Almost daily, there is mention of Walmart somewhere in the media.
Walmart finds itself up against more lawsuits then ever before and activists are at top of the list of problems that continue to plague Walmart.
From attempts to block the opening of new Super Centers to the individual and group lawsuits that are filed against the corporation, it will be the people, customers and the company's very own associates who will determine the fate of the aging retailer.
Attempts at redeeming itself publicly and attempts at improving its image are a new way of handling the perception people have of the company. In the past public relations and the media were areas that the company avoided unless there was an extremely negative situation had to answered through the media in some way. Now the corporate offices have decided to defend the company to the extent of taking out full page ads in different areas of the country and designing a web site called Walmartfacts to allow the public access to its' own view of the wonderful world of Walmart.
A corporation, a company, the as big as life retail behemoth whose founder Sam Walton, is looked at and remembered by many in different ways. Sam was a man who is quoted almost continuously by an assortment of different people and associates. Opinions vary and views on the man and his legacy continue.
The book" The Walmart Decade" by Robert Slater looks at not only the Walmart of today but also has many references to Sam Walton and the way it was. The book "Made in America" by Sam Walton and John Huey is a look at a man that seemed to genuinely care about the people that he more than once said "should be treated as partners;" his associates; his company's employees who are no longer protected by the founder and his way of "respecting the individual."
A new book titled The Walmart Way by Don Soderqist. It is supposed to be about the Walmart executives. It talks of the Judeo-Christian culture and although it is from the inside of the corporate and executive offices it is not from inside the stores and I am sure will not deal with the same things I am addressing in this book.
The corporate officers, the directors and the executive officers of the company are business people running a corporation, not Sam Walton.
Anyone attempting to find a company, or a corporation to work for that would appreciate hard work could at one time find it here. A person could take a look at "The Walmart Culture" and that person would be easy to convince that Walmart has it all and will give it all to you if you work hard and treat the customer as number one, according to Sam Walton. It seems, from the inside to be getting further away from that kind of respect and inclusiveness each day.
Today we have "The Walmart Decade "By Robert Slater "How a New Generation of Leaders Turned Sam Walton's Legacy into the World's #1 company"
You really need to read between the lines.
You would need to understand that Mr. Slater received his information as it is listed at the end of the book.
He did not work in the stores and did not really have access to or the ability to really touch the average associate. I did.
The largest retailer in the country and the world is more than just a retailer, employer and a stock on Wall Street. America's most admired company is a large part of day-to-day living for the typical American family. It is a very large part of the day-to-day life of Walmart Associates.
From the outside of the stores, there is more than one opinion of the company, its' suppliers and its' worth.
From inside there is also more than one opinion, and depending on many factors that determine your position in the Walmart order of things an opinion can be valid as far as Walmart is concerned or an opinion can be an expression of possible hostile aggressive behavior the way Walmart is today.
Among the many files, policies and trade secrets of the number one retailer in our nation and in the world are the people. These people work in the stores. The people that greet the customers and the people that keep the shelves stocked. In many cases, this book reflects the very lives of the people that this company will forever be connected to, like it or not.
This is the warehouse, the truck driver and the system that keeps count on all of it. This is the story that includes a factory in a foreign country that produces the clothing that hangs on the racks in the softlines departments.
This book is a written view from the inside of the stores. It takes an in depth look at the associates, individual stores, salaried management and the executive offices of this company that is listed on tickers of the New York Stock Exchange as wmt.
Julie Pierce has worked in the retail sector for more than thirty years. She has been a union member of the UCFW Union and the afl-cio more than once and has worked for more than one large retailer during the course of her career.
She attended Gulf Coast Community College, Panama City Beach, Florida, in the nineties in the pursuit of a degree in Journalism and Mass Communications.
Some of her work has been published during the eighties and nineties in various editorial pages of newspapers in the state of New Jersey and Florida. She also did some work as a community reporter for a weekly newspaper in Panama City Florida.
Other work includes an article in the Gulls Cry, the Gulf Coast Community College newspaper. She is the wife of TSgt William F. Pierce Jr. (retired) USAF and the mother of three children and one grandchild. Her experience with Walmart has taken her into three different regions and six districts within the company.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/30399
Friday 12 February 2016
14 Major Mobsters Caught By FBI
Fourteen major mobsters have been arrested by the Chicago FBI. All are considered devout Catholics and had been extremely active in the Catholic Church. Some believe that the huge amounts of money they had donated in their lifetimes helped them go without prosecution or arrest for most of their lives. The group arrested in many states has alleged to have killed 18 people, but had also been pillars to the community and church donating millions to the Catholic causes. Of those arrested were; Joey "the Clown" Lombardo, Frank "the German" Schweihs, Frank "Gumba" Saladino. Many of the 18 mob murders that stretch back over four decades; had gone unsolved almost forgotten.
The Chicago Cardinal of the Catholic Church Francis George was not picked up as part of the investigation and arrests. He returned to Chicago after visiting the new Pope, but was not arrested. There are many FBI agents in Chicago who are in the Catholic Church and some feel this may have been the reason that once again the Catholic Church squeaked by without arrests of the Cardinal. If you will recall, Cardinal Law of Boston, fled prosecution and went to Vatican as a fugitive and was re-assigned similar to how he re-assigned Child Molesting Priests from parish to parish so they could repeat their molesting of parishioners children.
The mobsters were careful to align themselves with the Catholic Church and many mobsters although quite corrupt in their business dealings helped contribute to the Catholic Church through custom and culture. Many of these families were have roots all the way back to Sicily and have rich Italian backgrounds. The Catholic Church allowed for anonymity and offered forgiveness in exchange for the dirty cash donations to run the expensive costs of the church.
Many are quick to point out that even though much of the Catholic Church's mob money donations came from the exploitation of people, black mail, drugs and protection extortion monies that were there by laundered into a more legitimate stream ended up doing good for the communities and downtrodden. Others believe the hypocrisy of the Catholic Church in taking mob monies is typical and similar to their blind eye and turning a their heads to the known child molestation of two-thousand plus years. As for the victims, well many are dead, murdered or paid to shut up. This includes police, politicians and businessmen.
Did the Catholic Church help the FBI and turn in the old mobsters, many of whom are now over 60 years old? Some may not even be able to stand trial or live to serve their sentences, if in fact they are actually convicted. Can the mobsters trust the Catholic Church after all these years of accepting blood money for silence? Will the new mob families go after these Priests, Clergy and Cardinals for their help with the FBI? Will the FBI keep their testimonies in secrecy? Does this mean the Catholic Church is turning a new leaf over their acceptance of dirty money, which has caused so much hardship and pain for the City of Chicago? If the Catholic Church is ridding themselves of their dirty deeds and crime links? Does this mean they will now oust the child molesters, which are still in their ranks, pulling down the pants of our children and having their way with them?
We shall see if in fact the help of the Catholic Church and secret tips to the FBI are a new pattern of truth and leadership under the new Pope Benedict who is now in charge of the a Church which has betrayed their parishioners trust. Obviously at this point we cannot elaborate more on the links between the Catholic Church and the old time mobsters caught this week by the FBI or participation and helpful information given by the church leading to the arrests. The case is still going and interference in a Federal Investigation is illegal. We ask you; should the Cardinal in Chicago be forced to resign or arrested for his ongoing association with the Mob in the windy city? Think about it.
"Lance Winslow" - Online Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; www.WorldThinkTank.net/. Lance is an online writer in retirement.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/30875
The Chicago Cardinal of the Catholic Church Francis George was not picked up as part of the investigation and arrests. He returned to Chicago after visiting the new Pope, but was not arrested. There are many FBI agents in Chicago who are in the Catholic Church and some feel this may have been the reason that once again the Catholic Church squeaked by without arrests of the Cardinal. If you will recall, Cardinal Law of Boston, fled prosecution and went to Vatican as a fugitive and was re-assigned similar to how he re-assigned Child Molesting Priests from parish to parish so they could repeat their molesting of parishioners children.
The mobsters were careful to align themselves with the Catholic Church and many mobsters although quite corrupt in their business dealings helped contribute to the Catholic Church through custom and culture. Many of these families were have roots all the way back to Sicily and have rich Italian backgrounds. The Catholic Church allowed for anonymity and offered forgiveness in exchange for the dirty cash donations to run the expensive costs of the church.
Many are quick to point out that even though much of the Catholic Church's mob money donations came from the exploitation of people, black mail, drugs and protection extortion monies that were there by laundered into a more legitimate stream ended up doing good for the communities and downtrodden. Others believe the hypocrisy of the Catholic Church in taking mob monies is typical and similar to their blind eye and turning a their heads to the known child molestation of two-thousand plus years. As for the victims, well many are dead, murdered or paid to shut up. This includes police, politicians and businessmen.
Did the Catholic Church help the FBI and turn in the old mobsters, many of whom are now over 60 years old? Some may not even be able to stand trial or live to serve their sentences, if in fact they are actually convicted. Can the mobsters trust the Catholic Church after all these years of accepting blood money for silence? Will the new mob families go after these Priests, Clergy and Cardinals for their help with the FBI? Will the FBI keep their testimonies in secrecy? Does this mean the Catholic Church is turning a new leaf over their acceptance of dirty money, which has caused so much hardship and pain for the City of Chicago? If the Catholic Church is ridding themselves of their dirty deeds and crime links? Does this mean they will now oust the child molesters, which are still in their ranks, pulling down the pants of our children and having their way with them?
We shall see if in fact the help of the Catholic Church and secret tips to the FBI are a new pattern of truth and leadership under the new Pope Benedict who is now in charge of the a Church which has betrayed their parishioners trust. Obviously at this point we cannot elaborate more on the links between the Catholic Church and the old time mobsters caught this week by the FBI or participation and helpful information given by the church leading to the arrests. The case is still going and interference in a Federal Investigation is illegal. We ask you; should the Cardinal in Chicago be forced to resign or arrested for his ongoing association with the Mob in the windy city? Think about it.
"Lance Winslow" - Online Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; www.WorldThinkTank.net/. Lance is an online writer in retirement.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/30875
Working "The Walmart Way" In the Stores
I imagine it is the size of the corporation. So many different people in so many different places and one store is different from the other. It is difficult if not almost impossible to know what to expect when you go into a new store when you work for Walmart.
Although all of the stores I have worked in have seemed the same, there are many things in each that are different.
I have worked for store managers that seem real.
I have worked for store managers that are biased and distant.
I have worked for liars and for very honest and ethical store managers.
In the world of retail there are few store manager positions that give incentive bonuses as big as Walmart.
Surely once a manager gets to that salary range they become very secretive and they are almost devious in some things, of course always with a reason to be that way. Fluff is fluff and it makes no difference where you use it.
Confidentiality seems to be a large part of what happens behind closed doors if the management is at fault.
Of course there are a number of things that during my almost seven years with the company I ignored because I knew that some of the simplest things would be used against me.
The company is sexist in that the stores are controlled by males for the most part and even when there is a female store manager she is usually directly below a male in the Walmart order of things.
I have ignored many sexist remarks and have ignored many things some women would consider sexual harassment.
In the store that I have just left or was terminated from there is a mouse pad in the assistant's office that could be looked at as sexual. I said nothing about it because I knew that it would only be another reason for them to find a way to get rid of me.
It has a picture of a scantly clothed woman on top of a car on it. The store's management is divided in that out of fourteen managers only three were female.
I also have in my possession a joke that was passed around the office during the Christmas holidays that is quite dirty.
I have seen other female assistant managers make sexual advances to other members of management and it did not seem to hurt their promotable opportunities. As a matter of fact it seems acting sexy can help your career. Sorry, I am older than they would be interested in.
I have been present when a female assistant held another manager's head upon her breast petting the top of his head and indicating that she would take care of him.
I have heard numerous times of managers being transferred and promoted after relationships with higher management went wrong or resulted in a pregnancy. I have also been told that some associates after being involved with upper management have been promoted after the affair.
Of course most of the more pronounced situations consist of what is considered to be hearsay but Walmart contributes to it by not explaining why things are being done.
Many of the stores that I have been assigned to have associates in them that have been there for a long period of time and many of the associates bring the same information with them as a concern when they do not understand something that is happening in the store.
Integrity on the store, district or regional level is at times virtually nonexistent.
Although I was originally told that I had nothing to worry about if I followed Walmart Policy I do believe that the things I brought to the attention of the corporate offices was a large part of my eventual termination.
Not only is Walmart dead set against Unions, it is dead set against the hourly associates knowing anything that is in the least off color.
They want the management to look pure at all cost. They overly protect managers that have no respect for the associates on an individual or group basis. Hourly associates are kept in the dark on a number of issues. The basic talk in the back office has no line of respect or dignity for associates. The management says what it wants to whoever it wants to it hides the rest. Okay possible it was just the stores I worked in?
Julie Pierce has worked in the retail sector for more than thirty years. She has been a union member of the UCFW Union and the afl-cio more than once and has worked for more than one large retailer during the course of her career. She attended Gulf Coast Community College, Panama City Beach, Florida, in the nineties in the pursuit of a degree in Journalism and Mass Communications. Some of her work has been published during the eighties and nineties in various editorial pages of newspapers in the state of New Jersey and Florida. She also did some work as a community reporter for a weekly newspaper in Panama City Florida. Other work includes an article in the Gulls Cry, the Gulf Coast Community College newspaper.
She is the wife of TSgt William F. Pierce Jr. (retired) USAF and the mother of three children and one grandchild.
Her experience with Walmart has taken her into three different regions and six districts within the company. In over a six-year period has worked in ten Walmart stores for twelve Walmart Store Managers.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/30415
Although all of the stores I have worked in have seemed the same, there are many things in each that are different.
