Boeing Billions SC Millions WA Zero

 

If you have money without morals, you have only money. - PW (Peanut Whistle) de Santos

Economics is dry, politics is dirty, and morality is ugly. - Bonner Hoff-Kelsey

 

Economics

There is no communication of warmth, enthusiasm, or tenderness. It contains no gasoline. One cannot be on fire.

Boeing's managers took "lines" from Washington's Puget Sound area to South Carolina. Boeing had found unemployment taxes and worker compensation too high in Washington. Potentially, Boeing's managers may have felt paying a similar unemployment and compensation for 157,100 employees to be ruinous. Boeing is the second largest defense contractor after Lockheed Martin. For Boeing, the making of military aircraft accounts for 21% of its sales. In the Puget Sound area the manufacturing lines are devoted to commercial jets.

The commercial jet manufacture was stopped not long ago by a lengthy strike that cost Boeing $1.5 billion in profits. It is reported that getting back that amount of money will take years. Aviation centers are difficult to create, but easy to destroy. With many strikes, and little hope of improved relations with the union that was involved in the lengthy strike, Boeing's managers decided to take certain lines from Washington. It is presumed they considered an aviation center had been destroyed.

All the managers of Boeing had wanted, so it was reported, were no strikes. No wages or benefits were to be cut. They wanted no strikes for 10 years. Long talks ensued. Some experts have said the Boeing's managers then used such talks to gain leverage on South Carolina to exact the best deal.

The talks mentioned in the previous paragraph were with THE union in these matters. That union is always referred to as "the machinists" union. By the dictionary, machinists fabricate, assemble, or repair machinery. If one "machines" then one reduces or finishes by turning, planing or milling and filing. That is one definition. As for what the managers of Boeing do, they manage.

This union formally is known as the International Association of Machinists or IAM. There are 18,000 machinists in this union in the Puget Sound area, Portland, and Kansas. The members of the union employed by Boeing are on average 47 years old and Boeing pays them $60,000 per year.

The wages are as they are since the union has stated that they stood up to Boeing and had a multi-national (company) to do the right thing. The "right thing" encompassed defeating all takeaways. The Kansas union members were not to be treated any differently. Not allowed was a denial of retiree medical benefits for new hires and operators would not be allowed to run more than one machine at a time. Also, suppliers and vendors would not be allowed to install parts. Outside vendors could deliver parts to some areas of the factory but not to the line.

More of the right thing entailed a 15% pay raise over 4 years (5%, 3%, 3%, and 4%) with minimum hourly wage to be increased by $2.28. A ratification of the agreement bonus of $2,500 was paid. Meanwhile the union stated that it had delivered on what few Americans have, economic certainty and quality benefits. After all, the union noted, Boeing is profitable because of the workers and so the workers wanted a bigger share of the profits.

Even so, the union asserted, that on behalf of its membership, it offered to Boeing the assurance of no strikes for 10 years. The unionists reported that Boeing's representatives seemed stunned by the offer. This offer amounted to an immense concession. Boeing took the lines to South Carolina.

 

Politics

There is defilement. It can get hot. The fiery vulgarity is objectionable but usually necessary.

Some people remaining in Washington and given to politics did propose a special session of the state legislature solely for the purpose to offer further inducements to Boeing to keep the lines in Washington. These inducements or incentives have a long history in Washington.

Governor Gregoire of Washington put forward no new inducements or incentives. She found Boeing's managers should have been satisified with the quality of life in Washington. There were plenty of smart people in Washington that can build planes on the lines. She additionally noted that Boeing is already in Washington. While already there about 6 years ago, Boeing and its managers were offered $ 3 billion in inducements and incentives. Tax cuts for Boeing have remained in place for many years.

Perhaps the Boeing managers did not find Washington progressive enough. Apparently they did not mean the regressive taxes Washington has imposed on itself. It is progressive to fail to enact tax measures that would have altered the newly gone Recession by becoming more regressive? The poor people of Washington pay 17.5% of their income in taxes while the rich of Washington pay 3.3% of their income in taxes. In 2003, a weighty report concluded affirming the already well known regressiveness of the Washington tax code. Nothing has changed except tax exemptions for special interests. Washington's tax system remains the most regressive tax setup anywhere in the United States.

