lulldapull

Yep! you ain't kiddin. An year ago, I out-sourced my own god-damn job to Mexico! At first our boss made it out to be the cost saving deal of the century! Boy i led the entire components engineering team to re-procure all electrical/ mechanical components from off-shore vendors! Set up these warhouses just across the border from Juarez! Entire operations were moved to mexico from Lorain Ohio! From fab to assembly to even our God-damn HR dept. Hell had I known what I was doing, i'd have thrown every god-damn wrench in the world into that machine! And a few weeks after 9-11, everyone without a 4 year degree got fired! Followed by pretty successive waves of lay-offs.

yeah thats right! Whose gonna hire Americans now! when you can hire a Mexican to do the same thing for a fifth of the cost, and ofcourse the added bonus of NO labor Laws! No EPA Laws! No limit on length of employment! no legal barriers or hindernaces! No OSHA! No Unions! pay em mexicans 50 cents per hour, and their engineers $5/ hr equivalent!! can't beat it.

God-damn "Capitalists" heaven! boy seeing these 'Capitalists' at play would make Henry Ford turn in is Grave!

Gio

How's that? Henry Ford was the most anti-union big three boss there was. In fact, he's quoted as saying unions would operate in his factories over his dead body.

lulldapull

INMO henry Ford was the greatest capitalist to have ever lived! He employed hundreds of thousands of Americans, most of them for life! thats when our country was the greatest country in the world! For the Auto industry at least he was the concept guy for the mass production model! He did everything in-house! From machine shops to schools for the employees kids to his own smelters to blast furnaces, to rubber factories! All owned and operated by Ford! Ofcourse now the concept is obsolete, but to give you the scope and enormity of the challenge that he undertok! He basically did everything on his own! Everything! All his brainchild, and the first in the world.

Here's a nice article from Fortune, when they selected him as the greatest businessman of the century!

FORTUNE selects Henry Ford BUSINESSMAN OF THE CENTURY
November 01, 04

GE's Jack Welch Named Manager of the Century
Culminating its look back on the century in business, FORTUNE magazine has named automobile giant and entrepreneur Henry Ford Businessman of the Century-beating out runner-up Bill Gates of Microsoft-and has chosen General Electric's Jack Welch Manager of the Century. Ford was among four finalists chosen from a series of profiles on the Twentieth Century's business greats that appeared in FORTUNE starting in the April 26, 1999 issue. The other finalists who were recognized for having dominated their respective quarter century in business were: General Motors' Alfred P. Sloan, Jr. (1876-1966), IBM's Thomas J. Watson (1914-1993), and Microsoft's Bill Gates (1955- ). "Businessman of the Century" co-written by FORTUNE Executive Editor Peter Petre, FORTUNE Editor at Large Brent Schlender, and Thomas Stewart and Alex Taylor III of FORTUNE's Board of Editors, appears in the November 22 issue of FORTUNE. The article is available on www.fortune.com beginning at 8:30 a.m. ET on Monday, November 1.

As Alex Taylor writes, Henry Ford (1863-1947) didn't invent the automobile, but he invented the automobile business. And though he was the worst manager of the four finalists, Ford was also the greatest managerial thinker: "No fewer than three of the biggest management brainstorms of the century happened in Ford's head: the idea of a moving assembly line, the idea of paying workers not as little as possible but as much as was fair, and the idea of vertical integration that made Ford's River Rouge plant the chief wonder of the industrial world....[Ford] was a builder of industry that transformed the very land we live on; the first to create a mass market as well as the means to satisfy it; as great an entrepreneur as we've ever seen."