I have worked for store managers that seem real.
I have worked for store managers that are biased and distant.
I have worked for liars and for very honest and ethical store managers.
In the world of retail there are few store manager positions that give incentive bonuses as big as Walmart.
Surely once a manager gets to that salary range they become very secretive and they are almost devious in some things, of course always with a reason to be that way. Fluff is fluff and it makes no difference where you use it.
Confidentiality seems to be a large part of what happens behind closed doors if the management is at fault.
Of course there are a number of things that during my almost seven years with the company I ignored because I knew that some of the simplest things would be used against me.
The company is sexist in that the stores are controlled by males for the most part and even when there is a female store manager she is usually directly below a male in the Walmart order of things.
I have ignored many sexist remarks and have ignored many things some women would consider sexual harassment.
In the store that I have just left or was terminated from there is a mouse pad in the assistant's office that could be looked at as sexual. I said nothing about it because I knew that it would only be another reason for them to find a way to get rid of me.
It has a picture of a scantly clothed woman on top of a car on it. The store's management is divided in that out of fourteen managers only three were female.
I also have in my possession a joke that was passed around the office during the Christmas holidays that is quite dirty.
I have seen other female assistant managers make sexual advances to other members of management and it did not seem to hurt their promotable opportunities. As a matter of fact it seems acting sexy can help your career. Sorry, I am older than they would be interested in.
I have been present when a female assistant held another manager's head upon her breast petting the top of his head and indicating that she would take care of him.
I have heard numerous times of managers being transferred and promoted after relationships with higher management went wrong or resulted in a pregnancy. I have also been told that some associates after being involved with upper management have been promoted after the affair.
Of course most of the more pronounced situations consist of what is considered to be hearsay but Walmart contributes to it by not explaining why things are being done.
Many of the stores that I have been assigned to have associates in them that have been there for a long period of time and many of the associates bring the same information with them as a concern when they do not understand something that is happening in the store.
Integrity on the store, district or regional level is at times virtually nonexistent.
Although I was originally told that I had nothing to worry about if I followed Walmart Policy I do believe that the things I brought to the attention of the corporate offices was a large part of my eventual termination.
Not only is Walmart dead set against Unions, it is dead set against the hourly associates knowing anything that is in the least off color.
They want the management to look pure at all cost. They overly protect managers that have no respect for the associates on an individual or group basis. Hourly associates are kept in the dark on a number of issues. The basic talk in the back office has no line of respect or dignity for associates. The management says what it wants to whoever it wants to it hides the rest. Okay possible it was just the stores I worked in?
Julie Pierce has worked in the retail sector for more than thirty years. She has been a union member of the UCFW Union and the afl-cio more than once and has worked for more than one large retailer during the course of her career. She attended Gulf Coast Community College, Panama City Beach, Florida, in the nineties in the pursuit of a degree in Journalism and Mass Communications. Some of her work has been published during the eighties and nineties in various editorial pages of newspapers in the state of New Jersey and Florida. She also did some work as a community reporter for a weekly newspaper in Panama City Florida. Other work includes an article in the Gulls Cry, the Gulf Coast Community College newspaper.
She is the wife of TSgt William F. Pierce Jr. (retired) USAF and the mother of three children and one grandchild.
Her experience with Walmart has taken her into three different regions and six districts within the company. In over a six-year period has worked in ten Walmart stores for twelve Walmart Store Managers.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/30415
Is Big Brother Watching At Walmart?
Big Brother Is Watching You
How many miles away from your store, is safe?
"Big Brother" may be watching you.
If someone just does not like another associate and can find someone to back up an allegation true or not it can cause an associate to be terminated.
Termination due to Gross Misconduct is something that can be used to rid a store of anyone for any reason as long as someone backs the allegation.
You can say a bad word in California, or not, if you work in Jersey and if someone knows you work for Walmart and turns you in you can be terminated.
You can be terminated for any negative comment about any thing.
You can be terminated for foul language even if it is not used in association with the company. It only has to be heard by an associate or person who wants to make you crawl.
You can be coached or terminated for not standing up for a salaried member of management. If you hear any kind of negative remarks about one you have to tell that person immediately that it has to stop. You have to remove yourself from the area.
Your personal feelings about a coworker or manager have to be held silent if you value your job. You can know they are lying. It makes no difference.
Surveillance tapes that are fed through any number of cameras to tapes in the security office in each store are sometimes used to document not only the customers and possible shoplifters but are also used in some of the stores to find associates that in that store's opinion are not being productive enough or to trace their steps.
I have seen supercenters with as many as twenty-eight recorders in the security office. Usually these are not manned, but changed daily by management staff and saved for at least a month or longer. Any day that is questioned is put aside and saved to be reviewed. A newer system is currently being sent into new stores and stores being remodeled and will consist of dvd disks that do not have to be changed as often these will be able to be accessed and used for documentation.
I have seen stores where a monitor would be in the store manager's office purely for watching a specific area of the store to see what the associates may or may not be doing.
Being off the clock means nothing as far as your personal Big Brother is concerned. You are considered guilty until you can prove you are innocent for anything a store manager or salaried member of management may think is inappropriate.
I have witnessed what would be considered to be inappropriate behavior by a co manager and it was not dealt with as gross misconduct. I don't think Big Brother was watching him. The report associates and I gave seemed to accomplish nothing.
I am quite sure if I showed any part of my undergarments to associates male or female on the sales floor I would be terminated.
When you are given too much work to do within a specific time frame how do you handle it?
In reality some hourly associates wonder if it is better to say yes I will, even when they know the assignment cannot possibly be completed within the timeframe given to them.
It is usually at a time like this, an associate may take it upon themselves, to punch out and complete an assignment. Many fear they might be coached for poor work performance when they are doing more work than most.
Where is Big Brother when you need him?
Julie Pierce has worked in the retail sector for more than thirty years. She has been a union member of the UCFW Union and the afl-cio more than once and has worked for more than one large retailer during the course of her career. She attended Gulf Coast Community College, Panama City Beach, Florida, in the nineties in the pursuit of a degree in Journalism and Mass Communications.
Some of her work has been published during the eighties and nineties in various editorial pages of newspapers in the state of New Jersey and Florida. She also did some work as a community reporter for a weekly newspaper in Panama City Florida. Other work includes an article in the Gulls Cry, the Gulf Coast Community College newspaper. She is the wife of TSgt William F. Pierce Jr. (retired) USAF and the mother of three children and one grandchild. Her experience with Walmart has taken her into three different regions and six districts within the company. In over a six-year period has worked in ten Walmart stores for twelve Walmart Store Managers.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/30416
How many miles away from your store, is safe?
"Big Brother" may be watching you.
If someone just does not like another associate and can find someone to back up an allegation true or not it can cause an associate to be terminated.
Termination due to Gross Misconduct is something that can be used to rid a store of anyone for any reason as long as someone backs the allegation.
You can say a bad word in California, or not, if you work in Jersey and if someone knows you work for Walmart and turns you in you can be terminated.
You can be terminated for any negative comment about any thing.
You can be terminated for foul language even if it is not used in association with the company. It only has to be heard by an associate or person who wants to make you crawl.
You can be coached or terminated for not standing up for a salaried member of management. If you hear any kind of negative remarks about one you have to tell that person immediately that it has to stop. You have to remove yourself from the area.
Your personal feelings about a coworker or manager have to be held silent if you value your job. You can know they are lying. It makes no difference.
Surveillance tapes that are fed through any number of cameras to tapes in the security office in each store are sometimes used to document not only the customers and possible shoplifters but are also used in some of the stores to find associates that in that store's opinion are not being productive enough or to trace their steps.
I have seen supercenters with as many as twenty-eight recorders in the security office. Usually these are not manned, but changed daily by management staff and saved for at least a month or longer. Any day that is questioned is put aside and saved to be reviewed. A newer system is currently being sent into new stores and stores being remodeled and will consist of dvd disks that do not have to be changed as often these will be able to be accessed and used for documentation.
I have seen stores where a monitor would be in the store manager's office purely for watching a specific area of the store to see what the associates may or may not be doing.
Being off the clock means nothing as far as your personal Big Brother is concerned. You are considered guilty until you can prove you are innocent for anything a store manager or salaried member of management may think is inappropriate.
I have witnessed what would be considered to be inappropriate behavior by a co manager and it was not dealt with as gross misconduct. I don't think Big Brother was watching him. The report associates and I gave seemed to accomplish nothing.
I am quite sure if I showed any part of my undergarments to associates male or female on the sales floor I would be terminated.
When you are given too much work to do within a specific time frame how do you handle it?
In reality some hourly associates wonder if it is better to say yes I will, even when they know the assignment cannot possibly be completed within the timeframe given to them.
It is usually at a time like this, an associate may take it upon themselves, to punch out and complete an assignment. Many fear they might be coached for poor work performance when they are doing more work than most.
Where is Big Brother when you need him?
Julie Pierce has worked in the retail sector for more than thirty years. She has been a union member of the UCFW Union and the afl-cio more than once and has worked for more than one large retailer during the course of her career. She attended Gulf Coast Community College, Panama City Beach, Florida, in the nineties in the pursuit of a degree in Journalism and Mass Communications.
Some of her work has been published during the eighties and nineties in various editorial pages of newspapers in the state of New Jersey and Florida. She also did some work as a community reporter for a weekly newspaper in Panama City Florida. Other work includes an article in the Gulls Cry, the Gulf Coast Community College newspaper. She is the wife of TSgt William F. Pierce Jr. (retired) USAF and the mother of three children and one grandchild. Her experience with Walmart has taken her into three different regions and six districts within the company. In over a six-year period has worked in ten Walmart stores for twelve Walmart Store Managers.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/30416
Real Women Love Martha
Martha Stewart will make sugar cookies and a whopping pitcher of lemonade out of lemons after she takes off that ankle bracelet. I love the Fox News commentary that we can't keep track of sex offenders in Florida, but Martha has to wear an ankle bracelet and can't garden or ride horses. All right, Martha, back away from the tomatoes!
Her stock may go through growing pains, but her Sirius radio show will lure an audience like bees to honey glazed ham.
Why?
Let's look beyond the "she said/she didn't say" particulars.
Savemartha.com, Marthatalks.com, and other Web sites indicate
that Ms. Stewart is not the most hated woman in America. Even Jay Leno, previously bombarded by Savemartha.com for his jibes at Martha, made some humorous jabs on her behalf. "Keep track of her? We can't get rid of her!...Martha can't ride a horse on her farm. What, are the police afraid of a 60-year-old woman on horseback? They couldn't even catch O.J. in the Ford Bronco!"
Meanwhile, feminists, who conveniently remained silent while a largely male conspiracy degraded a strong, independent, successful woman, often derided Martha as setting an impossible and unrealistic standard of perfection.
You want to talk unrealistic? The media portrays the ideal
woman as size 2 with breast implants. And the marketing machine
pretends Britney Spears can sing and Jessica Simpson actually
has something to say worth listening to.
But aren't we supposed to be beyond those traditional feminine
roles?
Hey, weren't the feminists saying that Woman is all-nurturing
and any labor that comes from Womyn's hands is superior to
(cough) males of any race but especially white males? Methinks the ladies do
protest too much. Maybe feeling awkward about their own
domestic skills? Guilty over a standard they themselves
repudiate? Afraid of their own feminine urges to make crepe
paper decorations and make a cake?
Real women bake pies. Or choose not to--that's fine. Real
women decorate for Christmas. Real women garden. Real women
can be difficult to work with, the same as the real men. People
just notice it more when the refusal to compromise comes from a
pair of size seven high heels. But hey, even Dennis Rodman and
RuPaul got away with that.
And speaking of athletes, real women know that it's not okay for
people who dribble a ball all day to get billions of dollars a
year while people like Martha who embody the American Dream, who
give us products that actually enrich our lives instead of hours
of mindless television and sports talk, get a prison sentence.
The entire NBA has been in prison. I don't see anyone
threatening to stop buying Nikes and Air Jordans.
Real women bake cookies. It's a no-brainer: Chocolate chips!
As in, chocolate chip cookies! Which, by the way, the male of
the species has also been known to eat. It's interesting to
note that half the messages and letters on Savemartha.com are
from men.
Real women bake. We know you're out there. So show your support and buy Martha, bake with Martha, and tune in to Martha Stewart Living Radio when it launches.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/31066
Her stock may go through growing pains, but her Sirius radio show will lure an audience like bees to honey glazed ham.
Why?
Let's look beyond the "she said/she didn't say" particulars.
Savemartha.com, Marthatalks.com, and other Web sites indicate
that Ms. Stewart is not the most hated woman in America. Even Jay Leno, previously bombarded by Savemartha.com for his jibes at Martha, made some humorous jabs on her behalf. "Keep track of her? We can't get rid of her!...Martha can't ride a horse on her farm. What, are the police afraid of a 60-year-old woman on horseback? They couldn't even catch O.J. in the Ford Bronco!"
Meanwhile, feminists, who conveniently remained silent while a largely male conspiracy degraded a strong, independent, successful woman, often derided Martha as setting an impossible and unrealistic standard of perfection.
You want to talk unrealistic? The media portrays the ideal
woman as size 2 with breast implants. And the marketing machine
pretends Britney Spears can sing and Jessica Simpson actually
has something to say worth listening to.
But aren't we supposed to be beyond those traditional feminine
roles?
Hey, weren't the feminists saying that Woman is all-nurturing
and any labor that comes from Womyn's hands is superior to
(cough) males of any race but especially white males? Methinks the ladies do
protest too much. Maybe feeling awkward about their own
domestic skills? Guilty over a standard they themselves
repudiate? Afraid of their own feminine urges to make crepe
paper decorations and make a cake?
