A Recession is a Good Thing for the Economy

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10859771/Elon-Musk-…
It will clean out the ‘foolish’ business owners he (Elon Musk) believes deserve to go bankrupt.
"It has been raining money on fools for too long. Some bankruptcies need to happen.

'Also, all the Covid stay-at-home stuff has tricked people into thinking that you don’t actually need to work hard. Rude awakening inbound!"

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Yes, recession teaches lessons. But painfully as businesses fail and innocent workers lose their jobs. And the effects can extend far beyond the guilty.

Hence we hope the pros can arrange a soft landing. That means reining in inflation without all the pain of a recession.

Picking on Elon Musk is misguided. He is a visionary and has been remarkably successful in bringing his dreams to fruitition.

We need more like Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, and Elon Musk. They are visionaries who know how to get the best work out of technologists.

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They are visionaries who know how to get the best work out of technologists.

And the most work out of their employees at the least cost. If only the government & unions would keep their noses out corporate affairs; businesses would run much more smoothly.

https://money.cnn.com/2014/08/11/technology/silicon-valley-p…
Steve Jobs was ‘central figure’ in Silicon Valley’s ‘no poaching’ case
Apple, Google, Adobe and Intel agreed in April to pay $325 million to settle a class-action lawsuit that claims the companies engaged in an extensive conspiracy to not poach the others’ workers. But a federal judge threw out that settlement last week.
Judge Lucy Koh’s reasoning: The case is a good one and the workers are likely owed more.
The plaintiffs claim the companies rigged the hiring processes for engineers and some other skilled workers so that they could not receive better offers from other top Silicon Valley firms.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10859771/Elon-Musk-…
Cortez, 32, announced plans to ditch her Tesla, weeks after Musk told her to stop flirting with him on Twitter.

The Green New Deal-backing politician told Bloomberg in an interview Wednesday that she wants to switch to an electronic car that is made domestically by unionized workers.

On Thursday, Musk criticized Democrats like AOC for being ‘controlled’ by the unions and said: ‘It’s like watching a sock puppet “talk,” but the hand inside the sock is way too obvious!’

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/05/03/business/inflation-j…
Starbucks plans wage increase that won’t apply to unionized workers

https://jacobinmag.com/2022/04/starbucks-union-drive-nlrb-wo…
Starbucks is waging a war on its workers. The coffee chain has brought back founder Howard Schultz to lead the effort to defeat a union drive that is still spreading across the country, and that workers allege is flagrantly violating federal law as it seeks to slow their momentum.
Starbucks is favoring a particular method: firing union leaders.

https://www.vox.com/recode/2021/3/28/22354604/amazon-twitter…
Amazon has long been at odds with Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) over their criticisms of the company’s labor and business practices. But the discord reached new heights last week when Amazon aggressively went after both senators on Twitter in an unusual attack for a large corporation.

If Bezos wanted the news cycle off of the union drive for a bit, it sort of worked. But instead of talking about the union, media outlets and industry observers have been focused on the rarity and judgment of a trillion-dollar company sparring with powerful lawmakers on Twitter.
Bezos was victorious in keeping the union out of the Alabama warehouse.

If only American workers would toil as hard as Chinese workers.
My previous semi factory post explains hoe TSMC is different from Intel on work environment.
https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Business-Spotlight/From-som…
Another hurdle facing TSMC is cultural. The company is notorious for its long working hours, strict management and emphasis on discipline and hierarchy, according to Nikkei Asia’s interviews with suppliers and current and former employees plus an analysis of reviews on job recruitment platforms.

Many employees have stories of being called into work at all hours, even on holidays, to deal with unexpected issues such as earthquakes, blackouts or any other disruption to production.
Such a worker culture would be anathema to many American workers.

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Many employees have stories of being called into work at all hours, even on holidays, to deal with unexpected issues such as earthquakes, blackouts or any other disruption to production.
Such a worker culture would be anathema to many American workers.

