A member of the European parliament rips British Prime Minister Gordon Brown apart for his crack-pot economic policies. Let's bring this guy to America and have him address Mr. Obama and his crack-pot economic policies in the same way!
View it here
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Auld lang syne
I left National Semiconductor 3 years ago to pursue personal interests and haven't kept up-to-date on my friends and former co-workers. Today I was browsing on the web and came across this really astounding news about the company:
National is laying off 1725 employees from its present employee population of 6500. That's around 26% of the entire workforce! I worked for the company when it had a world-wide workforce of more than 40,000 with 20 or more plants across the globe. Even when I left, the company had a workforce of 8000. In addition, the company is closing two plants--one in Texas and another in China. The China facility was built only in 2002-4 at a cost of $200 million; now it's history. Incredible waste!
But it gets better. The company reported 3rd quarter earnings that are 71% lower than 3rd quarter earnings just last year. And they project a further reduction in earnings of 5-10% in the 4th quarter (and actual reductions will be worse than that for sure). And it gets better still: Standard & Poor's just downgraded the company's credit rating to "Junk."
When I left, the company was rolling in money. What happened? My take: the fatal incompetence of the executives finally became obvious to the world. After years and years of throwing people out the door to artificially raise "productivity" and "profit" and throwing Americans out of jobs to be replaced by cheap H1-B imports from India, the executives who imagined that they were the brightest stars in the Silicon Valley firmament turned out to be dim bulbs who understand nothing.
Need proof? Last year, these executive savants borrowed about $1.5 billion to fund a crackpot stock buy-back scheme that blew up in their faces. Now the company has a colossal long-term debt that must be serviced in a depression that has just started! How's that for smarts, huh? They're bleeding money, so this month they did the only thing they ever really knew how to do--throw lots of people out of work.
Now a once-great company is reduced to this: a single semiconductor assembly/test plant in Malaysia and two broken down, nearly obsolete wafer production plants in Maine and Scotland. And of course the cushy company headquarters in Santa Clara, California. After all the layoffs are complete in three or four months, the company will have about 4200 people. And a mountain of debt. And shrinking income. And a troupe of dimwit executives who will surely wreck what is left of the company.
Some day soon somebody's going to buy this failing company for a song, chop it up, sell off the parts, and make a killing. And another once-great American company will vanish. And people still wonder why America is declining?
National is laying off 1725 employees from its present employee population of 6500. That's around 26% of the entire workforce! I worked for the company when it had a world-wide workforce of more than 40,000 with 20 or more plants across the globe. Even when I left, the company had a workforce of 8000. In addition, the company is closing two plants--one in Texas and another in China. The China facility was built only in 2002-4 at a cost of $200 million; now it's history. Incredible waste!
But it gets better. The company reported 3rd quarter earnings that are 71% lower than 3rd quarter earnings just last year. And they project a further reduction in earnings of 5-10% in the 4th quarter (and actual reductions will be worse than that for sure). And it gets better still: Standard & Poor's just downgraded the company's credit rating to "Junk."
When I left, the company was rolling in money. What happened? My take: the fatal incompetence of the executives finally became obvious to the world. After years and years of throwing people out the door to artificially raise "productivity" and "profit" and throwing Americans out of jobs to be replaced by cheap H1-B imports from India, the executives who imagined that they were the brightest stars in the Silicon Valley firmament turned out to be dim bulbs who understand nothing.
Need proof? Last year, these executive savants borrowed about $1.5 billion to fund a crackpot stock buy-back scheme that blew up in their faces. Now the company has a colossal long-term debt that must be serviced in a depression that has just started! How's that for smarts, huh? They're bleeding money, so this month they did the only thing they ever really knew how to do--throw lots of people out of work.
Now a once-great company is reduced to this: a single semiconductor assembly/test plant in Malaysia and two broken down, nearly obsolete wafer production plants in Maine and Scotland. And of course the cushy company headquarters in Santa Clara, California. After all the layoffs are complete in three or four months, the company will have about 4200 people. And a mountain of debt. And shrinking income. And a troupe of dimwit executives who will surely wreck what is left of the company.
Some day soon somebody's going to buy this failing company for a song, chop it up, sell off the parts, and make a killing. And another once-great American company will vanish. And people still wonder why America is declining?
Friday, March 20, 2009
I told you so
Who has been telling you that Mr. Obama's deficit projections are absurd and actual deficits will be much higher? Answer: moi! And now the rest of the world catches up: Mr. O's preposterous budgets cannot be financed in this world or any other. What are we going to do?
Read it here
Read it here
Friday, March 13, 2009
30 years too late
The Prime Minister of China has grown concerned about the $1 trillion of US government debt his government holds. He has doubts about the fiscal prudence of the US. I'd say that this guy has been living under a rock for the last 30 years and has yet to catch up with the rest of us.
Has this man not heard that America became the largest debtor nation in world history way back about 1986 and has been falling deeper into debt ever since without respite? Has this man not heard that America has a national debt of some $9.5 trillion with about 5 or 6 times that in accrued debt for Social Security and Medicare which must be paid to the vast number of Baby Boomers who are retiring right now? Has no one told this man that Mr. Obama expects the Chinese to pay for the bulk of his "stimulus" and spending plans and to finance the current year's deficit, which is now $2 trillion and counting? Has he not heard that Mr. Obama expects to finance similar deficits indefinitely into the future, with money borrowed principally from the Chinese and Japanese? The Chinese government's current holding of $1 trillion is small potatoes compared to the trillions Mr. Obama wants them to cough up beginning right now.