Real women bake pies. Or choose not to--that's fine. Real
women decorate for Christmas. Real women garden. Real women
can be difficult to work with, the same as the real men. People
just notice it more when the refusal to compromise comes from a
pair of size seven high heels. But hey, even Dennis Rodman and
RuPaul got away with that.
And speaking of athletes, real women know that it's not okay for
people who dribble a ball all day to get billions of dollars a
year while people like Martha who embody the American Dream, who
give us products that actually enrich our lives instead of hours
of mindless television and sports talk, get a prison sentence.
The entire NBA has been in prison. I don't see anyone
threatening to stop buying Nikes and Air Jordans.
Real women bake cookies. It's a no-brainer: Chocolate chips!
As in, chocolate chip cookies! Which, by the way, the male of
the species has also been known to eat. It's interesting to
note that half the messages and letters on Savemartha.com are
from men.
Real women bake. We know you're out there. So show your support and buy Martha, bake with Martha, and tune in to Martha Stewart Living Radio when it launches.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/31066
The Sixties - The New Generation
The Sixties. All you have to do is say it out loud, and people of a certain age immediately smile. Kids today are wearing Sixties fashions - bell bottoms, peasant tops, faux fur trimmed jackets - largely in tribute to this great decade. When the Sixties happened, the Western world came of age. It was a ten-year renaissance; music changed, art changed, computers came into widespread use, and the television changed the way people perceived their relationship with the Establishment forever.
Shouts Heard Round The World: Sixties History
For a decade that claimed to be all about peace, the Sixties were remarkably violent. In America, President Kennedy was assassinated, followed by his brother. Reverent Martin Luther King Jr. was shot. War erupted in Southeast Asia - again. In Britain, troops went to Northern Ireland in a "limited operation," where they remain to this day. Violence begat violence on campuses all around the world. And the youth started making their voices heard.
But there was much more to Sixties history than violence. In fact, the refrain "Make Love, Not War," was the true chant of the younger generation, led by emerging rock bands like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who. And with these rock bands, Britain re-invaded and conquered its former colonies; there were times that American rock bands couldn't even make it onto the charts.
But if the British conquered America's music scene, America slipped in and conquered the British television and movie scene - at least for a while. Star Trek and cartoons like the Flintstones became wildly popular in Britain, just as they were in the States. And Marilyn Monroe and John Wayne stalked the big screens, both mesmerizingly attractive in their own ways.
With the invention of the birth control pill, free love became another mantra (and "mantra" is another word made popular by the Sixties). Young men and women were freer to have relationships with one another, and they did. With this one change, the entire relation between men and women was undermined; no longer did "good girls" have to stay celibate to remain out of trouble. And now both young men and women were free to explore their sexuality. It made a more profound impact in Western society than most of us want to admit, even today.
All You Need Is Love: Sixties Events
Renaissance. From the bottom to the top, the Sixties were a time of change on every level. And you could tell. The most remarkable change was in the transformation from the socially-conservative fifties to the anything-goes seventies. This volcanic change was brought about by huge changes beneath the surface.
Probably the most important change was in how people saw one another. Women and men suddenly had a different, and more complex, relationship than ever before. Ethnic groups, too, were making their voices known in more and more places around the world. In the US particularly, Blacks and Native Americans participated in radical movements to change the discriminatory habits of their homeland. This enormous social and cultural movement spilled over into Europe and Africa, and was watched with great interest by the rest of the world. Would America be destabilized or changed forever?
Art and music, influenced by the changing social attitudes, the influx of drugs, and a more free, independent spirit born in the Beatniks of the fifties, underwent a transformation. Pop art, both paying tribute to and casting scorn upon the modern world, became influential. Rock music and concerts became a primary mover of society; rock artists were not only performers, but political activists.
You Say You Want A Revolution: Sixties Music
What can be said? Everything changed. Everything. Radio and music created the first rock superstars during the Sixties, and bands from Britain's rock underground erupted with real force, moving throughout the world with their new musical messages about love and freedom and real issues. Like the Romantics of the early 19th century, rock musicians turned the world upside down to find out what was on the bottom.
In Britain, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and other rock bands took over the music scene. The Americans weren't far behind; Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, and Aretha Franklin emerged as major talents in the second half of the decade. These bands are still played regularly on the radio today, and those who are still alive still perform today.
Have It Your Way: Sixties Food
Yet again, the Sixties contradicts itself; at the same time fast food restaurants started to develop the patterns they still hold today, health food and vegetarianism were gaining steadily in the eating habits of ordinary people. Hippies and other socially-conscious groups chose to eat no meat because they didn't believe in killing animals, and they grew food organically because they believed in harmonizing with their environment.
But the Sixties is where McDonalds started growing strongly, challenged by Burger King and Burger Chef, and when a 65-year-old loser named Harlan Sanders opened a restaurant he called Kentucky Fried Chicken. While some were eating healthier food than people had ever eaten before, others were eating food that would lead to obesity and many other serious health problems that still exist today.
Fun For A Girl And A Boy: Sixties Toys
The golden couple of the Sixties was undoubtedly Barbie and Ken (although Sindy and Paul were pretty close). These lifelike, though not anatomically correct, dolls and their armies of friends and accessories fulfilled many little girls' dreams, and shaped how they thought about becoming a woman. Barbie was the first career woman many girls came in contact with, and she was very unlike their mothers! The boys weren't left out, though; Matchbox cars were introduced for them, and vintage Sixties Matchbox cars are still collectors items today.
For older kids, Twister was invented in the Sixties; it's still popular today both as the old game and as more adult versions.
They Had A Dream: Sixties Celebrities
The Sixties were a time of excitement, and there's no denying that this was because of the people of the Sixties. From cultural icons like Marilyn and the Beatles, to politicians and leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. and JFK, to group movements like hippies and Black Panthers, the unique energy of the people of the Sixties gave shape to the decade.
Do You Remember When We. . . : Sixties Memorabilia
Today, you can get a little taste of the Sixties again by collecting memorabilia. There are people who decorate entire rooms in a Sixties theme. If you don't have the money to pick up authentic Sixties collectibles, you can always buy some of the newer Sixties-inspired products.
For instance, lava lamps are back with a vengeance, as are psychedelic colors and designs. There are entire stores based around selling Sixties movie and concert posters. Beatles memorabilia, authentic memorabilia, is not as expensive as you might think; the Beatles were the first celebrities with their faces stamped on practically everything, and as a result you can find coffee cups, coasters, plates, clothes, and lunchboxes generously decorated with the Fab Four's faces. Inflatable furniture is back too, just like bell bottoms and miniskirts.
The Sixties may be gone. But they'll never be forgotten.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/25832
Shouts Heard Round The World: Sixties History
For a decade that claimed to be all about peace, the Sixties were remarkably violent. In America, President Kennedy was assassinated, followed by his brother. Reverent Martin Luther King Jr. was shot. War erupted in Southeast Asia - again. In Britain, troops went to Northern Ireland in a "limited operation," where they remain to this day. Violence begat violence on campuses all around the world. And the youth started making their voices heard.
But there was much more to Sixties history than violence. In fact, the refrain "Make Love, Not War," was the true chant of the younger generation, led by emerging rock bands like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who. And with these rock bands, Britain re-invaded and conquered its former colonies; there were times that American rock bands couldn't even make it onto the charts.
But if the British conquered America's music scene, America slipped in and conquered the British television and movie scene - at least for a while. Star Trek and cartoons like the Flintstones became wildly popular in Britain, just as they were in the States. And Marilyn Monroe and John Wayne stalked the big screens, both mesmerizingly attractive in their own ways.
With the invention of the birth control pill, free love became another mantra (and "mantra" is another word made popular by the Sixties). Young men and women were freer to have relationships with one another, and they did. With this one change, the entire relation between men and women was undermined; no longer did "good girls" have to stay celibate to remain out of trouble. And now both young men and women were free to explore their sexuality. It made a more profound impact in Western society than most of us want to admit, even today.
All You Need Is Love: Sixties Events
Renaissance. From the bottom to the top, the Sixties were a time of change on every level. And you could tell. The most remarkable change was in the transformation from the socially-conservative fifties to the anything-goes seventies. This volcanic change was brought about by huge changes beneath the surface.
Probably the most important change was in how people saw one another. Women and men suddenly had a different, and more complex, relationship than ever before. Ethnic groups, too, were making their voices known in more and more places around the world. In the US particularly, Blacks and Native Americans participated in radical movements to change the discriminatory habits of their homeland. This enormous social and cultural movement spilled over into Europe and Africa, and was watched with great interest by the rest of the world. Would America be destabilized or changed forever?
Art and music, influenced by the changing social attitudes, the influx of drugs, and a more free, independent spirit born in the Beatniks of the fifties, underwent a transformation. Pop art, both paying tribute to and casting scorn upon the modern world, became influential. Rock music and concerts became a primary mover of society; rock artists were not only performers, but political activists.
You Say You Want A Revolution: Sixties Music
What can be said? Everything changed. Everything. Radio and music created the first rock superstars during the Sixties, and bands from Britain's rock underground erupted with real force, moving throughout the world with their new musical messages about love and freedom and real issues. Like the Romantics of the early 19th century, rock musicians turned the world upside down to find out what was on the bottom.
In Britain, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and other rock bands took over the music scene. The Americans weren't far behind; Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, and Aretha Franklin emerged as major talents in the second half of the decade. These bands are still played regularly on the radio today, and those who are still alive still perform today.
Have It Your Way: Sixties Food
Yet again, the Sixties contradicts itself; at the same time fast food restaurants started to develop the patterns they still hold today, health food and vegetarianism were gaining steadily in the eating habits of ordinary people. Hippies and other socially-conscious groups chose to eat no meat because they didn't believe in killing animals, and they grew food organically because they believed in harmonizing with their environment.
But the Sixties is where McDonalds started growing strongly, challenged by Burger King and Burger Chef, and when a 65-year-old loser named Harlan Sanders opened a restaurant he called Kentucky Fried Chicken. While some were eating healthier food than people had ever eaten before, others were eating food that would lead to obesity and many other serious health problems that still exist today.
Fun For A Girl And A Boy: Sixties Toys
The golden couple of the Sixties was undoubtedly Barbie and Ken (although Sindy and Paul were pretty close). These lifelike, though not anatomically correct, dolls and their armies of friends and accessories fulfilled many little girls' dreams, and shaped how they thought about becoming a woman. Barbie was the first career woman many girls came in contact with, and she was very unlike their mothers! The boys weren't left out, though; Matchbox cars were introduced for them, and vintage Sixties Matchbox cars are still collectors items today.
For older kids, Twister was invented in the Sixties; it's still popular today both as the old game and as more adult versions.
They Had A Dream: Sixties Celebrities
The Sixties were a time of excitement, and there's no denying that this was because of the people of the Sixties. From cultural icons like Marilyn and the Beatles, to politicians and leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. and JFK, to group movements like hippies and Black Panthers, the unique energy of the people of the Sixties gave shape to the decade.
Do You Remember When We. . . : Sixties Memorabilia
Today, you can get a little taste of the Sixties again by collecting memorabilia. There are people who decorate entire rooms in a Sixties theme. If you don't have the money to pick up authentic Sixties collectibles, you can always buy some of the newer Sixties-inspired products.
For instance, lava lamps are back with a vengeance, as are psychedelic colors and designs. There are entire stores based around selling Sixties movie and concert posters. Beatles memorabilia, authentic memorabilia, is not as expensive as you might think; the Beatles were the first celebrities with their faces stamped on practically everything, and as a result you can find coffee cups, coasters, plates, clothes, and lunchboxes generously decorated with the Fab Four's faces. Inflatable furniture is back too, just like bell bottoms and miniskirts.
The Sixties may be gone. But they'll never be forgotten.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/25832
High Speed Trains VS Planes for Transportation
One of the problems with our Mass Transit System in the United States is its inability to interconnect with other regional and metro systems. A more cohesive plan is needed and Amtrak isn't the answer. We need more rider-ship, lower costs and greater economies of scale, which must be based on reality, not pet project politics.
One way to save money is to spend more in the technological capital constructing of these projects and stack the deck with the highest of high tech. For instance the use of pilot-less trains is one innovation being looked at. High Speed Trains have a great advantage over short distances over standing in line boarding a plane and getting off a plane and finding a cab, shuttle or picking up a higher priced rent-a-car (supply and demand issues with decreased air travel). If you consider the two hours ahead of time they require for check in and screening, the one hour to get off the plane and get your checked bags, stand at the curb, drive to the location or hotel you can see that a 200 mph train; has the over all advantage. Consider 3 hours at 200 mph is 600 miles. Distances of 700-800 mile trips, would be much better served by high-speed train VS an airliner. Even if you could fill up an entire A380, it would take an hour and a half just to load the plane and deplane. Distances, which are under 150 miles people usually will prefer to drive. So those mileages between 150 miles to 800 miles a bullet train is best.
For those not wishing to fly for fear of flying, they may wish to travel up to 1500 miles or more by bullet train. The length of California on the 5 Freeway is about 1000 miles (try that in a truck at 55 mph?), similar to the width of Texas. Driving across TX can be a living hell and cause you to want to kiss the ground at the first off ramps in Louisiana or Las Cruses, New Mexico. Travelers have often made these "living hell" comments traveling from Denver to Kansas City.