Back in the early 1980’s with Exxon, I was working on the early stage planning for a big oil & gas project. We were at least 8 years away from drilling a well.

The international Exxon affiliate who had control of project hired a Bechtel project manager to bird dog the progress of the planning activities at the Production Research company in Houston.

I attended a Thursday afternoon meeting where the Bechtel guy outlined his plans to have us working nights and weekends. The manager of my department clued him in that we worked 7:30 to 4, Monday to Friday. And unless there’s a blowout or a fire, that’s it.

I think the Bechtel guy lasted less than six months.

intercst

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The problem in the UK and EU is the rise of zombie companies who are just about managing to keep going by endless rounds of cheap money and low interest rates:

A think tank, Onward, report states that a range of 1-4% of companies have gone into a “Zombified” state since the start of the pandemic and this percentage keeps increasing, taking the total percentage of “Zombie companies” to higher than 20%.

https://www.forbesburton.com/blog/zombie-companies-on-the-ri…

When nothing is allowed to fail, then everything fails - look at what happened in the USSR

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'Also, all the Covid stay-at-home stuff has tricked people into thinking that you don’t actually need to work hard. Rude awakening inbound!"

I was working from home with clients on three continents 25 years before they invented Covid-19. Just because he is a smart cookie does not mean Musk is right about everything.

The Captain
had to compete with good Chinese coders who worked for $5 an hour…
just imagine commuting to three continents…

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innocent workers lose their jobs.

Innocence has no relation to job appeal.

The Captain

We need more like Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, and Elon Musk. They are visionaries who know how to get the best work out of technologists.

That’s a thought and post that

The Captain
can and did Rec!

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When nothing is allowed to fail, then everything fails - look at what happened in the USSR

You should have seen how many zombie companies died in 2000 in the USA!

The Captain

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When nothing is allowed to fail, then everything fails - look at what happened in the USSR

Tru dat!

RONALD REAGAN CAUSES THE USSR TO FALL

All Reagan had to do was spend some Capitalist cash, then step back and watch the USSR step on its own pecker trying to match US.

Many employees have stories of being called into work at all hours, even on holidays, to deal with unexpected issues such as earthquakes, blackouts or any other disruption to production.
Such a worker culture would be anathema to many American workers.

I do not know who said that, nor do I know the context of it, however, that is not what I see from where I live.

When Rita came, AT&T told its union employees to evacuate, and do not shelter at the central offices. (The central offices were built during the early cold war and are fairly resilient.

When the storm came and wiped out power and communications to 10,000 square miles, there were many union craftsmen in the disaster area that improvised and overcame. They provided their own food, their own tools (chain saws, chains, cants and survival gear including snake bite kits. They were not directed, in fact, they went several days with ad hoc supervision and with no way to actually insure they were paid.

In hurricane Micheal, communications techs fought rising water and heavy rain in Panama City as the top floor wall toppled under the pressure of high winds and the sump pumps failed in the basement.

No one directed then to do this. Further, in my group, most people keep their company cell phones on at all times, even though they are only granted standby pay in the weekends if at all. In fact, as the Departmental Rep for the union I find myself cautioning the craftsmen and the managers that working in excess of 16 hours without a decent break is against company, government and union rules and can get the craftsman, the manager and the company in a lot of trouble when someone finally gets hurt or killed.

It has been my experience that the craftsman is very reluctant to pull off a job when there is an outage, even though the contract says they can get the same or more money by going home and getting some sleep.

From where I sit, the piece I quoted looks like bull hockey.

Cheers
Qazulight

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From where I sit, the piece I quoted looks like bull hockey.

Exactly!!

Americans do not get 5 weeks of vacation by law like the Europeans. We do not get benefits likes many others either. Yet we work far harder.

It is total disrespect to moan constantly as a management nut that people are not working. It is a total lie. It is trying to use people throwing lame crap at them.