Would you lend money to some spendthrift who has not a penny to his name and who owes money to everybody in town? And if you would, would you reasonably expect to see it again, ever? Apparently, the prime minister of China would on both counts. He'd better think again. What's the Chinese word for "chump?"
Read it here
Has this man not heard that America became the largest debtor nation in world history way back about 1986 and has been falling deeper into debt ever since without respite? Has this man not heard that America has a national debt of some $9.5 trillion with about 5 or 6 times that in accrued debt for Social Security and Medicare which must be paid to the vast number of Baby Boomers who are retiring right now? Has no one told this man that Mr. Obama expects the Chinese to pay for the bulk of his "stimulus" and spending plans and to finance the current year's deficit, which is now $2 trillion and counting? Has he not heard that Mr. Obama expects to finance similar deficits indefinitely into the future, with money borrowed principally from the Chinese and Japanese? The Chinese government's current holding of $1 trillion is small potatoes compared to the trillions Mr. Obama wants them to cough up beginning right now.
Would you lend money to some spendthrift who has not a penny to his name and who owes money to everybody in town? And if you would, would you reasonably expect to see it again, ever? Apparently, the prime minister of China would on both counts. He'd better think again. What's the Chinese word for "chump?"
Read it here
Monday, March 9, 2009
Lunatics running the asylum
A 75-year-old woman who asked her nephew and his business partner to bring her five loaves of bread is sentenced by a Saudi Arabian court for illegal "mingling." She will be lashed, imprisoned, and then deported. Her nephew and his friend will be lashed and imprisoned. Human kindness and simple human decency are both illegal in Saudi Arabia.
Read it here
Read it here
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Sound words too late to do any good
Economics journalist James Quinn tells painful truths about America's depression. What a pity we didn't hear this sort of thing before the Bush $700 billion bailout, before we elected Barack "spread-the-wealth-around" Obama, before the $800 billion "stimulus", and before the Federal Reserve pledged the American taxpayer to cough-up trillions of dollars to fund one failed company after another.
Given the grim realities, James Quinn's good advice is like telling drivers to slow down and watch out after the pile-up on the freeway.
Read it here
Given the grim realities, James Quinn's good advice is like telling drivers to slow down and watch out after the pile-up on the freeway.
Read it here
Abide with me
You find the oddest things on Youtube. Here's Dame Shirlely Bassey (she's the singer belting out the theme from "Goldfinger" and several other 007 movies) singing Henry Francis Lyte's powerful "Abide with me" (written in 1847 three weeks before his death from tuberculosis) with William Monk's hymn tune. She sings above a strange, almost march-like drumming. I thought it was weird when I first heard it, but bizarrely it grows on you.
FYI: "Abide with me" is sung before championship rugby games in Britain. How did that happen?
Listen here
FYI: "Abide with me" is sung before championship rugby games in Britain. How did that happen?
Listen here
Friday, March 6, 2009
Soon the deluge
Today the government announced job data for February: the "official" unemployment rate is 8.1%. We've been through this rigmarole before: that's the index called "U3", but the government's broadest measure of unemployment/underemployment (called "U6") is 14.8% (or 16% if you use the number "unadjusted" by season).
Of course, John Williams of ShadowStats will have none of our government's lying. He corrects these figures for phony adjustments, adds back in the millions of very long-term unemployed about whom our government doesn't even care any more, and arrives at an appalling 19.1% unemployment/underemployment rate for our country. That's more than 1 out of 6 Americans out of work, and layoffs are now averaging 20,000 per day with no sign of tapering off.
The desperate situation and the futile, stupid attempts by the federal government to deal with the crisis are finally dawning even on liberals as evidenced in the article by David Lindorff of CounterPunch below. Unfortunately reality has yet to dawn on Mr. Obama, who said today that he is sure that he did the right thing with his colossal "stimulus" bill, with more "stimulus" to come. Reality judges otherwise; hence the growing despair of liberals. Too bad that the liberal savants didn't get their act together before the election.
Read it here
Of course, John Williams of ShadowStats will have none of our government's lying. He corrects these figures for phony adjustments, adds back in the millions of very long-term unemployed about whom our government doesn't even care any more, and arrives at an appalling 19.1% unemployment/underemployment rate for our country. That's more than 1 out of 6 Americans out of work, and layoffs are now averaging 20,000 per day with no sign of tapering off.
The desperate situation and the futile, stupid attempts by the federal government to deal with the crisis are finally dawning even on liberals as evidenced in the article by David Lindorff of CounterPunch below. Unfortunately reality has yet to dawn on Mr. Obama, who said today that he is sure that he did the right thing with his colossal "stimulus" bill, with more "stimulus" to come. Reality judges otherwise; hence the growing despair of liberals. Too bad that the liberal savants didn't get their act together before the election.
Read it here
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Crash and burn
Today the New York Stock Exchange closed at 6594. On October 9, 2007 the NYSE closed at an all-time high of 14164. Since then, it has lost 7570--more than half! Today, Citibank--once a financial giant, now a bloated corpse--sold for less than a dollar. General Motors sells for $1.86, and its auditors are publicly questioning that company's viability as a going concern. Citadel Communications, the radio giant that owns ABC radio, is selling for a penny--yes, that's right, a penny!
And Mr. Obama still thinks that "recovery" will occur in 2010? Maybe the reason that Mr. Obama is spending money like there is no tomorrow is that there really won't be a tomorrow--certainly not for some of America's once great companies.
And Mr. Obama still thinks that "recovery" will occur in 2010? Maybe the reason that Mr. Obama is spending money like there is no tomorrow is that there really won't be a tomorrow--certainly not for some of America's once great companies.