it's all the bottom line

The fact is that it is only in hindsight that we know that I didn’t get hired. When Tamara called me back across the continent there was a slight chance that I might get the job and her agency might have made some cash, whereas if I stayed home they would have certainly made zip, so if I am a stockholder she did exactly what I wanted her to do. She may well have had other local clients of hers also applying for the job, but the point is her company stood a better chance of making money if I were in the mix.

I’m glad you mentioned corporations, because that is one of the ways we went wrong. I am sort of pulling this out of my ass, but back in the day one guy or one family owned the company, and they may well have taken pride in their work, some of them anyway, and when the name Ford (I am going to use him as an example because, though he turned out to be a pretty bad man, he did appear to be somebody who took pride in his work) went on the car he wanted it to be a pretty good car because it was a reflection on himself, and he wanted to think he was doing the right thing for his workers too.

Some of those robber barons, once they had all those sacks of money, maybe they felt guilt, maybe they just wanted to do good works, maybe they wanted to get to heaven, but they ended up funding good works.

I don’t think you ever see that with corporations, oh they may give out a little to make their image a little better, but I’m sure that they never spend a penny more than they think they need to.

Because of the shareholders who don’t give a fuck whether they make a good or a crappy car because the only reason they bought the stock was to make money. Let a corporation announce that it is going to strive to put out the best product and costs be damned, and it is going to follow only the most strict ethical business practices, and it’s going to give generously to good works, and watch its stock price plummet like a stone.

I think you think there are far more people who take pride in their job rather than in their paycheck. I think your disappointments with the mill and the army was that there didn’t seem to be many people who took pride in their work rather than the paycheck.

And there is another thing, the advantage of putting out a good product at a good price is that people will notice that and flock to your store. But if you break it down, the reason they are flocking to your store is that you appear to them to be a good business, and so what is really important is how you appear to be, and if you put your bucks directly into appearance, you are spending them more wisely than if you put them into actually making a good product.

I guess I am thinking her of all those money guys who put out the ads with those dignified actors who used to play dignified characters on cop and trial shows who shill the product with integrity dripping from their mouths, or those health insurance companies who show a panorama of happy folks holding out their insurance cards to some cheerful sincere music, as if they were the ones who were going to do your triple bypass.

A little off the subject, just bugs me is all.

You know people point at Russia and draw the lesson that communism doesn’t work, but look at Russia. What would have worked there? They have some kind of capitalism now and they aren’t doing so hot, if it wasn’t for their oil they would be straight down the tubes. As prissy George Will once commented, name one product you would want to buy that is made in Russia. I was thinking of what would happen if we had tried communism in the US, but then we are way too cantankerous, but what about Europe and Canada? They aren’t commies, but they are much left of what we are, and they appear to be doing at least as well as we are.

But if we’d had Beagles and Sgt Kaminski in the jungles we would have won the war in Vietnam.