The distance from between NYC and Florida is about 900 miles (not an especially satisfying drive when you throw in Florida's length), Salt Lake to San Francisco 600 miles, Denver to Chicago 900 miles, Detroit to D.C. 700 miles so you can see the benefits. One reoccurring idea from soccer moms traveling is to; piggy-back on flat bed rail cars, like ferry. The high-speed train could streak across the region and then you simply drive off. In studying this concept which seems more than relevant could be done by modifying the TTX Auto Hauler Trailers design for high-speed rail and put in a couple of portable toilets so you could get out and use the restroom.
Then you have your car when you get there. Trains with no engineers are here and this is one way we can take out human error and reduce costs. Perhaps with the strong union controls in New Jersey, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Massachusetts, Connecticut. Maryland and D.C. it may not be feasible in this decade, but surely for cargo transport trains it could be done. Eventually these new technologies could be introduced and we can enjoy the economies of scale needed to vastly improve our current flow of transportation. Think about it.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/31230
One way to save money is to spend more in the technological capital constructing of these projects and stack the deck with the highest of high tech. For instance the use of pilot-less trains is one innovation being looked at. High Speed Trains have a great advantage over short distances over standing in line boarding a plane and getting off a plane and finding a cab, shuttle or picking up a higher priced rent-a-car (supply and demand issues with decreased air travel). If you consider the two hours ahead of time they require for check in and screening, the one hour to get off the plane and get your checked bags, stand at the curb, drive to the location or hotel you can see that a 200 mph train; has the over all advantage. Consider 3 hours at 200 mph is 600 miles. Distances of 700-800 mile trips, would be much better served by high-speed train VS an airliner. Even if you could fill up an entire A380, it would take an hour and a half just to load the plane and deplane. Distances, which are under 150 miles people usually will prefer to drive. So those mileages between 150 miles to 800 miles a bullet train is best.
For those not wishing to fly for fear of flying, they may wish to travel up to 1500 miles or more by bullet train. The length of California on the 5 Freeway is about 1000 miles (try that in a truck at 55 mph?), similar to the width of Texas. Driving across TX can be a living hell and cause you to want to kiss the ground at the first off ramps in Louisiana or Las Cruses, New Mexico. Travelers have often made these "living hell" comments traveling from Denver to Kansas City.
The distance from between NYC and Florida is about 900 miles (not an especially satisfying drive when you throw in Florida's length), Salt Lake to San Francisco 600 miles, Denver to Chicago 900 miles, Detroit to D.C. 700 miles so you can see the benefits. One reoccurring idea from soccer moms traveling is to; piggy-back on flat bed rail cars, like ferry. The high-speed train could streak across the region and then you simply drive off. In studying this concept which seems more than relevant could be done by modifying the TTX Auto Hauler Trailers design for high-speed rail and put in a couple of portable toilets so you could get out and use the restroom.
Then you have your car when you get there. Trains with no engineers are here and this is one way we can take out human error and reduce costs. Perhaps with the strong union controls in New Jersey, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Massachusetts, Connecticut. Maryland and D.C. it may not be feasible in this decade, but surely for cargo transport trains it could be done. Eventually these new technologies could be introduced and we can enjoy the economies of scale needed to vastly improve our current flow of transportation. Think about it.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/31230
Moving People, Products and Services; The Value of Transportation
The Flow of Transportation in the United States is crucial as it is everywhere. One of the most important things in any civilization is the flow of transportation. People have needs to transport themselves around. And since we do not have those nifty Star Trek transporter machines yet, we need to find efficient ways to move our bodies in linear time to other places of interest to fulfill our needs and desires.
People have places to go and people to see, for instance; commuting to work, taking a vacation, having some fun, going to the doctor, getting to school, going to church, picking up materials to finish a project. And of course picking up necessary supplies like groceries, clothes, hygiene items, etc. Think of all the things in your household, all of those items, TV, refrigerator, sofa, plants, items in the garage, etc. Where did they all come from? Well they came from destinations all over the globe, even if you are careful to buy local or buy American, many of the movable parts inside those items came from other countries many thousands of miles away. All you had to do was to have thought; turn off the lights; grab your car keys, jump in your clean car; and transport your self to the store. But that is not where the journey ends or begins.
You see the items in the store were produced, whether they are agricultural products, which were grown; raw materials, which were collected or whether they were manufactured. All these items of course came from where they were produced or collected. Then they were transported; by Truck, by plane, by Train, by ship, or most often a combination of these methods of transportation. Without adequate flows of transportation, you would be stuck right where you are with nothing you see around you now. Every thing you see which was man made, everywhere you go, got there by some means of transportation. Think about it.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/31211
People have places to go and people to see, for instance; commuting to work, taking a vacation, having some fun, going to the doctor, getting to school, going to church, picking up materials to finish a project. And of course picking up necessary supplies like groceries, clothes, hygiene items, etc. Think of all the things in your household, all of those items, TV, refrigerator, sofa, plants, items in the garage, etc. Where did they all come from? Well they came from destinations all over the globe, even if you are careful to buy local or buy American, many of the movable parts inside those items came from other countries many thousands of miles away. All you had to do was to have thought; turn off the lights; grab your car keys, jump in your clean car; and transport your self to the store. But that is not where the journey ends or begins.
You see the items in the store were produced, whether they are agricultural products, which were grown; raw materials, which were collected or whether they were manufactured. All these items of course came from where they were produced or collected. Then they were transported; by Truck, by plane, by Train, by ship, or most often a combination of these methods of transportation. Without adequate flows of transportation, you would be stuck right where you are with nothing you see around you now. Every thing you see which was man made, everywhere you go, got there by some means of transportation. Think about it.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/31211
Wrapping Up the Cigar Boom
At age 98, the infamous cigar aficionado George Burns said, "If I had taken my doctor's advice and quit smoking when he advised me to, I wouldn't have lived to go to his funeral." While it's tempting for us to use Mr. Burns as the poster-child for the anti-anti-smoking movement which is gaining little ground against anti-smoking legislation in the United States, we would be hard-pressed to answer why the honor shouldn't go to Mark Twain, Peter Falk, Sigmund Freud ("Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar") or Rudy Giuliani. As more and more restaurants find themselves under regulation to prohibit smoking and many of the cigar bars from the last decade close their doors, it seems that today's cigar smoker is a bit lonely.
The cigar boom that swept the nation in the late 1990's has befallen the same fate as every other boom in history: it died and left a cynical, unhappy populace in its wake. In today's climate, it seems, not only is George Burn's doctor getting involved, but also neighbors, TV personalities and children.
However, those of us that have been in the cigar industry for years are not fretting. If you take a step back and observe the true nature of a boom, you realize it's simply a population getting excited about a new idea. The internet boom, the coffee boom, and the current wine boom are no exceptions. In a new age of information and technology where cultures and traditions all over the world are accessible with the click of a mouse, there's a lot of territory to discover. The culture of cigars had its turn, but it doesn't mean the boom is bust, it means the boom has allowed cigars to enter the cultural psyche of Americans and it will remain there even after the dust settles.
A perfect example of this phenomenon is the coffee bar. In the 1990's, a coffee bar was launched on every corner as the country realized Seattle not only had cool grunge but also iced coffee. There were actually two on every block if you include Starbucks. Low and behold, the hipsters got tired of coffee and moved onto cigar bars. Many of the nascent coffee shops were forced to close as the boom lost momentum, but I don't think anyone will argue that the coffee business is on its way out, it's just settled down. Today, coffee bars are part of our cultural psyche. They will continue to be frequented and enjoyed, if at a lower vibration than they were when they first hit the scene. The result is that today, it's easier to find better coffee.
The same is true for the cigar boom. As cigar culture entered the American mind, particularly the young American mind, there was a proliferation of cigar bars and internet businesses. Today, many of those have closed their doors, but the same great cigar bar that was there twenty years ago is most likely still around. Take a look at the police force of any major city. Detectives from New York to Denver surely didn't get the memo if cigar culture was dead. Indeed, business for your local cigar shop is probably better than ever. The boom is over, but cigars in America have entered a renaissance as a result. There are more high-quality, handmade cigars available at a cheaper price than ever before.
Of course, there is no telling how far the current climate of cigar taxation and smoking-bans will go. The momentum certainly hasn't waned, and the cigar industry will have to survive the onslaught before it can finally enjoy the new popularity it has discovered in the twenty-first century.
In the meantime, it's important for all of us to take a trip down to our local cigar shop and try something new. Only by continuing to invoke that feeling of spontaneity and discovery will cigar culture in the United States persist in growing and be recognized for its class, style and grace.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/31175
The cigar boom that swept the nation in the late 1990's has befallen the same fate as every other boom in history: it died and left a cynical, unhappy populace in its wake. In today's climate, it seems, not only is George Burn's doctor getting involved, but also neighbors, TV personalities and children.
However, those of us that have been in the cigar industry for years are not fretting. If you take a step back and observe the true nature of a boom, you realize it's simply a population getting excited about a new idea. The internet boom, the coffee boom, and the current wine boom are no exceptions. In a new age of information and technology where cultures and traditions all over the world are accessible with the click of a mouse, there's a lot of territory to discover. The culture of cigars had its turn, but it doesn't mean the boom is bust, it means the boom has allowed cigars to enter the cultural psyche of Americans and it will remain there even after the dust settles.
A perfect example of this phenomenon is the coffee bar. In the 1990's, a coffee bar was launched on every corner as the country realized Seattle not only had cool grunge but also iced coffee. There were actually two on every block if you include Starbucks. Low and behold, the hipsters got tired of coffee and moved onto cigar bars. Many of the nascent coffee shops were forced to close as the boom lost momentum, but I don't think anyone will argue that the coffee business is on its way out, it's just settled down. Today, coffee bars are part of our cultural psyche. They will continue to be frequented and enjoyed, if at a lower vibration than they were when they first hit the scene. The result is that today, it's easier to find better coffee.
The same is true for the cigar boom. As cigar culture entered the American mind, particularly the young American mind, there was a proliferation of cigar bars and internet businesses. Today, many of those have closed their doors, but the same great cigar bar that was there twenty years ago is most likely still around. Take a look at the police force of any major city. Detectives from New York to Denver surely didn't get the memo if cigar culture was dead. Indeed, business for your local cigar shop is probably better than ever. The boom is over, but cigars in America have entered a renaissance as a result. There are more high-quality, handmade cigars available at a cheaper price than ever before.
Of course, there is no telling how far the current climate of cigar taxation and smoking-bans will go. The momentum certainly hasn't waned, and the cigar industry will have to survive the onslaught before it can finally enjoy the new popularity it has discovered in the twenty-first century.
In the meantime, it's important for all of us to take a trip down to our local cigar shop and try something new. Only by continuing to invoke that feeling of spontaneity and discovery will cigar culture in the United States persist in growing and be recognized for its class, style and grace.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/31175
How The First Earth Day Came About
Today, April 22, people across the world will be observing Earth Day registering their concern about deteriorating state of environment and pronouncing resolve to arrest the detrimental trend.
On April 22, 1970, Earth Day was first observed in the USA. It was, "one of the most remarkable happenings in the history of democracy..." commented the American Heritage Magazine, in its October 1993 issue.
What is the purpose of Earth Day? How did it start? These are the questions most frequently asked. Actually, the idea for Earth Day evolved over a period of seven years starting in 1962. For several years, it had been troubling Senator Gaylord Nelson that the state of US environment was simply a non-issue in the politics of the country. Finally, in November 1962, an idea occurred to Nelson that was, he thought, a virtual cinch to put the environment into the political "limelight" once and for all. The idea was to persuade President Kennedy to give visibility to this issue by going on a national conservation tour. He flew to Washington to discuss the proposal with Attorney General Robert Kennedy, who liked the idea. So did the President. The President began his five-day, eleven-state conservation tour in September 1963. For many reasons the tour did not succeed in putting the issue onto the national political agenda. However, it was the germ of the idea that ultimately flowered into Earth Day.
Nelson, continued to speak on environmental issues to a variety of audiences in some twenty-five states. All across US, evidence of environmental degradation was appearing everywhere, and everyone noticed except the political establishment. The environmental issue simply was not to be found on the nation's political agenda. The people were concerned, but the politicians were not.
Six years had passed before the idea that became Earth Day occurred to Senator Nelson, while on a conservation speaking tour out West in the summer of 1969. At the time, anti-Vietnam War demonstrations, called "teach-ins," had spread to college campuses all across US. Nelson took this opportunity -- why not organise a huge grassroots protest over what was happening to our environment?
He was convinced that if he could tap in the environmental concerns of the general public and infuse the students' anti-war energy into the environmental cause, he could generate a demonstration that would force this issue onto the political agenda. It was a big gamble, but worth a try.
Then, at a conference in Seattle in September 1969, he announced that in the spring of 1970 there would be a nationwide grassroots demonstration on behalf of the environment and invited everyone to participate. The wire services carried the story from coast to coast. The response was electrifying. It took off like gangbusters. Telegrams, letters, and telephone inquiries poured in from all across the country. The American people finally had a forum to express concern about what was happening to the land, rivers, lakes, and air -- and they did so with spectacular exuberance. For the next four months, two members of his Senate staff, Linda Billings and John Heritage, managed Earth Day affairs out of his Senate office.
Five months before Earth Day, on Sunday, November 30, 1969, The New York Times carried a lengthy article by Gladwin Hill reporting on the astonishing proliferation of environmental events: "Rising concern about the environmental crisis.
Billy is a columnist & researcher from Bangladesh. He writes regularyly in English dailies in Bangladesh and overseas, both for print and electronic media. Billy is seeking a media agent to sell and promote his columns and articles on mutual understanding. More interested in copy editing and proof reading. services available at competative rate.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/31588
On April 22, 1970, Earth Day was first observed in the USA. It was, "one of the most remarkable happenings in the history of democracy..." commented the American Heritage Magazine, in its October 1993 issue.
