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Well, it's December 24th. Christmas is just hours away. And after watching television, listening to the radio, and reading my e-mails, I believe figured out the new meaning of Christmas: BUY! BUY! BUY! BUY!
Over the past year, I've become a bit more cynical about the world, and politics. I've come to believe that Deep Throat was right when he said, "Follow the money." After all, money seems to change everything. For example, we've had a Medicare bill pushed down our throats that does little more than put around $300 billion in profits in the pharmaceutical industry's pockets. I'm forced to wonder how many of those billions will go towards lobbying for immunity from liability when drugs cause heart problems, diabetes, impotence, death, and the many other side effects that some people have had to live with.
I've gotten to see Proposition 12 pass in Texas, which allows the Texas State Legislature to put caps on the amount of money an injured person can recover against any entity for any violation. Medical malpractice lawsuits are the first to feel the pain. This is because it's an easy sell: People like doctors, and people don't like lawyers. People especially don't like the thought of lawyers suing doctors so often that doctors are forced to leave the state. In actuality, of course, this isn't happening - but it sounds good. So, capping medical malpractice lawsuits is the beginning of the slippery slope to cap lawsuits against all of the major lobbying groups. My prediction is that bad faith lawsuits against insurance companies will be the next area to see legislative caps. This will probably be followed by capping lawsuits against the transportation industry; trucking companies, airlines, etc. Perhaps they'll trot out the disgusting example of one prominent Houston attorney who flew in his private jet to the scene of a plane crash and proceeded to try and sign up survivors and the families of those who were killed. Now, I believe people have a right to representation and all, but that lawyer did go over the line. But, the system works - he was disciplined by the state bar.
I've become more cynical about human nature not because I think the past few years have shown a decay in our moral fiber, but because the last few thousand years have. I'm a big fan of world history, and if there's one pattern I see repeating over and over again, it's this: A group comes into power. That group tries to enrich themselves and all of their friends, while simultaneously preventing a rival group from attaining any share of power, and any significant amount of wealth. Money, it seems, makes the world go around.
Casear was one of the first strategists to use a divide and conquer technique against his enemies. Modern day Republicans have picked up on this and have used it well. Notice how almost every rabid single-issue voter group is dominated by Republicans? The pro-life group is a good example: it seems patently obvious to me that many of the Republican candidates that prattle on about the evils of abortion don't really care about the cause, but care only about the votes that come with opposing it.
What amazes me is the sharp contrast between the organizational abilities of the Republicans compared with the Democrats. Republicans have aligned with, and gotten into the White House, a man who was probably not the most intellectually gifted Republican candidate. But, they got behind him and refrained from infighting that hurt the whole group. Democrats, on the other hand, fight with each other instead of taking on the Repuplicans. Take that as a Howard Dean reference if you want. For the record, I think John Edwards is a better candidate. And for the record, I think the sickness in American politics won't be healed until there's a viable third-party.
In closing, I'll leave you with a quote from Cicero. Cicero said, "Nihil tam munitum quod non expugnari pecunia possit."
That's Latin for, "No fortification is such that it cannot be subdued with money."
Sadly, this article doesn't surprise me. AOL is getting ready to ship jobs overseas, and media-darling Google is, too. Here's a disturbing excerpt:
Gartner predicted that one out of every 10 jobs at U.S. information technology companies will be shuttled abroad by the end of next year. IDC recently estimated that by 2007, 23 percent of all IT services jobs will be offshore, up from 5 percent this year. The figures refer to IT work done for U.S.-based companies.
Cost cutting is the most commonly cited reason for this practice. Hewlett-Packard has pegged the cost of a talented programmer in India at about $20,000 a year, well below the cost of a top U.S. tech worker. Companies also face facilities costs and the expense of managing offshore work, offsetting the impact on the bottom line. The total savings from hiring an IT service provider to perform foreign work may be as high as 40 percent to 50 percent, IDC analyst Ned May said.
Good to know that companies like AOL and HP will be laying off the workers that made them successful. I think Steve Case and Carly Fiorina should be replaced with CEO's in India who'll work for $20k a year.
I nearly had a heart attack when I checked my BofA account balance and saw they credited my account with the $150.00 in overdraft fees caused by FreeCreditReport.com's unauthorized charge to my account. I had a similar situation a few years ago, and my bank refused to credit my account with the unauthorized charge, and also refused to refund the overdraft charges.
