the envelope for the industry or the world. The innovation belongs to the Korean company for coming up with the product. And even then, it is mostly just mixing and matching existing features, done with existing tooling. This one is a single cutaway. That one is a double cutaway. This one is a thinline acoustic/electric jazz guitar in the style of a Gibson ES-335. That one is styled like a Les Paul. This one is a strat-copy - and so it goes.

This is not innovation. This is not moving us forward.

I think there is a new area where we, here in America, can lead the world, and in our leadership position, we can find our profits again. And in that process, we will find our bright future once again. We just need our American optimism, our ingenuity, and our willingness to try.

For years, people have made a fortune by making things cheaper and competing on price. The lowest price wins. Wal-Mart is king of the retailers on the planet. That has been the rule for the last few decades, but now it is time for a change. Now, instead of competing to make things cheaper, we need to compete to making things more efficient, more environmentally friendly.

The new goal is "Green". In other words, while China and others are busy making things cheaper and cheaper - we have the opportunity to lead the world in developing environmentally-friendly products and processes.

Instead of competing in a price war in a race toward the bottom, we compete on a whole different level, in a whole different direction. More efficient cars, trains, boats, and planes. More efficient heaters for houses. More efficients batteries for gadgets. More efficient light bulbs. More efficient use of farmland. More efficient use of urban space. Less polluting cars and products. More efficient gas and energy consumptive products. Also, we can lead the world in developing processes and technologies for producing clean, cheap energy from renewable resources like wave power, wind power, solar power, reclaiming methane from trash and using the energy in that to run power turbines, etc.

China has amassed an enormous surplus of 1.2 trillion US dollars by selling stuff because it's cheap. We can make a fortune by selling stuff because it's efficient, and it's environmentally better. People all over the world will buy those products, because there is a wide and growing awareness now of global warming and how that will affect the planet. No one wants to see the major coastal cities of the world flooded out, and the farmland ruined and reduced. No one wants to see the weird weather patterns, freezing here, boiling there, storms, and tornados, and F5 hurricanes coming every year to destroy homes, villages and entire cities. They want products that will help reduce that and stave off the effects of global warming as long as possible.

The current crisis of global proportions, rather than being our doom - might just be our biggest opportunity. We just have to be smart enough to figure out how to make money from it. Green has to be connected to Greed. Once people see the way to make these green products pay a profit, then you will see people falling over each other to where they can come up with excellent products and processes to help move us forward. And the ones who start first and invest in the innovation and really commit to that direction will win the biggest. Toyota has already figured this out, and so they have made the deepest inroads into making and selling hybrid vehicles so far, and now they are positioning to become the world's largest automaker - but it's still early in the game. If we jump in with our resources, and our ideas, our innovation, our special genius - we can still leap out ahead and take a huge lead.

Some will say that the current political environent and the big oil companies have too much of a vested interest to allow these kinds of changes, and they have traditionally worked against it - but don't worry, because I have another idea to change THAT too.

We just have to find the tipping point in the equation, and then the whole game changes.

For example: GM had produced some really promissing electric cars a few years ago. These looked like the wave of the future. But they were destroyed and the program was squashed - largely because Big Oil applied pressure in the right places and suddenly GM caved. They shut it all down.

So, rather than accepting that we have to live with Big Oil as the neighborhood bully - why not find out WHY they do that. Well, I don't think it's because they want to destroy the country - or the world. They live here too. So I think it's safe to assume it's because they make more profit if we buy more oil.

So how about this: Through a combination of legislation AND attractive incentives, we force the oil companies to diversify their business to include green products. If they are motivated by money, then set up the game so that their motivations further our collective best interests. Greed is a powerful motivating force. Direct it in the right direction, and we all win! Hey - I bet if Exxon-Mobil stood to make a fortune by selling those expensive batteries for electric cars, then electric cars would
be on the road TODAY.. Big time!

So give them a piece of it. Don't make them an adversary - make them a partner. Share the wealth. Show them their role in this brilliant bright and clean new future. Show them how to be the good guys with the white hats AND still be rich - and they will suddenly be the biggest flag-wavers of all.