What is the purpose of Earth Day? How did it start? These are the questions most frequently asked. Actually, the idea for Earth Day evolved over a period of seven years starting in 1962. For several years, it had been troubling Senator Gaylord Nelson that the state of US environment was simply a non-issue in the politics of the country. Finally, in November 1962, an idea occurred to Nelson that was, he thought, a virtual cinch to put the environment into the political "limelight" once and for all. The idea was to persuade President Kennedy to give visibility to this issue by going on a national conservation tour. He flew to Washington to discuss the proposal with Attorney General Robert Kennedy, who liked the idea. So did the President. The President began his five-day, eleven-state conservation tour in September 1963. For many reasons the tour did not succeed in putting the issue onto the national political agenda. However, it was the germ of the idea that ultimately flowered into Earth Day.
Nelson, continued to speak on environmental issues to a variety of audiences in some twenty-five states. All across US, evidence of environmental degradation was appearing everywhere, and everyone noticed except the political establishment. The environmental issue simply was not to be found on the nation's political agenda. The people were concerned, but the politicians were not.
Six years had passed before the idea that became Earth Day occurred to Senator Nelson, while on a conservation speaking tour out West in the summer of 1969. At the time, anti-Vietnam War demonstrations, called "teach-ins," had spread to college campuses all across US. Nelson took this opportunity -- why not organise a huge grassroots protest over what was happening to our environment?
He was convinced that if he could tap in the environmental concerns of the general public and infuse the students' anti-war energy into the environmental cause, he could generate a demonstration that would force this issue onto the political agenda. It was a big gamble, but worth a try.
Then, at a conference in Seattle in September 1969, he announced that in the spring of 1970 there would be a nationwide grassroots demonstration on behalf of the environment and invited everyone to participate. The wire services carried the story from coast to coast. The response was electrifying. It took off like gangbusters. Telegrams, letters, and telephone inquiries poured in from all across the country. The American people finally had a forum to express concern about what was happening to the land, rivers, lakes, and air -- and they did so with spectacular exuberance. For the next four months, two members of his Senate staff, Linda Billings and John Heritage, managed Earth Day affairs out of his Senate office.
Five months before Earth Day, on Sunday, November 30, 1969, The New York Times carried a lengthy article by Gladwin Hill reporting on the astonishing proliferation of environmental events: "Rising concern about the environmental crisis.
Billy is a columnist & researcher from Bangladesh. He writes regularyly in English dailies in Bangladesh and overseas, both for print and electronic media. Billy is seeking a media agent to sell and promote his columns and articles on mutual understanding. More interested in copy editing and proof reading. services available at competative rate.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/31588
How Much Cash Does James Bond Carry?
First let's start with how much cash Americans carry.
Under $ 20 ....... 32%
$ 21--$ 50 ....... 43%
$ 51--$100 ....... 18%
$101--$500 ....... 6%
$501--$999 ....... .6%
$1,000+ .......... .5%
So, if you want to be in the rare 6%, just carry over a hundred bucks in your money clip and wallet. But that's not even enough to take care of a sudden overnight trip.
'My name is Bond, James Bond. If you'll wait for me to find an ATM machine, I'll take you to dinner.' Sound strange? That's right. Bond would have the cash and credit cards in his wallet to do whatever he needed to do. But some places don't take credit cards, or the right ones.
And what about emergency's? Such as your car breaking down on a trip. You don't want to have your family sitting in the car at midnight on a lonely road.
Many will say that they are worried about being robbed, so they don't carry much cash. But anyone that's been robbed will tell you that he was glad to give something to the robber. Robbers have said that they work up so much energy before they mug someone, that if the person has nothing to give them, they get very angry and violent.
On the lighter side, Wayne Newton told the story about a date he was on at Denny's in New York and he didn't have enough cash to pay the bill. So he kept telling the girl to order more and secretly called his brother to bring him some cash. It took an hour because it turned out that there were four Denny's on that corner, all with three floors. Wayne's brother had to search every one of them. So Wayne had to really sweat it out until his brother arrived with the face saving cash. This sound funny, but not when you're in that situation yourself.
So now, How much cash does Bond carry? Enough to get any sudden job or entertainment done without checking to see if the place he's going to takes credit cards.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/31812
Under $ 20 ....... 32%
$ 21--$ 50 ....... 43%
$ 51--$100 ....... 18%
$101--$500 ....... 6%
$501--$999 ....... .6%
$1,000+ .......... .5%
So, if you want to be in the rare 6%, just carry over a hundred bucks in your money clip and wallet. But that's not even enough to take care of a sudden overnight trip.
'My name is Bond, James Bond. If you'll wait for me to find an ATM machine, I'll take you to dinner.' Sound strange? That's right. Bond would have the cash and credit cards in his wallet to do whatever he needed to do. But some places don't take credit cards, or the right ones.
And what about emergency's? Such as your car breaking down on a trip. You don't want to have your family sitting in the car at midnight on a lonely road.
Many will say that they are worried about being robbed, so they don't carry much cash. But anyone that's been robbed will tell you that he was glad to give something to the robber. Robbers have said that they work up so much energy before they mug someone, that if the person has nothing to give them, they get very angry and violent.
On the lighter side, Wayne Newton told the story about a date he was on at Denny's in New York and he didn't have enough cash to pay the bill. So he kept telling the girl to order more and secretly called his brother to bring him some cash. It took an hour because it turned out that there were four Denny's on that corner, all with three floors. Wayne's brother had to search every one of them. So Wayne had to really sweat it out until his brother arrived with the face saving cash. This sound funny, but not when you're in that situation yourself.
So now, How much cash does Bond carry? Enough to get any sudden job or entertainment done without checking to see if the place he's going to takes credit cards.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/31812
Healing Anger and Violence in Our Society
I have counseled individuals, couples, families and business partners for the past 35 years and authored eight published books. All this experience has resulted in the development of a profound six-step healing process, called Inner Bonding, which anyone can learn and use throughout the day (FREE course available - see resource box).
The violence in Littleton, Colorado sparked many discussions regarding the cause of such horrifying behavior on the part of two teenage boys. I would like to address this in terms on Inner Bonding.
In my experience, it is not possible for us as human beings to be violent when we are connected to our true, core Self and to a source of spiritual guidance. When we do the work we need to do to develop a spiritually connected loving adult self, we have an inner adult who places limits on our behavior regarding harming ourselves and others.
However, it is very common in our society for people to lose touch with their true, core Self. Since our core Self holds our intrinsic feelings of compassion and empathy for others, losing touch with this aspect of ourselves may cause us to be able to harm others without feeling any pain or remorse over it. The question is, then, how do we lose our connection with our core Selves?
Many child development experts state that those people who disconnect from their empathy and compassion, generally do so between the ages of two and four. If our parents lacked empathy and compassion for our feelings and needs, we might have chosen to be caretakers and take care of their needs, or we might have chosen to become like them and not care about others' feelings and needs. We may have had no role modeling for maintaining our own inner connection. If our parents shut themselves down to our pain and their own, we may have learned to shut down to our own and others vulnerable feelings. If, in addition, we were physically, sexually, emotionally or verbally abused or neglected, we may have shut down to survive.
Some children, whose parents were shut down or abusive, manage to stay connected with their core Selves through contact with animals such as dogs or horses, while others stay connected through contact with relatives or friends with whom they identify. But many young children just disconnect to survive. When in this disconnected state, if they watch violence on TV or practice violence through video games, they may further train themselves to numb out against compassion, empathy, and the pain of harming others.
Likewise, if children grow up with no personal connection with a source of spiritual guidance, they may not know that we are all one, and they may not consider the possibility that the consequences of their actions may follow them into their lives after death.
Without connection with their core Self and their spiritual guidance, they are left with only their wounded selves. If they happen to be operating from an enraged wounded self, this self can certainly act out in angry and violent ways. With no loving inner Adult to set limits, the harm to themselves or others can be disastrous, as we have seen.
While limiting guns is certainly a good thing to do, it will not stop the violence. This violence will not stop until we no longer need to learn, as very young children, to barricade our hearts. As parents and teachers we need to be practicing a healing process such as Inner Bonding so that we can reclaim our core Selves and our deep connection with God. Only by doing our own inner work will we be able to be the loving role models that our children need. The change in our society must come from within each of us.
Margaret Paul, Ph.D. is the best-selling author and co-author of eight books, including "Do I Have To Give Up Me To Be Loved By You?" She is the co-creator of the powerful Inner Bonding healing process. Learn Inner Bonding now! Visit her web site for a FREE Inner Bonding course: http://www.innerbonding.com or mailto:margaret@innerbonding.com. Phone sessions available.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/32337
The violence in Littleton, Colorado sparked many discussions regarding the cause of such horrifying behavior on the part of two teenage boys. I would like to address this in terms on Inner Bonding.
In my experience, it is not possible for us as human beings to be violent when we are connected to our true, core Self and to a source of spiritual guidance. When we do the work we need to do to develop a spiritually connected loving adult self, we have an inner adult who places limits on our behavior regarding harming ourselves and others.
However, it is very common in our society for people to lose touch with their true, core Self. Since our core Self holds our intrinsic feelings of compassion and empathy for others, losing touch with this aspect of ourselves may cause us to be able to harm others without feeling any pain or remorse over it. The question is, then, how do we lose our connection with our core Selves?
Many child development experts state that those people who disconnect from their empathy and compassion, generally do so between the ages of two and four. If our parents lacked empathy and compassion for our feelings and needs, we might have chosen to be caretakers and take care of their needs, or we might have chosen to become like them and not care about others' feelings and needs. We may have had no role modeling for maintaining our own inner connection. If our parents shut themselves down to our pain and their own, we may have learned to shut down to our own and others vulnerable feelings. If, in addition, we were physically, sexually, emotionally or verbally abused or neglected, we may have shut down to survive.
Some children, whose parents were shut down or abusive, manage to stay connected with their core Selves through contact with animals such as dogs or horses, while others stay connected through contact with relatives or friends with whom they identify. But many young children just disconnect to survive. When in this disconnected state, if they watch violence on TV or practice violence through video games, they may further train themselves to numb out against compassion, empathy, and the pain of harming others.
Likewise, if children grow up with no personal connection with a source of spiritual guidance, they may not know that we are all one, and they may not consider the possibility that the consequences of their actions may follow them into their lives after death.
Without connection with their core Self and their spiritual guidance, they are left with only their wounded selves. If they happen to be operating from an enraged wounded self, this self can certainly act out in angry and violent ways. With no loving inner Adult to set limits, the harm to themselves or others can be disastrous, as we have seen.
While limiting guns is certainly a good thing to do, it will not stop the violence. This violence will not stop until we no longer need to learn, as very young children, to barricade our hearts. As parents and teachers we need to be practicing a healing process such as Inner Bonding so that we can reclaim our core Selves and our deep connection with God. Only by doing our own inner work will we be able to be the loving role models that our children need. The change in our society must come from within each of us.
Margaret Paul, Ph.D. is the best-selling author and co-author of eight books, including "Do I Have To Give Up Me To Be Loved By You?" She is the co-creator of the powerful Inner Bonding healing process. Learn Inner Bonding now! Visit her web site for a FREE Inner Bonding course: http://www.innerbonding.com or mailto:margaret@innerbonding.com. Phone sessions available.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/32337
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: Employee and Management Owned Firms
Margaret Thatcher started a world trend during her tenure as Prime Minister is Downing Street. It is called: Privatization. It consisted of the transfer of control of a state-owned enterprise to the Private Sector. This was done by selling the shares of the company. At times, the control itself was maintained by the state - but the economic benefits emanating from the ownership of shares was partly sold to privates. Such economic benefits are comprised of the dividend yield of the shares plus the appreciation in their value (due to the involvement of the private sector) known as capital gains.
But the privatization process was not entirely homogeneous, uniform, transparent, or, for that matter, fair.
The stock of some of the enterprises was sold to an individual, or group of individuals, by a direct, negotiated sale. A "controlling stake" (nucleus) was thus sold, ostensibly yielding to the state a premium paid by the private investors for the control of the sold firm.
This method of privatization was criticized as "crony capitalism". For some reason, a select group of businessmen, all cronies of the ruling political elite, seemed to benefit the most. They bought the controlling stakes at unrealistically low prices, said the critics. To support their thesis, they pointed to the huge disparity between the price at which the "cronies" bought the shares - and the price at which they, later, sold it to the public through the stock exchange. The "cronies" cried foul: the difference in the prices was precisely because of privatization, better management and financial control. Maybe. But the recurrence of the same names in every major privatization deal still looked suspiciously odd.
Then there was the second version: selling the shares of the privatized firms directly to the public. This was done using either of two methods:
An offering of the shares in the stock exchange (a cash method), or
The distribution of vouchers universally, to all the adult citizens of the country, so that they could all share the wealth accumulated by the state in an equitable manner. The vouchers are convertible to baskets of shares in a prescribed list of state enterprises (a nonchash method).
But a smaller group of (smaller) countries selected a whole different way of privatizing. They chose to TRANSFORM the state-owned firm instead of subjecting them to outright privatization.
Transformation - the venue adopted by Macedonia - is the transfer of the control of a firm and / or the economic benefits accruing to its shareholders to groups which were previously - or still are - connected to the firm.
In this single respect, transformation constitutes a major departure - not to say deviation - from classical privatization.