Elsewhere in the United States is the winner of the Boeing lines. The state of South Carolina offered inducements and incentives in a fresh environment where $14 per hour would be the going rate as opposed to the Puget Sound's $28 plus benefits. Kmart and Walmart and fast food managers in South Carolina may be expected to lose employees big time. Though it is known that others question if the terrible high school graduation rate in South Carolina will adversely affect the labor pool of qualified applicants.

Those on the lines in South Carolina, at Charleston, are being driven hard to get that $14 and Boeing must bring in contractors at $26 per hour to keep up the pace. South Carolina has America's fifth highest rate of unemployment. The workforce is nonunion. South Carolina is a "right-to-work" state and also a "at will" state. Its Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation says employees can be fired "for any reason, a good reason, a bad reason, or no reason".

For whatever reason, State funding for training at technical colleges is in place. This funding was provided by the same politicos who distributed favors as needed such as in the case of sales tax exemptions. Certain bills in the state legislature were passed by voice vote.

For Charleston, they already have a site where two factories are side by side and put out more than half of the fuselage for a 787. These plants are adjacent to Charleston International Airport where the largest planes built can land. To and from the airport is via a useful highway network. If that isn't enough, Charleston has a deep water port.

 

Neither Politics Nor Economics

Well, after all, what is ugly isn't beautiful. As the saying goes, that goes without saying. Secular prelapsarians, before enormous corporations and large unions and colossal state governments, had abundant aphoristic expressions in their grasp. Then the very pretty scale of involvement got warped by increase into the ugly and the equivalent of the morally offensive.

In the past, for individuals, a bribe as an interaction to influence conduct or judgment was ugly. In another past, it was a morsel given to a beggar. Boeing is hardly a beggar, nor does the International Machinists Union deal in morsels. But both bribed the other and the state governments had given or were giving bribes. Calling the bribes "inducements" or "incentives" does not alter what transpired.

Why should Boeing a big, bad corporation need bribes? Why should they take them? Are there American corporations now in existence that would refuse such bribes? It is now the way business is done? In Brazil, bribery, to get business done, is reputed to be widespread. Perhaps it is a matter of scale. That is, if your corporation becomes a certain size, then bribes are in order.The size of the corporation seems to have nothing to do with what transpires in Brazil. They use bribes, it is said, without much aforethought. Small time hoods and punks give and take bribes.

Such giving and taking is also prevalent in the United States. So why should one expect such activity once scaled upward, to not be the "right thing to do"? Two state governments, Washington and South Carolina, offered bribes. Boeing attempted to bribe the Union and the Union attempted to bribe Boeing. So there are better bribes and worse bribes? If everyone does it why show concern about the outcome? Is the irritation the Union showed justified?

Were they attempting to uphold a variant of "honor among thieves"? They got "a multi-national" to do the right thing. No takeaways. No acceptance of insults. Make Boeing pay them for the strike. Since the Union is responsible for the success of Boeing, then Boeing must make appropriate payment to the Union.

Strikes are lawful. It is illegal for employers to retaliate against employees for engaging in lawful activities. The union, some have said, found Boeing's desire to avoid strikes by taking the lines to South Carolina as unlawful intimidation and so the National Labor Relations Board could order Boeing back to Puget Sound. This NLRB action would be a protest against "union-busting". The Union could decide to start a punctilious work-by-the-rules regime. But don't they have work rules already? Such a Union would be a priggish one.

Do the Union members give a damn? The citizens of two state democracies have never opposed bribery by their governments. Do they give a damn? The last leg of the business of bribery triangle, Boeing, has had comparatively little reported about its role. After all, it only needed to accept the bribes. It did.