Every problem has a solution. We just need to think deeper, and try hard. In that way, America, and the whole world, will move forward. We all win! That's my dream.

...Well, that and being a rock star/guitar god, of course...

Old People Can Say Anything They Want...

I remember George Burns saying something to the effect that he could say anything now that he was old. In his opinion, it was one of the great things about becoming old. You can say the most bizarre, and strongly opinionated things you like and people just let you get away with it. Picture the twinkle in the eye of a michevious little old man.
In fact, I would say this: Everyone knows that the truth is the hardest thing to say in public because it offends so many people. But you can get away with saying just about anything - no matter how big a truth it is - as long as you are old enough and frail enough that people would seem a bully and a brute by attacking you. Your apparent vulnerability can be your greatest protection.

In fact, I guess that's when you know that you are actually "old" - when you can say outrageous truths, and everyone lets you get away with it!

Well, my father is a little like that. He is 75 yrs old in about a week, and he is legally blind - though he does have some very limited sight. I just got off the phone with him for our now ritual weekly catch-up conversation every Sunday morning.

He told me about the interesting cab rides he takes with Muslim cab drivers every week when he goes shopping. Most of the taxi drivers in the Toronto area seem to be Muslims from Pakistan. He doesn't have a lot of friends left because he has now outlived them, so he talks to these drivers on the 20 minute drive to the shopping mall he likes to visit.

He is very much a student of the international economy and politics, and also cultural differences. Now that he is retired, he has more time to pay attention to politics, and world economics, etc. He is interested in all this, and he usually tells these guys his theories as a conversation starter, and then listens to their responses, in order to learn their perspectives. Then he tells me about these conversations.

Some of the things he says might cause them some uncomfortable moments here and there but what are they going to do - stop the car and beat him up? Stop and force him out to the curb? He is old and blind. Besides - it's only honest questions, and most of it is not really offensive, just a little impertinent. What does it hurt to talk to a harmless old man.

He preaches the idea that most of our problems with wars and violence and misunderstandings could all be solved if we simply adopted a single language to speak and write, a single monetary system, a single education system, a single type of political system, and a single religion. Well, that may be true, but it could never happen - too many people would have to give up their strongly held beliefs, and their advantages over other people. It's unrealistic - but it's interesting to hear the responses and perspectives that this brings out in people from different backgrounds - so it's highly useful as a way to draw people out of their shell into an interesting philosophical, social, and political discussion....

On one of the recent trips, he said to the driver, "So let's assume that the Muslim way is the right way, and everyone converts to the Muslim teachings, etc. What about the other Muslims who are attacking and killing people - which goes against the teachings of the faith? How would you stop them?"
The driver said, "Let me ask you something. Do you have a brother?"
Dad says "Yes"
driver says, "Would you kill your own brother?"
Dad says, "No, of course not - but that's what I mean right there! Why would you assume I was talking about killing them? Couldn't you just educate them? Is there no way to enlighten them to make them see that what they are doing goes against what they say they believe in?"

They have conversations like that. Also, he talks to them about jokes. He tells them Canadian/American jokes, and then gets them to tell him some of their jokes so he can see the difference in humor. He says our jokes make no sense to them, and their jokes make no sense to him. In fact, he says many of them have no sense of humor at all. Humor just isn't a big part of their life like it is here.
I find this especially interesting because a person's sense of humor tell you a lot about how they think. The things that press a person's funny-button, show a map of their thought processes, inclinations, and motivations. If you told them enough jokes and watched their reactions, you could map out their entire personality enough to predict exactly how they think and how they would respond in a variety of situations.