Ownership of the transformed firm can revert to either of the following groups, or to a combination thereof:
The employees of the firm, through a process called Employee BuyOut (EBO)
The management of the firm, in the form of a Management BuyOut or Buy In (MBO / MBI)
A select group from within the firm. Such a group uses the assets - current and future - of the firm as collaterals, thus enabling them to get the credits necessary to purchase the shares of the firm. This is called a Leveraged BuyOut, because the assets of the firm itself are leveraged in order to purchase it (LBO).
Finally, the creditors of the firm can team up and agree to convert the firm's debts to them into equity in the firm, in a Debt to Equity Swap (DES).
Sometimes, the state continues to maintain an interest in privatized - as well as in transformed - firms. This is especially true for natural monopolies, utilities, infrastructure and defence industries. All the above are considered to be strategic matters of national interest. Some countries - Russia and Israel, for ones - continue to own a "Golden Share". This highly specific type of security allows the state to exercise decision making powers, veto powers, or, at least, control over business matters that it considers vital to its security, financial viability, or even to its traditions. Israel's golden share in the national air carrier, EI AI, allows it to prevent flights in and out during the religiously holy day of Sabbath! Until very recently the common (economic) wisdom in the West had it that Transformation was - in the best case - a sterile, make - believe exercise. The worst case included cronyism and corruption. One thing was to privatize and another was to privateer. But there were some grounds for some solid criticisms as well: (1) The main ideological thrust behind privatization was the revitalization of stale and degenerated state firm. Badly managed, wrongly financially controlled, applying an incoherent admixture of business and non business (political, social, geopolitical) considerations to their decision making process - state firm were considered as anachronistic as dinosaurs. Many preferred to see them as extinct as those ancient reptiles. An injection of private initiative acquired the status of ideological panacea to the corporate malaise of the public sector. But this is precisely what was missing in the Transformation version. It offered nothing new: no new management, no new ideas (were likely to come from the same old team) and, above all and as a direct result of this preference of old over new - no new capital. To this, the supporters of Transformation answer that the one thing which is new - personal capitalistic incentives - far outweighs all the old elements. Incentive driven initiative is likely to bring in its wake and to herald the transformation - in the most complete and realistic sense - of the state firm. Change, renovation and innovation - say the latter - are immediate by products of personal profit motivation, the most powerful known to Mankind. (2) The process of Transformation blurred the distinction between labour, management and ownership. Employees acted as potential managers and as co-owners in the newly transformed companies. The very concept of hierarchy, clear chains of authority (going down) and of responsibility (going up) - was violated. A ship must have one captain lest it sinks. It is not in vain that the management function was separated from the ownership function. Employees, managers and owners, all have differing views and differences of opinion concerning every possible aspect of corporate governance and the proper conduct of business. Employees want to maximize employment and the economic benefits attached to it - managers and shareholders wish to minimize this parameter and its effects on the corporation. Managers wish to maximize their compensation - employees and owners wish to minimize or moderate it, each group for its own, disparate reasons. This break in the "chain of command", this diffusive, fog like property of the newly transformed entity lead to dysfunction, financial mismanagement, lack of clarity of vision and of day to day operations, labour unrest (when the unrealistic expectations of the workforce are not met). So, at the beginning, during the 1980s, the West preferred to privatize state owned firms - rather than to transform them. A fast accumulating body of economic research demonstrated unambiguously that privatization did miracles to the privatized firms. In certain cases, productivity shot up 6 times. Between 60 to 80 percent of GNPs in the West are private now and a vigorous trend to privatize what remains of the public sector still persists. But the same studies revealed a less pleasant phenomenon: only a select group of businessmen benefited from privatization. The paranoid allusions of the critics of this process were completely substantiated. Something was very corrupted in implementation of the seemingly wholesome idea of privatization. The public - as a whole - economically suffered. This led to the emergence of a new social consciousness. It was provoked by the unacceptable social costs of capitalism: more people under the poverty line, homelessness, a radicalization in the inequity of the distribution of income among different strata of society. But this trend was enhanced by the apparent corruption of the privatization process. This new social consciousness converged with yet another all important and all pervasive trend: the formation of small businesses by small time entrepreneurs. The latter functioned both as owners and as employees in their firms. There were 16 million such owners-workers in the USA alone (1995 figures). About 99% of the 22 million registered businesses in the USA were small businesses. No economic planner or politician could ignore these figures. Employee owned firms became the majority in the service and advanced technology sectors of the economy - the fastest growing, most lucrative sectors. In its own way, as a result of these two trends, the West was moving back to transformation and away from privatization, away from separation of ownership and labour, away from differentiation between capital and workforce. This is a major revolution. The OECD (the organization of the richer countries in the world) established an institute which follows trends in the poorer parts of the world, politely called "Economies in Transition". This is the CCET. According to the CCET's latest report, privatization continues in an uneven pace throughout the former Eastern Bloc. Some countries nearly completed it. Others have claimed to have completed it - but haven't even started it in reality. Some countries - Macedonia amongst them - have sold the shares of state owned firms (=businesses with social capital) to managers and workers - but the managers and workers have largely not paid for these shares yet. It is by no means certain that they will. If the managers and workers default on their obligations to pay the state - the ownership of the company will revert back to the state. This is paper privatization, a transformation of expectations. No one can seriously claim that the transformation is completed before the new owners of the firms respect their financial obligations to the state. In all, privatization the world over, proceeded more rapidly with small firms. Selling the bigger firms was much more difficult. Most of this behemoths were composed of numerous profit centres and loss making business activities. A solidarity of accounts and guarantees existed between the various operations. The more profitable parts of a company supported and subsidized the less competent, the losing parts. This was not very attractive to investors. The official figures are heart warming. In parentheses - the percentage of firms privatized: Albania , Czech Republic , Estonia , Hungary , Lithuania, Poland and Slovakia all privatized 90% of their small firms. In Russia and Latvia, the figure is 70%. The picture is more clouded with the larger firms: Czech Republic (81%), Hungary, Estonia (75%), Lithuania (57%), Russia (55%), Latvia and Slovakia (46%), Mongolia (41%), Poland (32%), Moldavia (27%), Romania (13%), Belarus and Bulgaria (11%), Georgia (2%). But what hides behind the figures? The Czech Republic is infamous for its cronyism and for the massive transfer of wealth to the hands of a few people close to government circles. On the face of it, the situation in Poland looks a bit better: a universal voucher system was instituted. People were allowed to deposit their shares with 14 management funds. These funds also bought some of the shares, making them part owners. They control now 500 enterprises, which make up 5% of the country's GNP. Some of these funds are 50% foreign owned, so their management and moral standards are Western. But, even there, rumours abound and not only rumours. So, what is better - privatization or transformation? Maybe the lesson is that we are all human. There is no method immune to human fallacies and desires, to corruption or to allegations of it. Transformation tends to benefit more people - so, maybe it looks more just. But long term it is inefficient and leads to the ruining of the firms involved and to permanent damage both to the economy and to the workers-owners. Is it better to be the owner of a bankrupt firm - or to work in a functioning firm, where you have no ownership stake? This is not an ideological or a philosophical question. Ask the employees of the Pelagonija Construction Group. Privatization, on the other hand, is much more open to manipulation - but at least it secures the continued existence of the firms and the continuous employment of the workers. Sometimes, in economic reality, we have to give up justice (or the appearance of it) - in order to secure the very survival of the workers involved. I, personally, prefer privatization over transformation.
Sam Vaknin is the author of "Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited" and "After the Rain - How the West Lost the East". He is a columnist in "Central Europe Review", United Press International (UPI) and ebookweb.org and the editor of mental health and Central East Europe categories in The Open Directory, Suite101 and searcheurope.com. Until recently, he served as the Economic Advisor to the Government of Macedonia.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/32556
But the privatization process was not entirely homogeneous, uniform, transparent, or, for that matter, fair.
The stock of some of the enterprises was sold to an individual, or group of individuals, by a direct, negotiated sale. A "controlling stake" (nucleus) was thus sold, ostensibly yielding to the state a premium paid by the private investors for the control of the sold firm.
This method of privatization was criticized as "crony capitalism". For some reason, a select group of businessmen, all cronies of the ruling political elite, seemed to benefit the most. They bought the controlling stakes at unrealistically low prices, said the critics. To support their thesis, they pointed to the huge disparity between the price at which the "cronies" bought the shares - and the price at which they, later, sold it to the public through the stock exchange. The "cronies" cried foul: the difference in the prices was precisely because of privatization, better management and financial control. Maybe. But the recurrence of the same names in every major privatization deal still looked suspiciously odd.
Then there was the second version: selling the shares of the privatized firms directly to the public. This was done using either of two methods:
An offering of the shares in the stock exchange (a cash method), or
The distribution of vouchers universally, to all the adult citizens of the country, so that they could all share the wealth accumulated by the state in an equitable manner. The vouchers are convertible to baskets of shares in a prescribed list of state enterprises (a nonchash method).
But a smaller group of (smaller) countries selected a whole different way of privatizing. They chose to TRANSFORM the state-owned firm instead of subjecting them to outright privatization.
Transformation - the venue adopted by Macedonia - is the transfer of the control of a firm and / or the economic benefits accruing to its shareholders to groups which were previously - or still are - connected to the firm.
In this single respect, transformation constitutes a major departure - not to say deviation - from classical privatization.
Ownership of the transformed firm can revert to either of the following groups, or to a combination thereof:
The employees of the firm, through a process called Employee BuyOut (EBO)
The management of the firm, in the form of a Management BuyOut or Buy In (MBO / MBI)
A select group from within the firm. Such a group uses the assets - current and future - of the firm as collaterals, thus enabling them to get the credits necessary to purchase the shares of the firm. This is called a Leveraged BuyOut, because the assets of the firm itself are leveraged in order to purchase it (LBO).
Finally, the creditors of the firm can team up and agree to convert the firm's debts to them into equity in the firm, in a Debt to Equity Swap (DES).
Sometimes, the state continues to maintain an interest in privatized - as well as in transformed - firms. This is especially true for natural monopolies, utilities, infrastructure and defence industries. All the above are considered to be strategic matters of national interest. Some countries - Russia and Israel, for ones - continue to own a "Golden Share". This highly specific type of security allows the state to exercise decision making powers, veto powers, or, at least, control over business matters that it considers vital to its security, financial viability, or even to its traditions. Israel's golden share in the national air carrier, EI AI, allows it to prevent flights in and out during the religiously holy day of Sabbath! Until very recently the common (economic) wisdom in the West had it that Transformation was - in the best case - a sterile, make - believe exercise. The worst case included cronyism and corruption. One thing was to privatize and another was to privateer. But there were some grounds for some solid criticisms as well: (1) The main ideological thrust behind privatization was the revitalization of stale and degenerated state firm. Badly managed, wrongly financially controlled, applying an incoherent admixture of business and non business (political, social, geopolitical) considerations to their decision making process - state firm were considered as anachronistic as dinosaurs. Many preferred to see them as extinct as those ancient reptiles. An injection of private initiative acquired the status of ideological panacea to the corporate malaise of the public sector. But this is precisely what was missing in the Transformation version. It offered nothing new: no new management, no new ideas (were likely to come from the same old team) and, above all and as a direct result of this preference of old over new - no new capital. To this, the supporters of Transformation answer that the one thing which is new - personal capitalistic incentives - far outweighs all the old elements. Incentive driven initiative is likely to bring in its wake and to herald the transformation - in the most complete and realistic sense - of the state firm. Change, renovation and innovation - say the latter - are immediate by products of personal profit motivation, the most powerful known to Mankind. (2) The process of Transformation blurred the distinction between labour, management and ownership. Employees acted as potential managers and as co-owners in the newly transformed companies. The very concept of hierarchy, clear chains of authority (going down) and of responsibility (going up) - was violated. A ship must have one captain lest it sinks. It is not in vain that the management function was separated from the ownership function. Employees, managers and owners, all have differing views and differences of opinion concerning every possible aspect of corporate governance and the proper conduct of business. Employees want to maximize employment and the economic benefits attached to it - managers and shareholders wish to minimize this parameter and its effects on the corporation. Managers wish to maximize their compensation - employees and owners wish to minimize or moderate it, each group for its own, disparate reasons. This break in the "chain of command", this diffusive, fog like property of the newly transformed entity lead to dysfunction, financial mismanagement, lack of clarity of vision and of day to day operations, labour unrest (when the unrealistic expectations of the workforce are not met). So, at the beginning, during the 1980s, the West preferred to privatize state owned firms - rather than to transform them. A fast accumulating body of economic research demonstrated unambiguously that privatization did miracles to the privatized firms. In certain cases, productivity shot up 6 times. Between 60 to 80 percent of GNPs in the West are private now and a vigorous trend to privatize what remains of the public sector still persists. But the same studies revealed a less pleasant phenomenon: only a select group of businessmen benefited from privatization. The paranoid allusions of the critics of this process were completely substantiated. Something was very corrupted in implementation of the seemingly wholesome idea of privatization. The public - as a whole - economically suffered. This led to the emergence of a new social consciousness. It was provoked by the unacceptable social costs of capitalism: more people under the poverty line, homelessness, a radicalization in the inequity of the distribution of income among different strata of society. But this trend was enhanced by the apparent corruption of the privatization process. This new social consciousness converged with yet another all important and all pervasive trend: the formation of small businesses by small time entrepreneurs. The latter functioned both as owners and as employees in their firms. There were 16 million such owners-workers in the USA alone (1995 figures). About 99% of the 22 million registered businesses in the USA were small businesses. No economic planner or politician could ignore these figures. Employee owned firms became the majority in the service and advanced technology sectors of the economy - the fastest growing, most lucrative sectors. In its own way, as a result of these two trends, the West was moving back to transformation and away from privatization, away from separation of ownership and labour, away from differentiation between capital and workforce. This is a major revolution. The OECD (the organization of the richer countries in the world) established an institute which follows trends in the poorer parts of the world, politely called "Economies in Transition". This is the CCET. According to the CCET's latest report, privatization continues in an uneven pace throughout the former Eastern Bloc. Some countries nearly completed it. Others have claimed to have completed it - but haven't even started it in reality. Some countries - Macedonia amongst them - have sold the shares of state owned firms (=businesses with social capital) to managers and workers - but the managers and workers have largely not paid for these shares yet. It is by no means certain that they will. If the managers and workers default on their obligations to pay the state - the ownership of the company will revert back to the state. This is paper privatization, a transformation of expectations. No one can seriously claim that the transformation is completed before the new owners of the firms respect their financial obligations to the state. In all, privatization the world over, proceeded more rapidly with small firms. Selling the bigger firms was much more difficult. Most of this behemoths were composed of numerous profit centres and loss making business activities. A solidarity of accounts and guarantees existed between the various operations. The more profitable parts of a company supported and subsidized the less competent, the losing parts. This was not very attractive to investors. The official figures are heart warming. In parentheses - the percentage of firms privatized: Albania , Czech Republic , Estonia , Hungary , Lithuania, Poland and Slovakia all privatized 90% of their small firms. In Russia and Latvia, the figure is 70%. The picture is more clouded with the larger firms: Czech Republic (81%), Hungary, Estonia (75%), Lithuania (57%), Russia (55%), Latvia and Slovakia (46%), Mongolia (41%), Poland (32%), Moldavia (27%), Romania (13%), Belarus and Bulgaria (11%), Georgia (2%). But what hides behind the figures? The Czech Republic is infamous for its cronyism and for the massive transfer of wealth to the hands of a few people close to government circles. On the face of it, the situation in Poland looks a bit better: a universal voucher system was instituted. People were allowed to deposit their shares with 14 management funds. These funds also bought some of the shares, making them part owners. They control now 500 enterprises, which make up 5% of the country's GNP. Some of these funds are 50% foreign owned, so their management and moral standards are Western. But, even there, rumours abound and not only rumours. So, what is better - privatization or transformation? Maybe the lesson is that we are all human. There is no method immune to human fallacies and desires, to corruption or to allegations of it. Transformation tends to benefit more people - so, maybe it looks more just. But long term it is inefficient and leads to the ruining of the firms involved and to permanent damage both to the economy and to the workers-owners. Is it better to be the owner of a bankrupt firm - or to work in a functioning firm, where you have no ownership stake? This is not an ideological or a philosophical question. Ask the employees of the Pelagonija Construction Group. Privatization, on the other hand, is much more open to manipulation - but at least it secures the continued existence of the firms and the continuous employment of the workers. Sometimes, in economic reality, we have to give up justice (or the appearance of it) - in order to secure the very survival of the workers involved. I, personally, prefer privatization over transformation.