All of this so airplanes can be constructed to take people from here to there. Meanwhile Boeing vs. the Union and WA vs. SC were like large rabbits in small pens. They began to castrate each other. By then, too late, what is last least effective is sententious commentary. Though all the parties involved haven't got it, they used it. Lacking in authenticity, they wanted it. No reporting of the triangle ever mentioned it. There is only an historical pertinence for it. The "it" is "morality".

Obit in A Van Window

I was driving by a cemetery and thought why bother? I must advise them to make me into ashes.

I stopped at a red light. It was at a corner of the cemetery. On the rear window of a local family van was written the name of a boy. They had also written his birth day and the day of his death. They wrote about how they missed him. They ended the note by telling us of their love for him.

I would doubt the boy was now ashes. I could make a case for remembrance not dependent on a gravestone if he was now ashes and this message was in lieu of that gravestone. The message could be a carrying on of their vivid memory of him. So that really the note was about them. Perhaps it was denial. As if he could drive up behind the van and read about himself. It was as little likely that he could read this own obituary. Was this their obit for him? Could it be there was no desire to publish in the newspaper?

Most likely they had more to say but the size of the van window, and the need to make the lettering large enough to be read, left not much room for more words. Was it an advertisement? It was informing me so that I would ask a question? Talking about him to strangers could make the pain they felt lessen somewhat?

Other messages I have seen, as bumper stickers, were about how proud the parents were that their child had made the honor roll. It is a wonder many more stickers are not affixed to bumpers proclaiming the other achievements of children, a wife, a husband, or a friend, and so on. These stickers could have gotten large and obnoxious - boastful, we once called it. In bad taste, some once said. So with our age of thousands of irrepressible jerks sending messages to us, I repeat, why haven’t bumper stickers of such a faulty nature not become commonplace? May be there are laws.

Then for rear windows of vans the laws may not apply. I read it. So what am I to do about it? Do I acknowledge it with no action taken? A stroll through a graveyard would bring as meaningful an acknowledgement? My reaction slipped into resentment. Why? Must I know of his death? Haven’t I enough beside-the-point knowledge already? Why not list the grave site? I could visit, pay my respects. I am sad he is gone. He was one of us. Every one of us has an end. It is a question of timing. We don’t die all at once, together. A great many of us can die at one time but then something is wrong. I am not implying that the death of the boy was appropriate and satisfactory.

Lacking in satisfaction, Ralph Waldo Emerson dug up his dead boy. Lacking in appropriateness, they name buildings in honor of those still living. Couldn’t I write a short series of phrases about myself for my car’s rear window? It wouldn’t yet be about my death. It could be a pithy weekly report. Would anyone read it? Must they be a captive audience at a stop light? Would they paint out my messages if they could? If enough people did as I did, spray paint cans in the front seat of most cars would become de rigueur.

Of course, my death will not be news to me. The digging, naming, and spraying are only as effective as the living, us, can make them. The shovel, the plaque, and the paint will break, fall, and erode.

WVA 500, WA 0

 

1:48 PM 8/18/2009

The Governor of West Virginia recently proposed a five hundred dollar bonus for all full-time state workers. This proposal is at odds with the prevailing recession wisdom that state employees of whatever state are to be laid off, or receive no salary raises of any kind for at least two years, and lose ground in state-supported health insurance programs, and be subject to furlough without pay of days to weeks in length, and, in general, show devout appreciation for having a job.

This appreciation must come about even if the jobs do not provide for a car, food stamps are desired, across a river one can do better on welfare, and plush vacation time and retirement time are not as suspected. Good salaries are also alleged. The hourly rate can be $8.60. Others receive $9 to $11 per hour. West Virginia’s officials recalibrated many state salaries since the salaries had fallen close to or underneath minimum wage.

West Virginian state workers, then, are lucky to be doing so well. They number 56,000 in a state population of 1,802,000. The state workers are reputed to be too many in number. The state workers support the least foreign born citizenry in the USA. The entire state's citizenry has low per capita income. It is so low that only Mississippi and Arkansas are less on this score. The West Virginia income earners live in no town greater than 50,000 in population. West Virginia has mountains and coal.