Today he told me about a funny one. They were driving along, and they were talking about the rewards to Muslims for sacrificing themselves to the cause. For martyring themselves to the great cause of killing Israelis or killing Americans or other infidels. The Muslim man thought that the promise of an afterlife with all the food he could eat, all the wine he could drink, and 72 virgins sounded pretty good and was worth the sacrifice of a life.
Dad says, "Did it ever occur to you that they might be lying to you?"
Puzzled, the Muslim man says, "What? What do you mean? It cannot be a lie. Why would they lie?"
Dad says, "Well, how many Muslims are there in the world right now. About one billion - isn't that so?"
Muslim man says, "yeees......"
Dad says, "Well, about half of them are men, right? So that means there are about 500 million Muslim men, correct?"
"yeees..." hesitantly...
Dad continues, "Well, simple arithmetic says that there aren't enough women in the whole world to have 72 virgins for each of 500 million men! Especially not if you only count Muslim women!"

There was silence for a minute as the logical implications of this sunk in. Then suddenly the Muslim man burst out laughing. "You are RIGHT!" he says, laughing and slapping the steering wheel. He thought that was so good, he gave him the ride for free and didn't charge the usual $20. So far, my dad has received 3 free rides because of conversations like that.

Of course, it would be harder for any of us to say those things and not get into trouble. But old men get away with saying almost anything political. And old women can berate and chastize a 300 lbs footbal player and get away with it. Protected by their frailty, and the fact that no one wants to beat up an old person - they are actually almost invulnerable!

Don Imus - Social Misfit or Harmless Loudmouth?

Don Imus is thought by many to be the original radio "Shock Jock". There have been others since, of course, and one I can think of who became more famous, but Don may have been arguably the first of these obnoxious radio DJ personalities. The idea is that they attract attention by saying outrageous things on the radio. Things which people would never say in polite society. Things that might be heard in a pool hall or among teenagers in a high school, but not among most adults in a normal situation, and certainly not publicly broadcast on radio or television.

So because they stand out, they attract attention. Because they may speak what some people secretly feel, they may attract a following, and that is what some don't like.

Last week, when the Rutgers University Women's Basketball team won their game, Don Imus made the comment that there were some "nappy-headed Ho's" down on the court there. The team contains 8 girls who are black. So this time, he stepped over the line. He normally skirts the edge of what is allowed anyway, but this time, he went over the line and people are upset, and bad things are happening to Don Imus.

This has raised a huge flap in the news for several reasons. He apologized on Friday morning and thought that would be the end of it. Then, the controversy began to pick up momentum, with the girl's team appearing on Oprah, and also being interviewed by the press and giving their rebuttal speech time on national news, etc. It has snowballed into such a large issue that after a couple of days, Imus was apologizing hourly and appeared on Al Sharpton's show making a full deep apology. As of now, several days later, fully 7 of his show's major corporate sponsors have dropped him and two networks have suspended his show for 2 weeks pending further decisions. As of this morning, MSNBC has permanently dropped the simulcast for his show. CBS is looking for a replacement.

There are perhaps two main schools of thought on this and that creates a healthy debate usually (which is why it is interesting to discuss here).

Some people are outraged at the atrocity of a white man calling black girls "nappy headed ho's". Especially since they are not rich and famous and open to public comment of any kind. They feel he can call Britney Spears or Paris Hilton anything he wants because they are famous, but these girls are just normal college girls and so should be beyond any similar comments. In fact, these girls are hard-working sports heroes, who have accomplished a difficult thing and they have done nothing to deserve any sort of derogatory remarks. They feel it shows a huge lack of sensitivity on his part, and is clearly both a racist comment against blacks, and a sexist denigration of women in general. They feel he should be baned from the airwaves forever and his show cancelled and he should be fined and punished to the maximum extent allowed by law and public pressure. They want to make an example of him and teach people a lesson.

Then there is the other opinion that says "ahhh, let it go. Grow up and get over it." that he is a shock jock. As such, he is always testing the limits of what the airwaves and public sensibilities will bear. And are black women so delicate and fragile that they are so deeply threatened by some loudmouth idiot who makes a verbal gaff on a radio show? They say that this became a big issue mainly because it was a slow news weekend and there was nothing else to latch onto and make into an issue. They also point to the concept of free speech, and they point to the fact that he has insulted lots of people on a daily basis over the years. That's what his show is all about in fact. It is abrasive, repugnant and shocking. (Hence the name.) They claim no one takes it seriously, and if someone does then they need to just get over it and switch the channel like everyone else does. As one female friend of mine so colorfully puts it, "They just need to put on their big-girl panties, and get on with it..."


