What A Crock of Bull!

Don’t look now but U.S. corporations are right up there with our politicians in having their societal priorities misplaced somewhere between the moon and their own.   Millions of Americans are out of work, yet there are huge corporations stock-piling millions of dollars for a rainy day.  What are they doing with the dough?

One would like to think that much of that money isn’t sitting in a vault buried deep in the mountains of Utah; that maybe---just maybe---highly profitable companies are investing in research and development, and, in their Human Resource departments to ramp up recruitment and hiring. 

It’s one thing to lose a job when a company is on the ropes financially; it’s another thing entirely when your Service Anniversary key fob is snatched from you (Indian givers!), and replaced with a laminated pink slip.

But worse still when the company is grotesquely profitable and horror of horrors…has millions of dollars to invest in corporate sponsorships.

The equation looks like this:

Profits = Corporate Sponsorships-Jobs = More Profits = Humongous Bonus!

In a previous post about my job loss I shared that not only was my soon-to-be-former employer grossly profitable with pockets of cash deeper than the mines of Moria; but they also tossed $1.2 billion into Europe to take over a similar company there to---as they giggle wildly in the press release---“expand our worldwide footprint”.

Would that be the shoe-print you left on my back as you bowled me over and prepared to toss me out the door?  But I digress!

As if that weren’t insult enough, a little detective work unearthed this little gem: company-that- shall-not-be named sponsors a NASCAR Sprint Cup racing team, to the tune of over $30 million per year. 

No, your eyes do not deceive!

Thirty million dollars for a modified stock car to drive around racetracks all over the country and keep the brand name front and center and front-of-mind with a bunch of drunken and sunburned speed freaks. 

Keep in mind this figure does NOT include monies spent buying billboards or advertising or even the signs on a section of outfield wall at baseball and football games across the rest of the nation!

We're talking mucho dinero!

But perhaps the most jaw-dropping sponsorship of the company that shall not be named was revealed today; by said company, in an email to soon-to-be-departed employees…proudly touting the fact that not only does the company sponsor Professional Bull Riding events (think jousting without the lances and shields, and with big ass calluses); but also sponsors a BULL RIDER!

For those in need of descriptors, think NASCAR without the wheels but with hair and lots of cow chips.

Now, the fee to sponsor bull-riding events and I guess brand the creature with your company logo not withstanding, if we merely figure out how many jobs at $35,000 per year that $30 million NASCAR investment would net were it used properly we get upwards of 85,000 jobs.

For real giggles, consider this is ONE company and ONE sponsorship. 

If every company that spent billions on corporate sponsorships simply halved their participation and used the found money to create jobs, unemployment would most certainly come down and the economy show renewed signs of life.

It’s alright to lift your jaw up off the floor; if you do it quickly I don’ t think anyone will notice that you might just be as taken aback and appalled by this load of bullshit as I was.

Wither The 'American Spring'?

Could the recent protests outside the New York Stock Exchange on Wall Street be signs of a fledgling American Spring?

They say imitation is the greatest form of flattery. 

Surely then, perhaps Americans affected by a moribund economy and political brain freeze in Washington are taking a cue from the Arab Spring wending its’ way from Egypt to Libya and Syria to Yemen in the Middle East.

Frustrated, ignored and impoverished voices fed up, joining together, and demanding their governments and their social structure change.

Indeed, the world has cast a wary yet interested eye on the rebellions in Egypt and Libya that have fueled the demise of oppressive regimes that had previously been thought ironclad. 

Remarkably, the Arab Spring has given voice to the oppressed and disenfranchised thanks to the ability to organize the masses that social networking online provides.

Sites like Twitter and Facebook have provided the linkage necessary to reach other like-minded people with a populist rebellion message; and most importantly, to give them a tool to mobilize in the thousands to demand and force change.

Where Internet usage gets cut, then YouTube has been used as a method of choice with which to transfer video snippets from a Smartphone caught in the cross-fire to a video screen the rest of the world can see.

Clearly America’s sacred freedom is conspicuous by our absence.

Over 15 million unemployed and counting; billions given to banks to bail them out but not the little people on Main Street, U.S.A. and we can’t organize on Twitter and Facebook and exercise our right to freedom of expression and let our collective voices of discontent be heard?

Where is our American Spring?

How is it possible that Middle Eastern societies with fewer democratic freedoms and rights than the U.S. can rise up against despots like Mubarek and Ghaddafi and Assad; yet America remains mired in not one but three wars without end?

Was it so long ago that a little war in southeast Asia called Vietnam gutted the nation’s hearts and minds in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s when we didn’t have electronic distractions like video games and all manner of smart-this-or-that?

As the song goes, ‘from little things big things one day come’.

Perhaps the persistence of the small group of protestors in New York is just the beginning of an American Spring.  The kind of awakening that gets the unemployed and uninsured and the politically disgusted and disenfranchised mad as hell and not going to take it anymore into the streets for an American Spring,,,,before inaction leads us to a cold dark winter of discontent.

"I Heard The News Today, Oh Boy..."

This past January I started a new job---two years to the day of having been laid-off another one---with a company that can only be considered a titan in it's industry.  For obvious reasons, said company shall here remain nameless.  Let’s just say that it runs with the Big Dogs like Microsoft and Apple do in their respective industries.

As the American economy refused to awaken this year, I considered myself fortunate to be employed.  This job was something I had never done before. It paid 30% less than what I was ‘used’ to making in my career, before American politicians decided to systematically do away with the Middle Class…but more on that subject down the road in this blog.

This job involved the type of heavy lifting of boxes and building of displays at retail that make one think of the slaves toiling away at the base of the pyramids in Egypt. 

For the first months, I detested it and bit my lower lip over my tongue to suppress the words “I quit”, or “I don’t think this job is for me” on a daily basis.  Then, a strange thing happened:  I actually started liking it, and became damn good at it.

This past week my highly profitable employer held a regional conference call.  Ordinarily, these are not such a bad thing, but this conference call wasn’t to tell us “Ooooh Rah” keep up the great work and let’s vanquish the competition. 

Rather, it was to tell us the continuing tall tale being told by much of Corporate America:  that despite grotesque profits in an uncertain business environment in which “our go-to-market-strategy has been negatively affected by worldwide economic uncertainty”…our jobs will end in 60 days.

Poof.  Bam.  Kablooey---as they used to say in the Marvel comic books---just like that, and just in time for Christmas according to their timing.  Bah Humbug, over 300 of us tossed upon the dung mountain of joblessness in America without so much as a “Thanks” and a pat on the back on our way out the door.

They say the longer one lives the more you are likely to see; well, did I mention that this was a grotesquely large and profitable company?

·         The conglomerate is a staple on the Fortune 500 list, and has been a legacy company since 1843.

·         It has over 30,000 employees world -wide.

·         In its’ second quarter earnings report from July of this year, the company reported earnings of $2.6 billion, up 11% over the prior year…in a down and out global economy.

·         It recently completed the acquisition of a European beheamoth that will save the company $80 million within the first 6 months after closing on the purchase.

Once upon a time in America, getting a job with a Fortune 500 company meant that even those without ambition could still work hard, keep their heads down, and toil towards reqtirement without fear of being separated from the company.

Today in America, working for a Fortune 500 company has meant being treated like chattel; worked to the bone for longer hours and less pay without the hope of even thinking of having a career.   Weirder still, it has meant being hired and trained, given a 3% raise at the 6 month mark; and being fired.

All in the same year.

Just like me.

Welcome to America, the Hypocrite Nation.