A friend the other day who owns a high end Italian pizza place told me one of the customers was cursing out a cook. The reason she was in a hurry but there was as wait. He stopped her and said you can yell at me but not my staff. She went out to her car for five minutes. She came back to yell at him. He told her do not come back. The real cost to him is if the cook walks over her childish nonsense.

“Meet the new boss same as the old boss” will not have anyone working with them, the company will disappear. No loss for the workers. They will work in a better run more efficient company that the rest of us should be trying to invest in.

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Qazulight, that’s what I seen, too. I worked for big telecom as a tech, and the union techs regularly and consistently took almost every middle of the night call. I still remember being sent to an unfamiliar CO, being bleary eyed tired, and doing jumping jacks and throwing cold water on my face just to shake off the zzz’s before making any type of connection that could get me hurt if I did it wrong, fun times, lol. In earlier years, there were techs who got on-call pay, so they were obligated to respond to these emergencies. In more recent years, the company did away with on-call pay, and would just go thru a list of techs when trying to dispatch off hour techs for trouble. We sure as heck were not perfect employees, but I seen a whole lot of responsible people wanting to get the job done. There were definitely a few who were not, but vast majority had a solid work ethic.

I always got a little chuckle to myself when being out on the road at zero dark thirty, and not
seeing anyone else on the road except for other utility company workers, and police and fire. No CEO’s in suits, no politicians, no big shots of any sort. I’d always have the thought that, gee,
can kind of tells who the essential workers are when shtf.

I knew that that was/is not a totally true statement or thought, many essential workers such as nurses
and doctors were already at work during emergencies, of course. And lots of essential people
doing the 8-4:30 gigs,too.

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RONALD REAGAN CAUSES THE USSR TO FALL

Nope. The USSR fell because it was being run as a feudal fiefdom–with the bosses collecting the rewards. This had been happening for decades, so the rot was all way the through the society. It collapsed due to its own incompetence and mismanagement. You know, like Welch (and his successors) did at GE and other companies.

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The USSR had become 48% non Russian. That was going to tip further. The USSR willingly disbanded by Russia to avoid that.

https://www.eetimes.com/tsmcs-arizona-culture-clash/
“The work culture in Taiwan is really different than in the U.S.,” said a person identified as a TSMC Arizona fab equipment engineer on Glassdoor

“The reality for people from Taiwan is that they are doing even more than 12-hour days often,” said the American engineer on Glassdoor. “There’s also the night shifts and weekend shifts on duty and/or on call.”

Long meetings at TSMC are another frustration for the American engineer who posted on Glassdoor. “These meetings add up to three hours in a day easily,” said the new recruit.

Long work hours have added to TSMC’s reputation as a company where fab workers sacrifice their health in return for attractive compensation packages.

At least in Japan some folks sleep at times in those sorts of meetings.

But I will hand it to you, the office workers I know are very tired of nonstop nonsense meetings. The more aggravating meetings are on other meetings. LOL I guess everyone has a lot of confidence as they fret and dither in meetings.

I was not raised for meetings. I am definitely the odd man out.

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UpNorthJoe writes

Qazulight, that’s what I seen, too. I worked for big telecom as a tech, and the union techs regularly and consistently took almost every middle of the night call.

Sure, I’ll work nights and weekends for you if I’m getting time and half or double time. But as a salaried employee, if I work twice as many hours, my hourly rate is cut in half.

“F” that.

intercst

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POTUS was the best role Ronald Reagan ever played and he rehearsed for it for at least four years!

Reagan, In His Own Hand: The Writings of Ronald Reagan that Reveal His Revolutionary Vision for America (Biography) October 22, 2001

https://www.amazon.com/Reagan-His-Own-Hand-Revolutionary/dp/…

A very interesting book to read. He rehearsed for taking down the USSR but not for dealing with the Middle East. 1983 Beirut barracks bombings, America packed up and went home. Apparently acting is good training for leadership provided you rehearse the right scenarios.

The Captain

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