At a time when the automotive landscape was dominated by Cadillacs, Packards and Pierce-Arrows that cost several thousand dollars, Ford's genius was to make cars simple, solid and inexpensive necessities. That philosophy paid off when Ford's $850 Model T became the most successful vehicle ever produced in America which helped propel Ford Motor Company to become the largest industrial organization of the early 20th century. As Stewart explains, however, Ford's impact on Twentieth Century business was perhaps most important for the immeasurable impact he had on American life. "As Ford adapted the emerging principles of mass production to the automobile and hired tens of thousands of workers to put those principles into practice, he gave rise to an entirely new phenomenon: the blue-collar middle class." Stewart continues: "In creating a huge body of un-like-minded people who shared not only their work but many social and economic interests, Ford, to his lasting regret, spurred the development of industrial labor unions."

In describing Ford's nomination as Businessman of the Century, FORTUNE makes clear that its decision was entirely shaped by the legacy he left to the world of Twentieth Century business and to America as a whole, regardless of the personal failings that ultimately stained his reputation: "In his latter years he surrounded himself with goons, spouted ugly anti-Semitic bile, and he left his company in terrible shape."

Businessman of the Century runner-up Bill Gates is described as perhaps the shrewdest business strategist of the last quarter of the century: flummoxing much larger competitors like IBM, stealing a march on brilliant IT innovators like Apple and Netscape, and unlike most techno-entrepreneurs of his generation, using his skills as an imaginative manager to keep pace with his company's break-neck growth. According to Brent Schlender, Gates' genius lies in the fact that Microsoft Windows, and its predecessor, the MS-DOS PC operating system, were the high-tech equivalents of Ford's Model T. "They may not have been the sleekest or most elegant pieces of software, but Gates figured out how to make them almost universally used, and they transformed the entire IT world." And, Gates' decision to make Microsoft the first company to use stock options as an integral element of employee compensation minted literally thousands of millionaires, not to mention a handful of billionaires, and cemented employee loyalty in an era and industry rife with job-hoppers.

Alfred P. Sloan, Jr. earned his place among the top four finalists for Businessman of the Century for having created the modern, divisionalized corporation and showing the world how to make it work. As president of General Motors, Sloan invented the art of managing a large corporation, first by creating a corporate office to allocate resources and coordinate the company's operating divisions, second by linking the divisions by means of promulgating a set of "Standard Procedures" to guide operations, and finally by creating interdivisional councils where executives and staffs could share ideas or find ways to exploit economies of scale. According to Tom Stewart, "Every leader since stands on his shoulders-up to and including FORTUNE's Manager of the Century, Jack Welch, the ultimate practitioner of the art Sloan invented."

Thomas J. Watson, Jr. was lauded by FORTUNE for being one of the great entrepreneurs of the first half of the century. He not only put IBM on the map, the company he shaped was also the greatest success story of America's postwar boom. During his tenure, IBM created more wealth for its shareholders than any company in business history-an achievement that stood until the bull market of the 1990s, and one that led FORTUNE in 1987 to declare Watson "arguably the greatest capitalist who ever lived."

In selecting the Businessman of the Century, the editors of FORTUNE sought to choose someone who was "celebrated at the time he labored, and is still renowned today-that is, a person who was conspicuously successful in both the short run and the long. He should have been captain of an enterprise of some scale, for in this century, size matters. And the Businessman of the Century should have been part of one of the Businesses of the Century, of an industry characteristically Twentieth Century."

In "The Ultimate Manager," FORTUNE Editorial Director Geoffrey Colvin describes how the genius in Manager of the Century Jack Welch's thinking is that he returned power to the little people: the worker and the shareholder. Welch transformed GE and multiplied its value beyond anyone's expectations: from a market capitalization of $14 billion to more than $400 billion today-making GE the second-most-valuable company on Earth. As Colvin writes: "Welch wins the title because in addition to his transformation of GE, he has made himself far and away the most influential manager of his generation....As the most widely admired, studied, and imitated CEO of his time, Welch has enriched not only GE's shareholders but the shareholders of companies around the globe. His total economic impact is impossible to calculate but must be some staggering multiple of GE performance."

