Originally Posted By vbdad55 <vbdad, are you or are you not very negative about the economy, the job market, pension plans, the future? < that is not how you differentiated it out when you made your post - it was a general comment. If you had said I had a pessimistic view of where the US economy is headed I would agree with you. A negative view on one topic does not make a negative person nor one who only sees obstacles ..... What parts of the 10M job loss do you disagree with ? It is fact and cannot be argued or denied. Is that a good thing ? I am also telling you from the planning rooms the decisions to move jobs are made to utilize extremely cheap labor and is hurting many ( 10M ) American families...it is not because of any taxes. You can either choose to call me a liar or read the documentation on Shared Services...this is also a fact Pension plans are going away are they not ? I can give you 20 major corporations what have ditched their traditional pension plans in the last 3 years...and the cash equivalent they reimbursed employees with is approximately 40% of the value of the old plans -- even the companies are admitting this in notes to their employees - tell me again where the positive is in that ? United tried to dump it's pension on the feds.. and they won't be the last, did that not happen ? If you would choose Rush over someone like me-- that is your call...but my opinion of Rush is that he is all blow and no show. It's easy to spew rhetoric on the radio ...anyone can do it. I have no more respect for him that In have for Michael Moore..and that is none. So pick any of the points above and tell me where they are positive. BTW- I have been to the White House as part of a HR senior exec group ( 3 years ago) for a 2 day conference- and gave the same opinions I did here on the state of American jobs-- yet no one there thought I was being overly negative..of course Rush was not there. Elaine Chao I guess needs to listen more to Rush and less to people in industry. These were directors and VP's of compensation and benefits and organziational development..but then what the heck do we know...we could have just turned on the radio and gotten all the answers we need. I never realized the power some of the radio pundits have over people...it is frightening...causing them to stop thinking for themselves and take everything for gospel.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan >>I never realized the power some of the radio pundits have over people...it is frightening...causing them to stop thinking for themselves and take everything for gospel.<< Boy howdy.
Originally Posted By vbdad55 Really, I must just hang with a totally different crowd as I know no one like this..people actually think for themselves. I am just not around people spouting rhetoric from someone on the radio ( right or left fanatics) - as if the lord himself has comeback to earth. Once in a while people will say did you see O'Reilly on this topic or that..yet he is like mainstream compared to some...including Air America and drugged out Rush. Seriously I didn't know Rush was still on the radio..until I came here. Now mind you I live in a town of 150,000 people outside of Chicago that is about 90% GOP...and Rush never comes up in conversation at any event I attend. The main controversial topics here are on sports radio and Cubs vs Sox fanatics..not someone telling us how to live and think...
Originally Posted By jonvn It's an interesting thing. You can have millions of listeners, and that's a lot of people, and still only be a fraction of the entire country. Say Rush gets 20 million people to listen to some portion of his program a day. That's like 7% or so of the population, still large. But, for every 100 people you meet on the street, 93 of them do not listen to him. At all. Of his listeners, how many listen to the whole show? Probably not all of them, so that number goes down even further. So, his influence really is very small, really.
Originally Posted By vbdad55 Well I guess that is a good way to look at it, but it still shocks me how many people fall under a trance while listening.... Then of course Howard Stern had 12 million listeners also to put it in perspective
Originally Posted By jonvn It's actually how musicians can make so much money with even a small following. Say 1 million people buy their album. That's a lot of units. It's platinum. But, that is .33% of the population buying that album. Looked at that way, you can become a millionaire with only 1 out of 300 people buying your record.
Originally Posted By Beaumandy It cracks me up that you guys think I only get my views from the radio. OK. I think K2man listens to the radio more than I do in reality. vbdad, you might have some points about jobs and pensions. But it's just your opinion. What are you going to do if you lose your pension or you job? Complain or move on? My point about Rush is that everytime I hear him he is optimistic and positive. He also is usually right in his predictions. But if you put him on the same level as Michael Moore I see you have no idea what you are talking about. I am a motivator in the sales world. I see how things can work not how they can fail. I can spot a defeatist a mile away and I can tell you within 5 minutes if a person is going to make it or fail when they are interviewing for a job. Rush just happens to have the attitude I have about many things. That is why I like him. Oh, he was at the White House 2 weeks ago in private meetings with the President, Rove, and Cheney. Sorry he was not at your White House get together.
Originally Posted By RoadTrip <<I am a motivator in the sales world. I see how things can work not how they can fail. I can spot a defeatist a mile away and I can tell you within 5 minutes if a person is going to make it or fail when they are interviewing for a job.>> That's fair. When someone like you walks up to me in the car dealership I can smell the snake-oil within five minutes and move on to someone who might actually be honest with me.