Mountains there are, also, in the State of Washington. Not many of Washington's state employees are in the mountains. There are 66,000 state employees. They support a population of 6,500,000. Sixty percent of the population is to be found in or near Seattle. The state population has 10% foreign born. The population has a per capita income of $41,000. Seattle and environs are home to Boeing, Microsoft, Amazon, Nordstrom’s, Starbucks, the University of Washington, Costco, and various firms of high technology, biotechnology, and biochemistry. Seattle proper has around 500,000 people. Neither the populace not the business pays taxes as do most in the elsewhere of the USA. There is no personal income tax. There is no corporate tax. There are property taxes and sales taxes. As a whole, Washington has the worst tax structure in the USA. That is to say, it is not "progressive".

Such regression has led to no use of a state surplus in Washington. Prior to the recession, Washington legislators spoke of having too many state employees. It was felt by some legislators and candidates that privatization of the state government's functions was the way to go. Regardless of prior notions, after the recession came about, they decided to get in step with the prevailing recessionary wisdom in regard to state employees.

Apart from the prevalence, they sought to cut off health care assistance to the poor. As a substitute, they decided more roads and upkeep of current roads was the way to go. Be it noted, lesser numbers of state citizens could or would need use of the roads. They would be unemployed. State workers, too, could be found closer to home in the unemployment lines. Washington doesn't tax supermarket food. Nevertheless, a woman of nobility once made the remark that cake was good enough for hunger pangs. This enunciation transposed to Washington's highway budget items would translate into "let them eat concrete".

So it goes in politics. In West Virginia the Governor looked like Santa Claus at first. Then other state officials thought retirees and teachers ought to get a bonus too. Then the Governor assumed a fiscal responsibility posture or pose and said whoa to such budget busting generosity. Then he said the bonus for state workers could be resurrected sometime in the future. He had already said no pay increases for state workers for the next two years. He is a Democrat. The legislators are mostly of the Democratic Party.

She is a Democratic governor in Washington. Most of the legislators are of the Democratic Party. With the recession looming, she supported salary increases for state employee unions. Then, of course, that had to be rescinded. No resurrection of this cost cutting measure has been witnessed. She had campaigned against a privatization candidate to the tune of she wouldn't be as bad as he. State employees supported her candidacy.

In Washington the recession is an excuse to confirm the sense of the injustice of being forced to have a state payroll for state employees. Perhaps money spent on concrete is quite all right. But to pay people via taxes to do whatever it is that they do is too much to stomach. It goes against the regressive grain of the Washington citizens who endorse backsliding, deterioration, lapses, retreat, and defeat.

If a diet of concrete harms them, let them work at McDonald's or they can enter the prison system however they want to do so. Why should anyone even get a bonus? The bankers among us can address this question. If the highway construction worker, relatively few in number, spend time on guard rails studying Nature's delights, well whose to say the furtherance of a presumed sense of ecological awareness can be criticized?

The hostility, derision, insolence, revulsion, intolerance, discrimination, and all around revulsion expressed to, for, and of state workers or employees should be given its due. The state workers or employees should then take leave of state employment by means of their own volition. Let them put in the privates. Replace those that were supposedly only doing with those than must help. Substitute a class of community given by business concerns. They are experts in giving suffering as a byproduct of who they are. Buy low, sell high, always. Make it yield a return. Is there enough bottom to the apoplectic line?

This line is a slim one for the separation of people. From one person to another across lines was a way of getting it done. With privates its how to jump the chasm. People will be people. They are bold, silly, and they suffer. Here and there, forlorn and sad. Yet, aren't they human beings?

dunk6@msn.com

System Restore as a HP Warranty Compliance Feature

Hewlett Packard Pulls a Fast One

I called bigshot HP support about a wee CD-DVD writer that no longer functioned. It was still under warranty. I had used it very little, doing about 12 DVD burns and 3 CD burns.
The warranty does state that you “may” be “directed” by HP to verify, load, install and run tests or “use HP remote support solutions where applicable”. Now, wherein does this “direction” by HP entail a system restore? That is, you must put the computer back to what it was before you purchased it. So that would mean I would lose all of 10 months worth of loads, saves, and installs. Like I never purchased the damn computer, and don’t I wish.