Welch took the reins at GE at a time when the old, manufacturing-based world started giving way to the new one. According to Colvin, Welch leads the annals of management history not for anticipating the new world's changes ahead, but for acting on them: "His great achievement is that having seen it, he faced up to the huge, painful changes it demanded, and made them faster and more emphatically than anyone else in business. He led managers into this new world, which we still inhabit, and just as important, he showed business people everywhere a method of attacking change of any kind."

Ray

Lull,

I have not lost heart.

Blair has said that Bush will have a chnage of heart and he will put forward a 'human face' to the Islamic world.

I don't know how far Blair is correct or not.

So, there is some hope for folks like you that he will also have you along with him!

__________________


"Some have learnt many Tricks of sly Evasion, Instead of Truth they use Equivocation, And eke it out with mental Reservation, Which is to good Men an Abomination."

I don't have to attend every argument I'm invited to.

HAKUNA MATATA

lulldapull

Man Ray a lot of ppl are going to leave too after this election. They don't want to live in a dangerous country. Actually I as surprised to hear the news this morning on ABC that canadian embassy ppl have been overwhelmed by U.S. citizens wanting to get out of here after these disastrous elections

And lo ad behold som are even movign to New Zealand:

POLITICS
Inquiries up from anti-Bush Americans seeking to leave U.S.
Steve Rubenstein, Chronicle Staff Writer

Thursday, November 4, 2004


Sore losers were doing more than grumbling about the election results Wednesday -- some of them were actually thinking of pulling up stakes and bailing out.

It happens every four years, say the people who answer the phone at foreign embassies and consulates. Most callers are frustrated, but some are actually U.S. citizens serious about leaving the country.

"There's been quite a good deal of interest,'' said Rob Taylor, the consul general in San Francisco for New Zealand. "People have been coming in for six months or so.''

New Zealand has had a slew of American admirers ever since the "Lord of the Rings'' movies came out, featuring the country's scenery. But the presidential election ratcheted things up, Taylor said.

"Whenever New Zealand is the flavor of the month, we get inquiries,'' he said.

There are plenty of high-tech jobs waiting for qualified immigrants, Taylor said. New Zealand is picky, though, and the welcome mat is out primarily for younger, educated applicants with specific skills.

"We want genuine people who want to move, not just people hopping on a plane after the election, saying, 'I'm leaving, goodbye,' " Taylor said. "We want people to come have a look first, and then think about it.''

Consulate executive officer Tim Blackmore said prospective immigrants, even angry ones, should be more keen on coming to New Zealand than on leaving the United States.

"We want people interested in New Zealand as more than just an exit point, '' he said. "But the prospect of another four years of the current administration is certainly weighing on people's minds.''

The Australian Consulate said the phone was ringing there, too.

"Americans are funny,'' said consular officer Linda Heller. "They don't get their own way, so they want to move.''

At the Canadian Embassy in Washington, which handles most immigration issues, inquiries were up as well.

"Yes, we've heard from Americans distraught with the election results,'' said press officer Pam Lambo. "We do hear regularly from people distressed by the direction of the country. I don't get the calls myself, luckily.''

Immigration spokeswoman Maria Iadinardi said it was "a little early to tell'' whether there would be a surge of applicants based on the U.S. election. She said disgust with the U.S. president would neither help nor hurt an applicant's chances of being accepted by Canada.

Some U.S. citizens already living in Canada did not seem encouraged by the results of Tuesday's election to return.

"If I had any inclination to move back, what happened yesterday sealed the deal,'' said a U.S. expatriate and Vancouver resident who goes by the name of Stan K.

Stan K., who moved from Los Angeles to Canada in 1986, teaches jazz saxophone in his central Vancouver studio. Canada suits him, he said.

"I like living in a country that isn't a superpower,'' he said. "It fits my style. After I watched the U.S. election results, I asked myself if I could move back, knowing that the bozos are still in charge. I don't think so.''


Now I am not that God-damn pissed!

lulldapull

God-damn they wanna get the hell outta here! even wanna go to Canada!