Originally Posted By Beaumandy RT, you disapoint me again. You think that being positive or being a sales motivator is the same as lying to customers? Good salespeople never lie. We don't need too. Thanks for voting for Bush. You have some sense.
Originally Posted By RoadTrip << Good salespeople never lie. We don't need too. >> That may be. But you have judged vbdad WAY too harshly. From everything I have ever seen here he is a quality man and dedicated to trying to improve things wherever he can. Whether it is serving on the local school board, trying to make things more equitable in corporate America or pissing and moaning about the Pooh Park ;-) vbdad does what he can to IMPROVE things. That is hardly being negative in my book. What is really too bad is that he and you probably have basic agreement on 60 - 70% of your views. Why rip him like you did? Even I agree with your views about 25% of the time, though I disagree with how you express them 100% of the time. Somewhere beneath the Rush Rants there is (I hope) a real person behind 'Beaumandy' who can think and discuss things and do so without dumping on 'libs' and without ALWAYS having to ‘win’. That is the reason I keep responding. I persist in my hope that there is something more to Beaumandy than meets the eye.
Originally Posted By Beaumandy Actually RT, vbdad is someone I feel bad for bickering with. I see his point and he is far from wrong. He might sound negative to me, but he also seems to know his stuff and he can back things up with real world experience. Maybe I should buy him a Rush 24/7 membership?
Originally Posted By vbdad55 <vbdad, you might have some points about jobs and pensions. But it's just your opinion. What are you going to do if you lose your pension or you job? Complain or move on?< if you were reading my posts you'd already know that my company was one of the first major players to axe pensions in 1999...so you tellme what I did. Of course you move on, but you sure as heck don't have to like it. If I lose my job I will stick to teaching college level mgmt and business classes as I have already done some of that..luckily my wife has a good job with benefits because at 50+, job opportunities to be hired full time are slim....and I am not willing to travel 75% of the time like I used to..so that is my choice. As far as my points on jobs and pensions - most are cold hard facts - not opinions. I clearly state when I have an opinion, like I feel no one except members of NEA and medium size firms and below will have traditional pensions in 5 years. the 10 million jobs off shored are gone - fact not opinion most fortune 100 companies either have axed their pension plans or severly cut them back - fact not opinion Ford & GM together cutting 75,000 jobs within 3 years - announced by them - fact not opinion mortgage defaults at or near all time % highs - fact not opinion credit card debt at over $10K per person at an all time high - fact not opinion so let's not make it seem like my message is all opinion, when in fact it is very little opinion, just stating facts already out there -- tell me where that is incorrect ?
Originally Posted By vbdad55 <Oh, he was at the White House 2 weeks ago in private meetings with the President, Rove, and Cheney. Sorry he was not at your White House get together< no the people there actually worked on real issues, not the bull he peddles. And the fact that he is welcome there upsets me a great deal...
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder "no the people there actually worked on real issues, not the bull he peddles. And the fact that he is welcome there upsets me a great deal..." All the more reason the Dems win seats in November.
Originally Posted By vbdad55 <From everything I have ever seen here he is a quality man and dedicated to trying to improve things wherever he can. Whether it is serving on the local school board, trying to make things more equitable in corporate America or pissing and moaning about the Pooh Park ;-) vbdad does what he can to IMPROVE things. < trippy, the walleye is on me the next time I make a trip to Minn for a volleyball tournament ( next March ?) - but see I have learned that working with the board ,it's members and political action committees 20 - 25 hours / week ( over and above your 'real' job - when you are trying to pass a referendum for a new high school in your district is worthless because as you are probably aware - school boards and PAC members are paid nothing. And money is all that matters and makes the man according to Beau who makes so much and doesn't have a degree you know! And putting time in with other HR professionals in national meetings and planning sessions is part of my salary already so no value there. Coaching baseball -- zippo $. Now I do get paid as a sanctioned VB referee - $30 per match, so maybe there is some value to that I hear. An e-mentor to one student each year at my old high school in the inner city - I get to attend a bowling event at the end of the year...but again no salary. So yes, I do what I can to make things better and not just for me. My actions with the school board really started the change in me ( coupled with my interactions with corporate pension cutting and offshoring) -- as in our area there is a huge push by a right wing anti property tax group for any tax increases for public schools. They were very active trying to defeat the referendum -- and deny our kids an additional HS even though we already had 3500 kids in each of the 2 we have, and with growth projected 5000+ each within 3 years ( they are already in the pipeline in elem and middle school)- in high schools built for 3000 max. The reason - they are pro home schooling and vouchers -- which are great programs for the uber wealthy, bt no one else. See our school district is 90-95% affluent...( half of which you cold consider very affluent) - but there is 5% -10% that most certainly is not....and the rhetoric I heard about who Biff and Buffy want their children to go to school with and who they don't --well you would think our resident Rush supporter was in the audience. It stunned me. The fights over boundaries, so that none of the very affluent kids could possibly go to school with someone who was not was astounding. The letters the board received would fall under the hate crime statutes if they were chosen to be acted upon. It was an eye opener to be sure, and made me remember where I came from.. And the Pooh Playground, yes I do hate that abomination...probably to an unhealthy degree - but we all have to have passion about some things -- I will celebrate all night at PI when they bulldoze that thing -- LOL !