Maybe it's because BofA got the Christmas spirit. Perhaps it's because I have a "Gold" account with them now. Whatever the case, all is well in my world with my bank. This is how it's supposed to be.
As an update to my "I hate banks" post, I checked online, and BofA has credited my account with the $79.95 that FreeCreditReport.com charged without authorization.
Last time I disputed anything about a debit charge, the bank basically told me there was nothing they could do, and didn't credit me. Maybe they've improved their customer service, or maybe I'm the umpteenth customer to complain about FreeCreditReport.com
So, I'm no longer seething with hatred for my bank. Yay.
So, I visit FreeCreditReport.com a few weeks back, and they aren't able to verify my identity, and I'm not given my credit report. I think that's the end of it. Instead, they hit my account for $79.95 for one year of their credit monitoring service. I, of course, didn't authorize this.
I ask Bank of America to "stop payment" on the debit. They say that they can only do so if its a recurring transaction for the same amount every month on the same date. I reply, explaining that it's a one-time charge I didn't authorize.
I then attempt to order something over the Internet, and my card is denied. It turns out BofA blocked my card and will be sending me a new one in ten business days.
I used to bank at SeaFirst bank in Seattle, before BofA bought them. I loved them. That was the last positive experience I've had with banks. BofA dings me every month for a $6.00 maintenance fee, puts holds on every check I deposit over $100.00, charged me $150.00 in overdraft fees because this unauthorized $79.95 transaction put me into the red, and then they cancel my damned check card. (sigh)
I was running on a Precor at the gym a day or so ago, and they had on a news program that I suspect - due to the content - was a "fair and balanced" Fox News program.
On the show, they were discussing why the flu vaccine isn't available more widely. One of the men said that they only reason the flu vaccine isn't being made in large enough quantities is because the drug manufacturers are afraid of being sued, and we therefore need to eliminate their liability from injuries caused by the flu vaccine. Sadly, the man wasn't even smart enough to suggest that we "immunize" the manufacturers from lawsuits.
Anyway, liability has nothing to do with why more flu vaccines aren't being made. The big reason more vaccine isn't available is that it's a long, arduous, cumbersome process to manufacture the flu vaccine, and the vaccine has a very limited shelf life. Check out this article at Slate for more info.
Let's just assume for a moment that the lobbyist was correct, and manufacturers fear being sued. So what? Why should any manufacturer of any product be immune from liability if their product hurts or kills people? I could see giving limited immunity to recipients of vaccines that are donated by the pharmaceuticals, but as long as they want to make a buck, they should have the same liability of any other business in America.
Slate published this article about how pharmaceuticals hire bioethicists to help push their products. I don't 100% oppose this, as long as there truly are "no strings attached" to the money. However, the article concludes with this quote:
So the next time you meet a bioethicist, pay close attention; he may look like a bioethicist, but when you peel back his mask, you just might see the adman smiling back.
Advertising is an enormously important part of the corporate machine. It's always interesting to see how it's used in nontraditional ways.
This morning in the shower, I was planning on writing something about how I don't think that big corporations are inherently evil. I was going to write about how big corporations also have the power to use their wealth and power to do good. Then, I saw perhaps the perfect example: A shoe company that gave out nearly $200,000.00 in bonuses to its 200 employees for Christmas. One employee got $19,000.00 for working 19 years. Read about it here.
When profits are the only consideration, everyone suffers. SAS Pittsfield is to be commended for setting an example of how well corporations can behave.
First of all, I'm not a vegetarian. I'm practically a carnivore; I eat lots of red meat and very few vegetables. That said, check out The Meatrix at PETA's web site.
I love the agricorp machine. It's relevant to almost any industry, actually. Think about the pigs in pens in terms of workers in cubicles. And think about the small farms in terms of "mom and pop shops."
I saw this article at Yahoo about IBM's plan to ship close to 5,000 "highly paid" computer programming jobs to India or China.
Here's the best part:
"Some workers are scheduled to be informed of the plan for their jobs by the end of January. After that they will be expected to train an overseas replacement worker in the U.S. for several weeks. The IBM workers marked for replacement have 60 days to find another job inside the company, likely to be a difficult task at a time when IBM is holding down hiring."
One of the major arguments of tort reformers is that big lawsuits injure big corporations, and those injuries cost Americans their jobs. Bullshit.
Corporations have one goal, and one goal only: To make money. If they can lay off their entire workforce and outsource it to India to save money, they'll do it. If they can cut corners on safety to fatten the bottom line, they'll do it. If they can get laws passed to prevent them from being held accountable for any of their actions, they'll not only do it, but then they'll go on to behave even more badly than they did before.