I refused four times to do a system restore. I spoke with four little-support people. Three were of Hindu extraction. The fourth one, after three hours of previous phone involvement, was an American female, the modern day American man, who no doubt had caller ID awaiting my call and she, the hatchet, was to pick up.

Oh, yes, nothing can or will be done for you unless, as I see by a cursory glance at the call history (with note to cut my throat), you must comply and do a system restore. I hope I did not bleat out that I write and edit and that I use the computer for such and three hours of drawing repeated lines in the sand to establish that it was “not a software problem” but really a defective product was enough already. And that I had deadlines now and tomorrow. And how could I save my work with the writer in kaput mode? Oh, yes, you corporate flunkies, the word crap applies to the product and to you. I was respectful enough in informing them that I would no longer purchase HP products. I have an HP laptop (that suffered drive failure, out of warranty) and I had a previous HP desktop.

So now I have an external writer hooked up to the HP. Once sufficient cash becomes available, the HP is junk.

Julia before chowtime 

Happy Julia at chowtime 

Cubs 2004

Cubs 2004

Not many remember April to June, when they were doing OK. Then they were 5 games back after the All-Star break and lost 5 more. That took care of the Division. The wild card actually evaporated when Cincy took 3 of 4 close to the end.

Fans of the Cubs were amazed at the ending(s). I am not a Cub fan, rather I follow the Cubs – and sometimes at a safe distance. I disown them periodically within the season if they stink. I refuse to see or hear a game or two until I relent and see what Chip, Steve, Pat, and Ron are saying and seeing.

No doubt about it, great expectations put the Cubs into a lull and they could not hit out of it. Add to it that they never had a cohesive unit as main men continued to become injured. Meanwhile Dusty says it’s not my fault. Steve Stone thought otherwise in some instances. So do I. As for others than Dusty :

Wood, Zambrano, and one catcher need to get into anger management courses big time. I’ve been there. They will learn that you have no excuses, period.

Steve Stone should quit if they won’t let him do the games as he has, though being less acerbic at times would make me think he isn’t kin to Pete Rose.

Lee needs more time off during a season.

Clement should see a shrink. Third base needs to avoid a fat head. Center field needs winter ball or someone holding the bat as he swings, to demo. And center field needs some bright tape on a wire frame outlining the strike zone, for practice.

Alou, bye-bye, unless you want to give up some cash – put it into a trust fund and if no playoffs in 05 then they distribute it to charity.

Nomar, bye-bye, unless you want to be a Cub.

Sosa, drop the limo life and stay home with the kids. Explain to them how you say you stayed until the 7th inning of the final game while cameras have you exiting much earlier. You also need to put some of your remaining fat salary in trust until the end of 05.

In general,
1. You all perfected one swing and you all are now excluded from the postseason. Choke up on the bat (last guy I saw do that was Larry Bowa, he got a hit) or shorten the stroke. Level the swing. Put it into play. You guys got home runs, long outs, or you woke up the Wrigley gophers.
2. Watch where you step in the off-season. Enough already with not being in shape or forgetting baseball starting in October and then injuries, injuries, injuries. Or get new trainers.
3. You may not get to the playoffs in 2005.
4. Three million at the gate. Not all were real fans (or even followers) as the boos and the attendance at the last game did show.
5. If a guy goes to the minors to retool, he stays there until he shows he deserves to come back. Prior threw home runs at Iowa. Sammy went to AA in Tennessee, of all places, and showed he didn’t have it.

Lastly, to be so often injured, to lie, to be afraid of the truth in criticism, to succumb to temper tantrums, to hear the boos, to accept an obscene amount of cash to play ball but then not play ball, to continue to do what didn’t work, and to fail to accept responsibility - all these are actions of stupid people. More than anything for next year, Cubs, get wise.
dunk6@msn.com