Besides being a Shock Jock for his morning radio comedy show, Imus also has a place called "Imus Ranch" in north east New Mexico where he brings all kinds of sick kids for a real cattle ranch experience for free. He even flies them to New Mexico for free and brings them in from the airport. The ranch is a 4,000 acre spread about 50 miles northeast of Santa Fe. There is a 14,000 ft hacienda where he and the guests and ranch hands all live, plus barns and indoor rodeo and outdoor rodeo, and horses,m steers, and lessons on how to live the ranch life. He also has doctors and medical staff to help out the kids with Cancer and other serious diseases. He has set this up as an 8-day 7 night trip for the kids, all expenses paid. Seems like a decent kind of thing to do.

You know what the real irony of this is? Let's do three little logical thought experiments, shall we?

Thought Experiment #1
Sports is very competitive by it's very nature. And teenage girls are normally very competitive anyway, and so they can be pretty cruel to each other at times.
If any of the girls themselves on the team were having an argument or a falling out in the change room before the game, I'd be willing to bet money that they would call each other far worse names than what Imus said. In fact, I bet what he said is pretty mild by comparison to what they may have called each other from time to time.

So if that's the case, then it wouldn't be what was said that is the real problem - it would just be the fact that a white guy said it. You know what? THAT is racism, right there.

It goes back to that whole idea that blacks can use the n~ word but not whites.

Thought Experiment #2
I bet if Imus had made a slightly racist-based comment that implied that they were very hot/sexy/attractive at the same time - there might not have been a complaint or any hurt feelings. He might be seen as a dirty old man perhaps, but the girls might have felt not too bad about it.

So reasoning our way through this - if a racist-based comment implying that they were hot/attractive/sexy would have been ok, but a racist-based comment that implies that they were ugly/unattractive is what they really find offensive, then, logically, the racism aspect of the comment is not the part that offends them. It's really the fact that he was saying they are ugly.

To a young woman - I can see where that would be especially hurtful. But that would mean then that this is not really about racism. It's really about this silly old fart calling these girls ugly. On that level, that is unkind, and shameful, but probably not worth all the grandstanding and ruckus and dropping his show, firing him despite about 30 or 40 sincere apologizies.

Thought Experiment #3
Why do you suppose CBS and MSNBC, and the 7 sponsor companies dropped Imus right away and made public statements about doing it? Do you think it has to do with genuine outrage at Imus's "nappy-headed ho" comment? Or do you suppose that it might just be because there are 39 million blacks in the country and they didn't want to alienate a huge marketplace like that?
In other words, do you think their response was driven by ethics, or by shrewd marketing-based profit calculations?

Is there any way we could tell? Well, perhaps there is.

If a CEO of a company that was sponsoring the Imus show was just appalled and insulted by Imus's comment, then he could just simply drop the show and say nothing to the press about it, right? After all, that happens all the time. Companies end business relationships all the time without notifying the press corp.

That being the case then, it follows that if these companies wanted to try to use this incident as a way to either avoid losing marketshare by negative association with Imus ~ or ~ even MORE cleverly - use this as a way to make a free statement on national television that SUPPORTS the black community - 39 million customers - then, if that were the case, I guess we would see public statements made by the companies on their websites and in the news talking about how they will not condone this behavior and how this goes against their core beliefs, etc. etc. etc. because then they would be looking to leverage the situation to their advantage.

So go look for yourself. What do you see? which is it? What happened? Therefore what was the motivation?

It's all in the arithmetic. And it's pretty simple arithmetic.

Y'know, the more I think about it, the more I begin to think that there is a whole set of people out there, including some black activists who make their living looking for opportunities like this to stand up and preach their message and sell their soap. And they do seem pretty righteously indignant, so people buy it. And when they do, they lose sight of the real issue - because the issue has been spun so many times people forgot what it was in the first place anymore.