Sam Vaknin is the author of "Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited" and "After the Rain - How the West Lost the East". He is a columnist in "Central Europe Review", United Press International (UPI) and ebookweb.org and the editor of mental health and Central East Europe categories in The Open Directory, Suite101 and searcheurope.com. Until recently, he served as the Economic Advisor to the Government of Macedonia.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/32556
The Greatest Stedilnica Crisis in History
A crisis the size of the TAT crisis, is, inevitably, political. It involves thousands of citizens, many decision makers from every walk of life and the very economic and financial fabric of the country.
But, the TAT crisis pales in comparison with other, similar, crises in other countries in the world.
In Israel in 1983, ALL the banks collapsed on ONE October day, for instance!
The biggest crisis of savings and loans institutions (=Stedilnicas) in history happened in the USA in the years 1986-1987.
A Savings and Loans Association (SLA), or a THRIFT, was a strange banking hybrid, very much akin to the Building Societies in Britain. On the one hand, it was a sort of a bank, allowed to take in deposits. On the other hand, it was allowed to land money only to current or prospective homeowners on the basis of a mortgage on their house. It was really a mortgage bank and only that. This limitation on the nature of their asset portfolio, increased the risk associated with their lending. The SLAs could not diversify their portfolio into other kinds of assets and so were exposed to the vicissitudes of the residential real estate markets in their respective regions. Sure enough, when the real estate markets experienced a normal business cycle slump, the SLAs were disproportionately affected. Regional economic shocks (such as down spiralling commodity prices) rocked the value of real estate and the stability of these lending institutions. The coup de grace was delivered through the inordinately volatile interest rates. SLAs had to pay short term depositors high interest - while collecting lower income, in the form of interest payments on their old loans. This negative spread between the cost of funds and the assets' yield - eroded the operating margins of the SLAs. When they discovered that the securities that they were holding were much less valuable than the loans that they were intended to secure - panic ensued.
Hundreds of thousands of depositors crowded to draw their funds. Hundreds of SLAs (out of a total of more than 3,000) were rendered insolvent, unable to pay their depositors. They had to shut up their gates and were put to siege by angry - at times, violent - clients who lost their life savings.
The illiquidity spread like fire. One stedilnica after the other collapsed, leaving in their wake major financial crises, ruined businesses and homeowners, devastated communities. The crisis reached gigantic proportions and threatened the stability of the whole banking system all over the USA.
The Federal Savings and Loans Insurance Corporation (FSLIC) - which insured the deposits in SLAs - could no longer pay the claims and, in effect, went bankrupt. This single event had a chilling effect on the Federal government. True, the government did not guarantee the obligations of the FSLIC. Still, it was perceived to be an arm of the Federal Government and the public shock and outrage were beyond description.
So, the Federal Government was forced to step in. A hasty $300 billion (!) package was put in place to save what could still be saved. This was the first step, a right and proper reflex: the injection of liquidity through a special agency, the FHFB. Everyone involved postponed the mutual accusations, the criminal charges, the resignations and recriminations to a later stage. First and foremost the system had to be stabilized and it could be stabilized only through the restoration of public trust. Public trust could be restored only with money - and with a lot of it. The visible, unambiguous involvement of the top level authorities had a positive, long term effect. The "full faith and credit of the USA" was now behind the SLAs and that was good enough for everyone.
Now, that the storm was over, it was time for more farfetched, structural changes.
First, the supervision of banks and banking operations was taken from the Central Bank, the Federal Reserve. This separation of functions was long overdue: the Central Bank can hardly be expected to supervise a game the rules of which it dictates. There was bound to be a bias in its analysis of its "clients" (not to mention the close personal relationships fostered in years of common work).
Thus, the following complex structure emerged:
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) operates the Bank Insurance Fund (BIF) and the Savings Associations Insurance Fund (SAIF), separate insurance funds for banks and SLAs.
Banks pay premiums at one rate to BIF - SLAs pay at another to SAIF.
FDIC is designed to be independent in two ways. Its money comes from premiums and earnings of the two insurance funds, not from Congressional appropriations. Its board of directors has full authority to run the agency. The board has laws to follow, but no boss.
The FDIC regulates banks and SLAs with the aim to avoid insurance claims by depositors. When an institution becomes unsound, the FDIC can lend it money or take it over. If it takes over, it can run it and then sell it as a going concern. It has the authority to close it, pay off the depositors and try to collect the loans. Often the borrowers cannot pay, so the FDIC ends up owning collateral for loans, say real estate and trying to sell it.
The Resolution Trust Corporation (RTC) is a direct result of the SLAs scandal. Prior to 1989, SLAs were insured by the now-defunct FSLIC. The FDIC insured only banks. Congress had to eliminate FSLIC and put the insurance of SLAs under FDIC. Still, a great number of SLAs were regarded as "special risk" cases. They were given over to the jurisdiction of the RTC. It took over SLAs that failed under FSLIC and later - until August 1992. It operated and sold SLAs - or paid depositors and closed the relevant SLAs (just like the FDIC does). The money to finance the RTC came from bonds sold by a new government corporation (Resolution Fund Corporation, RefCorp). RTC ceased to effectively operate last year.
The Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS) was also established in 1989 and it also supervises SLAs.
This used to be the function of the Federal Home Loan Board (FHLB), which was dismantled by Congress in 1989. OTS is a department within the Treasury Department, but law and custom make it practically an independent agency. It supervises around 1500 thrifts with assets of circa 1 trillion Dollars.
The Federal Housing Finance Board (FHFB) regulates and examines SLAs - but with emphasis on their liquidity. It aids their financial stability through lines of credit from twelve regional Federal Home Loan Banks (FHLB). Those banks and the thrifts make up the Federal Home Loan Bank System (FHLBS). Many FHFB regulations are intended to make sure that SLAs lend for housing - the reason that Congress created this bank-like system, separated from the banks.
FHFB gets its funds from the System and is independent of executive branch supervision.
A host of other supervisory and regulatory agencies and treasury departments is involved in the American banking system. But at least one thing was achieved: a clear, streamlined, powerful regulatory hierarchy. SLAs (and banks, for this matter) utilized the confusion generated by the overlapping areas of activity and authority of the numerous previous agencies. No one agency had the full picture. Now, all became obvious: insurance was the FDIC's job, supervision was the OTS's and liquidity was the realm of the FHLB. This may, arguably, be the biggest benefit which stemmed from this, otherwise, nerve - wrecking crisis.
The process was not devoid of mistakes. Healthy thrifts were coaxed and cajoled to purchase less sturdy ones. This weakened their balance sheets considerably and the government reneged on its promises to allow them to amortize the goodwill element of the purchase over 40 years. Despite all this, the figures are unequivocal:
Thrifts numbered 2,898 in 1989. Six years later, their number shrank to 1,612 and it is forecast to go down to less than 1,000 at the turn of the millennium. A process of consolidation is evident: SLAs merge, become bigger, stronger, better capitalized. They resemble banks, in this sense.
This last development was so overwhelming, that Congress decided to demand that each SLAs should have a bank charter by the year 1998. Paradoxically, the very success of the SLAs in healing themselves led to their elimination. Why have two kinds of banks if all the operational parameters are equal? Why use two names, two separate insurance and supervision bureaucracies and two sets of regulations to monitor and regulate essentially the same kind of entities? This was absurd. While in the height of the crisis the ratio of the SLAs equity to their assets was less than 1% - it reached almost 10% (!) in 1994 - better even than banks.
This remarkable turnarounds (one of the most stunning in human financial history) was brought about by serendipity as much as by careful planning. Interest rate spreads became highly positive (SLAs were able to collect interest - for, instance, by investing in government securities - which was much higher than the interest that they paid for their sources). The stock exchanges soared and enabled the SLAs to offer new stock at excellent prices. This, together with the persistent pruning of the weeds in the field of good SLAs, with downsizing of the bloated bureaucracies of the SLAs and with the on going consolidation process - led to the revitalization of these banking institutions.
The overall banking markets shrank as other types of financial intermediaries joined the fray - but the health of the SLAs was guaranteed.
As this new found health became more and more evident, the legislative bodies eased up. Congress began to implement the gradual repeal of the draconian Glas-Steagall law (which forbade banks from dealing with a whole range of financial activities). They realized that the more diversified the financial institution is - the healthier it is likely to be. Limiting a bank to certain types of assets or to a certain geographical location was dangerous. Congress began, therefore, to lift these restrictions.
One element need not be neglected in this discourse: the relative absence of political intervention in the handling of the crisis. It was managed by the Federal Reserve - an able, utterly professional, blatantly a-political body. This is the most autonomous central bank in the world. It is never afraid to face the two biggest powers in the world: the President of the USA and Public Opinion - and it does this often. It thrives not on conflict but on the proper, impartial management of the economy.
This, by all means, is the biggest lesson to be learnt.
Sam Vaknin is the author of "Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited" and "After the Rain - How the West Lost the East". He is a columnist in "Central Europe Review", United Press International (UPI) and ebookweb.org and the editor of mental health and Central East Europe categories in The Open Directory, Suite101 and searcheurope.com. Until recently, he served as the Economic Advisor to the Government of Macedonia.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/32551
But, the TAT crisis pales in comparison with other, similar, crises in other countries in the world.
In Israel in 1983, ALL the banks collapsed on ONE October day, for instance!
The biggest crisis of savings and loans institutions (=Stedilnicas) in history happened in the USA in the years 1986-1987.
A Savings and Loans Association (SLA), or a THRIFT, was a strange banking hybrid, very much akin to the Building Societies in Britain. On the one hand, it was a sort of a bank, allowed to take in deposits. On the other hand, it was allowed to land money only to current or prospective homeowners on the basis of a mortgage on their house. It was really a mortgage bank and only that. This limitation on the nature of their asset portfolio, increased the risk associated with their lending. The SLAs could not diversify their portfolio into other kinds of assets and so were exposed to the vicissitudes of the residential real estate markets in their respective regions. Sure enough, when the real estate markets experienced a normal business cycle slump, the SLAs were disproportionately affected. Regional economic shocks (such as down spiralling commodity prices) rocked the value of real estate and the stability of these lending institutions. The coup de grace was delivered through the inordinately volatile interest rates. SLAs had to pay short term depositors high interest - while collecting lower income, in the form of interest payments on their old loans. This negative spread between the cost of funds and the assets' yield - eroded the operating margins of the SLAs. When they discovered that the securities that they were holding were much less valuable than the loans that they were intended to secure - panic ensued.
Hundreds of thousands of depositors crowded to draw their funds. Hundreds of SLAs (out of a total of more than 3,000) were rendered insolvent, unable to pay their depositors. They had to shut up their gates and were put to siege by angry - at times, violent - clients who lost their life savings.
The illiquidity spread like fire. One stedilnica after the other collapsed, leaving in their wake major financial crises, ruined businesses and homeowners, devastated communities. The crisis reached gigantic proportions and threatened the stability of the whole banking system all over the USA.