An even more telling part of the article is that IBM managers have concern that the jobs can't be done as well overseas. Translation: IBM doesn't care about getting the job done right, they care about getting it done cheap.
IBM will be taking $300+ million dollars out of the American economy and putting nearly 5,000 Americans out of work for no other reason than to save money. Not that they're hurting: IBM made around $30 billion in profit, and is sitting on roughly $6 billion in cash.
This is a message from John Kerry that sounds pretty good right about now:
"My friends we need a president who understands what's happening in our country. This president lives out a creed of greed for he and his friends. I'm tired of seeing chief executives permitted to take their millions or billions to Bermuda and leave the average American here at home stuck with the tax bill. You know what I call that? Unpatriotic.
.... And when I finish with that tax code, when we finish with that tax code there's not going to be one tax credit left for any company to encourage them to take jobs overseas and forget about the bill and the burden in America."
I've often mentioned that the guys at ConsumerWatchdog do some good work. They just e-mailed an article that was published in the San Diego Union Tribune. The complete article is here, but here are a couple of quotes that I think you may find interesting.
Between 2001 and 2003, for example, the nation's six largest HMOs increased their earnings and profitability while dramatically decreasing spending on medical care -- taking 20 cents of every premium dollar for their overhead and profit while traditional Medicare spends less
than two cents on overhead.
Hospitals get $26.6 billion, which is good news for HCA. This is the hospital chain run
by the family of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist. Frist holds stock in and will receive
his inheritance from HCA, which is also the subject of the most massive fraud
settlement in U.S. medical history.
The new law was greased by campaign contributions from the big medical industries. Pharmaceutical manufacturers contributed an average of $28,504 to the 204
Republicans who supported the bill, but just $8,112 each to the 25 Republicans who
opposed it. HMOs gave the few Democrats who supported the bill an average of
$11,654.
Every day, it becomes more and more obvious that any mega corporation with disposable income can buy Congress.
Recently, I've spent some time in my History class learning about the slave system in America, and I actually see a lot of parallels between it and modern-day America. I wasn't aware, for example, that relatively few southern farmers owned slaves. In fact, the majority of southern farmers were little more than subsistence farmers that were looked down upon by the plantation aristocracy. As it turns out, few families owned large numbers of slaves: Only 1,733 families owned 100 or more slaves. It was these families that benefitted most from the slave system.
However, those subsistence farmers - often called White Trash by the plantation aristocracy - were those that most fiercely defended the slave system; many died for it in the Civil War. Why would those poor farmers give their lives to defend a system that kept them poor and only served to further enrichen the wealthy? Perhaps for the same reasons that many poor Americans today support a system that protects the rich at the expense of the poor: Dreams.
Southern subsistence farmers dreamt of one day owning their own slaves, having their own plantation mansion, and of having the wealth that accompanies the former. Those dreams kept subsistence farmers working in the fields picking cotton or tobacco. Those dreams gave subsistence farmers hope of advancing beyond their meager status. And those dreams meant that subsistence farmers would fully support the slave system - the same slave system that helped to keep them poor. I see many parallels with the system today.
For example, I've heard minimum wage earners decry tax increases on the top 1% of salary earners. I've heard those at the poverty level argue passionately against luxury taxes on jewely. And I've listened to those who will inherit nothing more than a stack of bills protest the unfairness of the inheritance tax. Many of these working poor - I call them wage slaves - will never have to suffer a luxury tax on a $10,000 diamond ring. Fewer still will have to deal with estate taxes, and perhaps only 1 in 100,000 will ever be in the top 1% of wage earners.
Today's wage slaves aren't much different from southern subsistence farmers: Both aspired to become wealthy, both support a system that oppresses them, and few of either would ever reap the benefits of the systems they support.
The similarities between the generations don't stop there - let's look at the other end of the spectrum. Yesterday's plantation aristocrats have been replaced by today's corporate elite. Both were supported by what amounts to slave labor; the cost to feed, clothe, and house a slave 24-hours a day isn't that much less than paying minimum wage 8 hours a day.
Even more pertinent is the attitude of the corporate elite today: They're snobs. They look down upon "the great unwashed". Many of them feel that because they have money, they are better than those they employ. Is there any doubt, that Tyco CEO Dennis Kozlowski felt thought himself better than his employees? The video clip of his wife's multimillion-dollar birthday party showed a man who acted as though he was entitled to the funds he embezzled.