Originally Posted By vbdad55 <That is hardly being negative in my book. What is really too bad is that he and you probably have basic agreement on 60 - 70% of your views< what scares me is this is probably true
Originally Posted By RoadTrip I don't want to turn this into the vbdad admiration society, but I do value your posts. We quite often disagree on the issues. But there are also many times when we agree. You call me on it when my arguments are unfair and more often than not I see your point. But what I LOVE about your posts is that your posts come from a combination of the two areas that cannot be beat... experience and education. Obviously, with the background of my wife and myself, I'm certainly not going to say education is the ONLY thing. But it is damned important. Anyone who thinks otherwise is just kidding themselves.
Originally Posted By vbdad55 <Actually RT, vbdad is someone I feel bad for bickering with. I see his point and he is far from wrong. He might sound negative to me, but he also seems to know his stuff and he can back things up with real world experience. Maybe I should buy him a Rush 24/7 membership? < nice thought - but no thanks -- I cut my world off @ Bill O'Reilly....beyond that is outside my comfort zone, and into extremism which I do not adhere to on either end of the spectrum, left or right. And as far as bickering, read trippy's post as he is probably correct in that we would probably be lock step 60% - 70% of the time on how things are in the political world -- I just feel you are missing some vital information and have gotten caught letting someone else ( Rush ) do your thinking for you in certain areas. Am I happy that I am so unhappy with the way this administraton has handled the economy as it relates to the job futures for our children....no I wish it was different ...( now I agree that I have not seen anything from the Dem side that addresses it either and that too is very distressing) -- I firmly believe Beau that one day in the near future ( within 5 years ) you will see how the facts I have put out there ( and thank you for finally crediting me with being factual and applying real world experience) - will severely impact your sales role also. Not directly in that sales positions will not be an off shored commodity as they are not back office functions, but the audience you have to sell to will get smaller and smaller. There is so much empty office real estate due to a combination of less jobs of the type that used to require an office setting being in the US ( back office) - and work at home employees. And I am putting all work at home employees on notice ( especially if you work for a major firm where there is benefit to moving a large scale operation) -- if you can do your job 25 miles from the office over a DSL line and phones -- it can be done in Bangalore just as well and for 10% of your salary. - so be watchful.
Originally Posted By vbdad55 <"no the people there actually worked on real issues, not the bull he peddles. And the fact that he is welcome there upsets me a great deal..." All the more reason the Dems win seats in November.< agreed SPP -- having Rush being welcome there does as much to drive moderate voters away as having Jimmy Carter inviting Michael Moore to sit with him... even trade IMHO.
Originally Posted By vbdad55 <We quite often disagree on the issues. But there are also many times when we agree.< And that is healthy and why I come here. I left the yahoo financial boards because they turned into hate filled, swearing contests and had nothing to do with the financials of the companies involved. Go to the Yahoo Disney financial board and you would be stunned at what goes on there. I learn things from others here.( and sometimes others have convinced me to re think or at least review my stance on certain issues)..one can never stop learning. Even a few of what I consider the far left posters have things of value ..even if it is sometimes just to affirm that I don't agree with their stances on some things - the same for the far right.. I really just believe the country needs to move to be far more centric in nature if we are going to solve some of the major issues we have going.. and I believe the party/candidate that gets their first and gets their message out will walk away with 2008. I am just hoping someone does get there -- and today that still seems like wishful thinking... I watched John Kerry the other day on TV again talking about running and his new national healthcare thoughts -- he is not the person who is going to attract those in the middle - nor is Hillary ( although God help me I would prefer her to Kerry )- there are less than 2 years left -- who is going to emerge ?