Unhappy Democrats Need to Wait to Get Into Canada
Wed Nov 3, 2004 01:16 PM ET

By David Ljunggren
OTTAWA (Reuters) - Disgruntled Democrats seeking a safe Canadian haven after President Bush won Tuesday's election should not pack their bags just yet.

Canadian officials made clear on Wednesday that any U.S. citizens so fed up with Bush that they want to make a fresh start up north would have to stand in line like any other would-be immigrants -- a wait that can take up to a year.

"You just can't come into Canada and say 'I'm going to stay here'. In other words, there has to be an application. There has to be a reason why the person is coming to Canada," said immigration ministry spokeswoman Maria Iadinardi.

There are anywhere from 600,000 to a million Americans living in Canada, a country that leans more to the left than the United States and has traditionally favored the Democrats over the Republicans.

But recent statistics show a gradual decline in U.S. citizens coming to work in Canada, which has a creaking publicly funded healthcare system and relatively high levels of personal taxation.

Government officials, real estate brokers and Democrat activists said that while some Americans might talk about a move to Canada rather than living with a new Bush administration, they did not expect a mass influx.

"It's one thing to say 'I'm leaving for Canada' and quite another to actually find a job here and wonder about where you're going to live and where the children are going to go to school," said one government official.

Roger King of the Toronto-based Democrats Abroad group said he had heard nothing to back up talk of a possible exodus of party members.

"I imagine most committed Democrats will want to stay in the United States and continue being politically active there," he told Reuters.

Americans seeking to immigrate can apply to become permanent citizens of Canada, a process that often takes a year. Becoming a full citizen takes a further three years.

The other main way to move north on a long-term basis is to find a job, which in all cases requires a work permit. This takes from four to six months to come through. Continued ...

Confed999

If they want to be more socialist, they should leave. There are plenty of places with much bigger governments to make them happy.

__________________
No man is free until all men are free - John Hossack
I agree completely with this Administration’s goal of a regime change in Iraq-John Kerry
even if that enforcement is mostly at the hands of the United States, a right we retain even if the Security Council fails to act-John Kerry
He may even miscalculate and slide these weapons off to terrorist groups to invite them to be a surrogate to use them against the United States. It’s the miscalculation that poses the greatest threat-John Kerry

smilingassassin

Complaciant Americans can look somewhere else to move. The last thing Canada needs is more bleeding hearts to muck up our own elections.

Confed999

LOL Too bad, they're comming.

smilingassassin

Pro-Republicans are however very welcome ;-)

Julie

My guess would be they are looking for emergency health care and prescription drugs.

Ray

Lull,

Even if you move stay in touch with WAB.

I was dreading that you will be BANNED with your radical views. You are still surviving.

Julie has become a Moderator. That made me wipe my eyes and pinch myself

Maybe your ranting (even thought there is much truth and very caustic) has changed the hearts?

So, does it not prove that the US is not too bad or polarised?

When I read the ages of those who admin this forum like Ironduke, I am embarrassed that I also rant. I am touched that at such tender ages, they are running a forum and well too.

I now know why guys emigrate. My uncles emigrated. First to Germany and then to UK and one to Canada. They would have vegetated in India. They are doing very well. Much better than they would do in India.

Inspite of all the faults of the western world, they allow a level playing field. That is fabulous.

Ray

Julie,

Just because you are a Moderator, it doesn't mean if cool off.

In the British Army and its legatee the Indian Army, there is a great way to cut out dissention. Promote the bloke. With responsibility, he cools off.

Same thing ahppened to you?

The WAB guys are clever .

Confed999

People aren't banned for their views. It's usually how they express those views that gets them banned.

Julie

Hey, the age gender doesn't bother me here. I am 43, and have learned more meaningful lessons from the younger generation, than from any adult, in my lifetime. They have a way of reminding you of simple common sense things, that you tend to forget with age, and brings me back to task.

So, for whatever reason they wanted me Moderator, I can only assume their intentions were for everyone's best interest, and I respect their judgment, because I agree, they are clever. If they weren't, I wouldn't be here.