Dennis Kozlowski, to his credit, worked his way to the top. But what of those who were born into wealth? One could look at the video antics (not those antics) of heiress Paris Hilton on The Simple Life. She makes no attempt to hide the fact that she thinks she's superior to the average Americans who appear as props in her show.
The point is that the very wealthy today look down upon the average American in much the same way that plantation aristocrats looked down upon subsistence farmers of the day.
Thomas Hobbes said that, "[M]en have no pleasure (but on the contrary a great deal of grief) in keeping company where there is no power able to overawe them all."
In America, we have no royalty to overawe us. Instead, we look to anecdotes of the lifestyles of the richest people in America to overawe us. And sadly, the average American fights to protect a system that will protect the rich, at the expense of the average citizen. Hobbes might say that's the natural order of things, but I'm an optimist and will argue that if the average American wouldhis or her eyes, he or she would see the inequity in the system and would fight to reform the system to better everyone, and not just the rich.
Then again, the Civil War was started by the South to protect the inequities of their system, not to reform it.
Everyone has heard about the man who received $3 million for his three-day erection, right? This is just another example of frivolous lawsuits, right? Wrong.
The first sentence of the article is as follows: "A man who had to endure a three-day erection after penile surgery was awarded $3 million by a jury two years ago, but an appeals court ordered a Monmouth County judge to lower the award."
It's implied by the first sentence that the entire reason that the man got $3 million was because of a three-day erection. However, reading further in the article shows that his penis is disfigured, and that he cannot have sex.
Gentle slants by the media outlets help contribute to the public's perception that lawsuits - especially medical malpractice lawsuits - are out of control.
Many of you have no doubt seen this story at Yahoo about the lady who was trampled by shoppers at Wal-Mart who were trying to get a $29.00 DVD player.
I'm not going to make any arguments as to whether Wal-Mart has any liability for this trample, whether they could have forseen the trampling, or anything similar. However, I'm going to point out one part of the article:
"...Wal-Mart officials called later Friday to ask about her sister, and the store apologized and offered to put a DVD player on hold for her."
It's things like this that get big companies sued. Wal-Mart should have either given her the $29.00 DVD player and paid her medical bills, or simply stayed quiet. Offering to put the DVD player on hold is an insult, and the kind of insult that leads to litigation; many people sue not to get rich, but because arrogant corporate employees offended or insulted the person.
From time to time, I'll see an article pop up about jobs being exported overseas, or the importation of workers on work visas. When I see these articles, I'm usually left with the same thought: What happened to the social contract?
Thousands of Americans have fought and died to keep the democratic ideals of America alive and well, such as the private ownership of property, and the right to free speech. In America, you can be like George Soros and speak out against the government, and even try and use your money to unseat the powers that be. In stark contrast is Russia, where Russia's richest man, Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky has been put in jail and had his stocks seized for daring to challenge the Russian President. In America, no matter how successful a company, the executives need not fear that the government will try and seize control of the company.
Thanks to the democratic principles of America, this country is the richest nation in the world, and will continue to be for the forseeable future.
But the corporations that have been enriched by America aren't fulfilling their end of the social contract. Rather than sharing the wealth with Americans, they bring foreigners in.
I worked at Microsoft for a while, and saw a lot of computer programmers being imported from India on work visas. It was no secret why: Microsoft paid them, on average, 30% less than their American counterparts. It seems shameful to me that a company like Microsoft would turn its back on skilled American programmers and bring in foreigners for no other reason than to save money.
Of course, even more insidious than needlessly importing foreign workers is exporting jobs for no reason other than to save money. The U.S. Department of Labor and Statistics has estimated that over 450,000 Americans lost their jobs due to NAFTA alone.
What follows is an excerpt from callcenterinindia.blogspot.com:
One company, Gartner, said information technology companies will move one in 10 jobs offshore by the end of 2004. Forrester Research said 3.3 million tech and service jobs will leave the country by 2015.
U.S. banks, brokerage firms, insurance companies and mutual funds will send 500,000 jobs, or 8 percent of their workforce, offshore within the next five years, according to consulting firm A.T Kearney.
Between banks and tech companies, nearly 4 million jobs will be sent overseas. Why? This next excerpt from the same blog says it all:
"Yet Indian employees make $2,800 to $8,000 a year, compared with $30,000 to $45,000 for comparable American workers."
That means that just between banks and tech companies, $152 billion dollars in salaries will leave the country. How's that for corporate loyalty to the country?
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