from a cross of iron.
* Robert Schlesinger, 2008
Once Upon a Time in the Land of Giants . . . America the Beautiful
Richard G. Lazar and Carôn Caswell Lazar
(published 4/16/09)
Once upon a time, in the then great USA, people could quit jobs and find new ones. They might even have been fired and still readily found new work. When they returned home from the Great Wars I and II, veterans got jobs in industries that made room for them. They also got Post Office and other government jobs. When people got laid off they were usually hired back in short order when business got better.
In those times it was relatively easy to find work nearby to where a person lived. Some companies needed workers so badly that they moved the business to lovely suburban areas where people could not walk across the street to work for another company. Companies made working life more attractive to keep their people in the land of this tale. They offered such benefits as fully paid health care coverage, employee stock options, discount on cars, and even provided company stores where people could buy their company’s products at good savings. In this magical kingdom there was a huge effort to ensure good pensions upon retirement and a verbal agreement that if one was productive, they could have a 20-30 year career with growth in income and promotion from within. It was a secure and safe paradise where people felt a sense of mutual trust and confidence and pride in product and company.
And what do you know? Some companies were so well managed and they treated people with so much respect that there was no need for unions. However, at the earliest days of the 20th century a dark cloud fell over the kingdom’s workers. Maltreatment of both young and old prevailed until halcyon days emerged when good people-management skills were sought and taught, trained and re-trained. In those days of enlightenment some companies committed to providing competent managers for one’s career. Some sought promotion into management of people and quality products. Together well-treated managers and respectful treatment of working people were not uncommon. Oh yes, and product driven companies turned profits and their products were sought around the globe. Cars, refrigerators, dish washers, radios, TVs and other high ticket products were featured by such giants as G.E., G.M., Ford, Chrysler, IBM, 3M, Texas Instruments, Motorola, Singer Sewing Machines, Caterpillar Tractor. Man, it was sweet to see companies hiring more people each month because they were building and selling so many new and better products made in the legendary kingdom all the time. Eric Hoffer wrote of the dignity of the longshoreman’s working life. Studs Terkel loved working people and he wrote about working. Jimmy Breslin was another man who was a down to earth writer. I am like them. And above all let’s not forget the people, who appreciated having work and loved to do good work.
In these glorious times companies made profits for shareholders. Everyone’s owners, managers, workers and communities shared in this good life. People made livable wages and so they were able to buy cars, buy homes and to make a good life for their children and grandchildren. Foreclosures were rare because banks were careful in lending.
Well it seems like paradise has fallen to ruin and all but disappeared. No one’s working today in 2009. Careers are gone, except in the military. This one truth tells it all, or almost all. “No one’s working,” said Richard, a bright workingman, when I asked him how he sees things. It is so true. As for the rest of the story, not even rich inheritors of money or second and third generations of business families are working either. They are busy making more money for themselves. Their fathers and grandfathers worked at building things, designing products, starting and running companies that produced products. Each year, for more than twenty years, I have examined the list of Wealthiest Americans, as published in Forbes Magazine, fewer and fewer of these most privileged became wealthy as product developers or job creators.
Over this twenty-year period, only 8-10% of the wealthiest were product producers. More and more sold their predecessors companies, or made enormous amounts of money in the financial services sector without producing products in America. This is why I have written this tale. With no products to compete in the worldwide marketplace, with outsourcing and buying Chinese products we have come under the spell of evil magicians who tell us that we can thrive without innovative products that produce good jobs for working families. They use Dream Dust to mesmerize and cloud minds.
Is the fairy tale really over for good? Cannot the evil spell be broken? Cannot the magical kingdom once again flower and be bountiful?
Persevere dear Reader. The Build Products That Create Jobs Institute proposes the only path back to happiness, productivity and the dignity of man. It is the lost formula that really makes a strong economy and how the legendary USA can reform and rebuild itself so that more of us can live happily ever after.
We must “Return To Our Future.”—Richard G. Lazar PhD
Wait a Minute: ALERT
Boeing is threatened by a new competitor, China’s C919. The 737 single aisle, short-run aircraft accounted for 60% of Boeing revenue in 2010. China, used information provided when Boeing outsourced parts for their 737.
The C919 will enter service in 2016. They already have orders from three Chinese airlines and just imagine, GE Capital Aviation.
Boeing has counted on the 737 for 20 years of future revenue including for the funding for the development of their new 787. They have outsourced parts to China for the 787 as well. This is where Boeing and the U.S. will be killed for the next 20 years.
Boeing has approximately 164,000 people worldwide and forecasts most revenue from outside the United States (per March, 2011).
So, it can be expected that China will capture half of the Boeing market and maybe 80,000 people will lose their jobs.
Consider that Boeing’s struggles, including the closing of America’s space effort, the errors of outsourcing, the rapid rise of China’s aircraft design and production and the Supreme Court’s recent decision to treat corporations as individuals who can contribute to and influence elections, and the budget cuts by certain states that layoff more and more people.
Consider the perfect storm. Even as the American economy gets a leg up, with these consequences of outsourcing and not producing products, it gets catastrophically ominous with no end in sight.
This is what’s ahead.
“Stop fiddling. Rome is burning.”
—Richard G. Lazar. PhD
What is Ahead? Hope and an Alert!
Hopefully what follows will be enlightening. We intend that it will provoke right thought and right actions. You will find our previously produced monograph and many of our published articles and recent blog entries because they are urgently relevant today and tomorrow.
You will see the way the economy functions when it works well. Clearly, it does not now. You will also be exposed to a simple and clear Roadmap to restore true Capitalism. It describes the only way to produce sustainable jobs and income to buy things and to pay taxes to perform needed functions for all Americans.
You will see how some basic concepts about our nation and others will help us to compete and win. We demonstrate what needs to be stopped and what needs to be reinvigorated with great urgency.
Bless us all.