The Federal Savings and Loans Insurance Corporation (FSLIC) - which insured the deposits in SLAs - could no longer pay the claims and, in effect, went bankrupt. This single event had a chilling effect on the Federal government. True, the government did not guarantee the obligations of the FSLIC. Still, it was perceived to be an arm of the Federal Government and the public shock and outrage were beyond description.
So, the Federal Government was forced to step in. A hasty $300 billion (!) package was put in place to save what could still be saved. This was the first step, a right and proper reflex: the injection of liquidity through a special agency, the FHFB. Everyone involved postponed the mutual accusations, the criminal charges, the resignations and recriminations to a later stage. First and foremost the system had to be stabilized and it could be stabilized only through the restoration of public trust. Public trust could be restored only with money - and with a lot of it. The visible, unambiguous involvement of the top level authorities had a positive, long term effect. The "full faith and credit of the USA" was now behind the SLAs and that was good enough for everyone.
Now, that the storm was over, it was time for more farfetched, structural changes.
First, the supervision of banks and banking operations was taken from the Central Bank, the Federal Reserve. This separation of functions was long overdue: the Central Bank can hardly be expected to supervise a game the rules of which it dictates. There was bound to be a bias in its analysis of its "clients" (not to mention the close personal relationships fostered in years of common work).
Thus, the following complex structure emerged:
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) operates the Bank Insurance Fund (BIF) and the Savings Associations Insurance Fund (SAIF), separate insurance funds for banks and SLAs.
Banks pay premiums at one rate to BIF - SLAs pay at another to SAIF.
FDIC is designed to be independent in two ways. Its money comes from premiums and earnings of the two insurance funds, not from Congressional appropriations. Its board of directors has full authority to run the agency. The board has laws to follow, but no boss.
The FDIC regulates banks and SLAs with the aim to avoid insurance claims by depositors. When an institution becomes unsound, the FDIC can lend it money or take it over. If it takes over, it can run it and then sell it as a going concern. It has the authority to close it, pay off the depositors and try to collect the loans. Often the borrowers cannot pay, so the FDIC ends up owning collateral for loans, say real estate and trying to sell it.
The Resolution Trust Corporation (RTC) is a direct result of the SLAs scandal. Prior to 1989, SLAs were insured by the now-defunct FSLIC. The FDIC insured only banks. Congress had to eliminate FSLIC and put the insurance of SLAs under FDIC. Still, a great number of SLAs were regarded as "special risk" cases. They were given over to the jurisdiction of the RTC. It took over SLAs that failed under FSLIC and later - until August 1992. It operated and sold SLAs - or paid depositors and closed the relevant SLAs (just like the FDIC does). The money to finance the RTC came from bonds sold by a new government corporation (Resolution Fund Corporation, RefCorp). RTC ceased to effectively operate last year.
The Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS) was also established in 1989 and it also supervises SLAs.
This used to be the function of the Federal Home Loan Board (FHLB), which was dismantled by Congress in 1989. OTS is a department within the Treasury Department, but law and custom make it practically an independent agency. It supervises around 1500 thrifts with assets of circa 1 trillion Dollars.
The Federal Housing Finance Board (FHFB) regulates and examines SLAs - but with emphasis on their liquidity. It aids their financial stability through lines of credit from twelve regional Federal Home Loan Banks (FHLB). Those banks and the thrifts make up the Federal Home Loan Bank System (FHLBS). Many FHFB regulations are intended to make sure that SLAs lend for housing - the reason that Congress created this bank-like system, separated from the banks.
FHFB gets its funds from the System and is independent of executive branch supervision.
A host of other supervisory and regulatory agencies and treasury departments is involved in the American banking system. But at least one thing was achieved: a clear, streamlined, powerful regulatory hierarchy. SLAs (and banks, for this matter) utilized the confusion generated by the overlapping areas of activity and authority of the numerous previous agencies. No one agency had the full picture. Now, all became obvious: insurance was the FDIC's job, supervision was the OTS's and liquidity was the realm of the FHLB. This may, arguably, be the biggest benefit which stemmed from this, otherwise, nerve - wrecking crisis.
The process was not devoid of mistakes. Healthy thrifts were coaxed and cajoled to purchase less sturdy ones. This weakened their balance sheets considerably and the government reneged on its promises to allow them to amortize the goodwill element of the purchase over 40 years. Despite all this, the figures are unequivocal:
Thrifts numbered 2,898 in 1989. Six years later, their number shrank to 1,612 and it is forecast to go down to less than 1,000 at the turn of the millennium. A process of consolidation is evident: SLAs merge, become bigger, stronger, better capitalized. They resemble banks, in this sense.
This last development was so overwhelming, that Congress decided to demand that each SLAs should have a bank charter by the year 1998. Paradoxically, the very success of the SLAs in healing themselves led to their elimination. Why have two kinds of banks if all the operational parameters are equal? Why use two names, two separate insurance and supervision bureaucracies and two sets of regulations to monitor and regulate essentially the same kind of entities? This was absurd. While in the height of the crisis the ratio of the SLAs equity to their assets was less than 1% - it reached almost 10% (!) in 1994 - better even than banks.
This remarkable turnarounds (one of the most stunning in human financial history) was brought about by serendipity as much as by careful planning. Interest rate spreads became highly positive (SLAs were able to collect interest - for, instance, by investing in government securities - which was much higher than the interest that they paid for their sources). The stock exchanges soared and enabled the SLAs to offer new stock at excellent prices. This, together with the persistent pruning of the weeds in the field of good SLAs, with downsizing of the bloated bureaucracies of the SLAs and with the on going consolidation process - led to the revitalization of these banking institutions.
The overall banking markets shrank as other types of financial intermediaries joined the fray - but the health of the SLAs was guaranteed.
As this new found health became more and more evident, the legislative bodies eased up. Congress began to implement the gradual repeal of the draconian Glas-Steagall law (which forbade banks from dealing with a whole range of financial activities). They realized that the more diversified the financial institution is - the healthier it is likely to be. Limiting a bank to certain types of assets or to a certain geographical location was dangerous. Congress began, therefore, to lift these restrictions.
One element need not be neglected in this discourse: the relative absence of political intervention in the handling of the crisis. It was managed by the Federal Reserve - an able, utterly professional, blatantly a-political body. This is the most autonomous central bank in the world. It is never afraid to face the two biggest powers in the world: the President of the USA and Public Opinion - and it does this often. It thrives not on conflict but on the proper, impartial management of the economy.
This, by all means, is the biggest lesson to be learnt.
Sam Vaknin is the author of "Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited" and "After the Rain - How the West Lost the East". He is a columnist in "Central Europe Review", United Press International (UPI) and ebookweb.org and the editor of mental health and Central East Europe categories in The Open Directory, Suite101 and searcheurope.com. Until recently, he served as the Economic Advisor to the Government of Macedonia.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/32551
Infrastructure and Prosperity
In the past, if you mentioned the word "infrastructure", the verbal reflex would be: "physical". Infrastructure was roads, telephone lines, ports, airports and other very tangible country spanning things. Many things were added to this category as time went by, but they all preserved the tangibility requirements - even electricity and means of communication were measured by their physical manifestations: lines, poles, distances.
Today, we distinguish three additional categories of infrastructure which were unbeknownst to our forefathers:
Social infrastructure - laws, social institutions and agencies, social stratification, demographic elements and other social structures, formal and informal.
It is amazing to think that previously no one thought of the legal codex as infrastructure. It has all the hallmarks of infrastructure: it spans all the country, it dynamically develops on the basis of a previous strata, without it no goal oriented human activity (such as the conduct of business) is possible. A foreign investors is more interested in the answer to the question whether his property rights are protected under the law - than in the availability and accessibility of electricity lines.
He can always buy a generator and produce his own electricity - but he can never enact his own laws unilaterally. A local citizen is bound to encounter the law (or resort to it) sometime in his life - even if he never travels a road or uses a telephone.
The second category of infrastructure is the human infrastructure. What is the mentality of the people? Are they lazy, industrious, submissive, used to improvise, work in groups, individuals, rebellious, inventive or stifled and so on? Are they conservative, open to the world, xenophobic, ethnically radicalized, likely to use brute force to settle disputes? Are they ignorant, educated, technologically oriented, consume information or reject it, trustful and trustworthy or suspicious and resentful?
An educated workforce is as much an infrastructure as any phone line.
The last category of infrastructure is the information infrastructure. It is all the infrastructure which tackles the manipulation of symbols of all kinds : the accumulation of data, it processing and its dissemination. Words are symbols - but so is money and computer bytes. So banks, computers, Internet linkups, WANs and LANs (Wide and local area computer networks), standardized accounting, other standards for gods and services - all these are examples of the information infrastructure.
The development of all these infrastructures is intimately linked. They usually develop almost concurrently. They form feedback loops. The slow or hindered development of one of them will disturb all the others.
This is really quite easy to understand. If the workforce is not educated, it will not be keen on the manipulation of data and symbols. It will buy less computers, use the Internet less, bank less and so on. This, in turn, will reduce the need for phone lines, office buildings and so on. There seems to be an "infrastructure multiplier".
This multiplier is a two way street: an increase or decrease in each type of infrastructure adversely or positively influences the others.
The West is in dire need of infrastructure itself. Its infrastructure is either old and crumbling - or overloaded and crumbling. Roads in large parts of the USA are in poorer condition than roads in many countries in Africa. America-On-Line, a major Internet provider was unable to provide services to its customers in the last few weeks because communication lines in the USA were totally blocked. Certain places in Israel could receive television signals only in the last few years, as infrastructure reached them. Infrastructure is a universal problem.
No surprise that the West invests in the infrastructure in developing countries in two venues only:
Through international finance organizations (such as the World Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development). The terms and conditions of this kind of financing are very lenient. Those are really grants more than credits.
The implementation of these infrastructural projects is awarded to contractors through international tenders, wherein bids are submitted from the world over.
Rarely, a local firm outbids its better financed, better equipped and better motivated first world rivals. Local firms usually have the lower hand.
The other possibility is that multinational firms get involved. But this kind of financing comes with a lot of strings attached. The multinationals expect to get back both their investment and a reasonable return on it. They come heavily subsidized by the governments of their countries. Their contribution to the local economy, during the construction of the infrastructure, is fleeting, at best. They prefer to employ their own crews and equipment. They do not trust the locals too much or too often.
But whichever way the infrastructure is created, problems arise to the host country.
International, multilateral, finance organizations inevitably think on a global scale.
They invest in infrastructure only if and when it services - or has the potential to service in the larger scheme of things - a cluster of neighbouring countries.
Clear benefits to regional groupings of countries has to be unequivocally demonstrated. Such finance organizations will forever prefer to invest in a cross-border highway. They will neglect, overlook, or outrightly reject an investment in a much needed local road, for instance. The benefit to the domestic economy of the local road could be appreciatively more sizeable. Still, the international fund would encourage the cross border highway. This is its charter - to promote multilateral investments - and this is what it does best. The interests of the host country are a secondary consideration.
On the other hand, the private sector invests only in countries with well developed infrastructure in all the aforementioned categories. That this is a tautology, no one seems to notice. If the infrastructure is already developed - an investment is not needed. When it is needed, the private sector will not supply it, unless it is already developed. The result is that proper investments of the private sector - not subsidized, not partial, not correlated by international funding - is limited to the developed, industrial world.
Research discovered four disadvantages of countries with under-developed infrastructure:
Such countries suffer from interminable bottlenecks in all the levels of economic activity, especially in the production phase and in the transportation of raw materials to the factories and of finished products from them to the marketplace.
This adversely affects the availability of the domestic product both in the domestic and in the foreign markets. Agricultural produce is most affected but, to a lesser extent, so are industrial goods. If the infrastructural problem is with lines of communication, the service sector is harmed and cannot provide its products (the services) to its customers.
A second issue is the distortion of the price mechanism. Prices are heightened due to the resources wasted on trying to overcome problems in infrastructure. Prices are supposed to reflect inputs and values and thus to assist the markets to optimally allocate its resources. If the prices reflect other, unrelated, issues - then they are distorted and they distort the economic activity.
The third problem is that a disadvantage of a country - is an advantage to its competitors, rivals, neighbours and enemies. Other countries, with better infrastructure benefit : they attract more foreign investment, they conduct more business, they export more, they have lower inflation (cheaper prices) and their economy is not distorted by irrelevant, ulterior, non business considerations.
The fourth - and maybe largest and longest term - handicap is when the country's image is affected. Infrastructure is much easier to fix than a country's image. If the country acquires a reputation of a mere transit area, an underdeveloped, inefficient, non productive, hopeless case - it will suffer greatly until this is amended. This - the image - has the gravest possible consequences: repelled investors, reluctant financiers, frightened bankers, disgusted foreign investors. All this amounts to an ex communication of the country.
There are eight known solution to the problems of a country with underdeveloped infrastructure:
It can start by privatizing its infrastructure (commencing with its energy and telecommunications sectors, which are the most attractive to foreign and domestic private investors alike).
Then, it can allow the business sector to operate parts of the national infrastructure. The usual arrangement is that the business sector invests in creating the infrastructure and then collects a fee for operating and maintaining it. The fees collected are large enough to cover both the investment and the maintenance costs. The most famous example are toll roads which are constructed by private sector firms.
Another way is to commercialize the infrastructure (to collect fees for using the telephony network, or highways) and to ploughback the proceeds exclusively into projects of infrastructure. Thus, all the income generated by cars passing in a highway will be dedicated to the construction of additional highways and not be funnelled to the general budget.
The fourth method is to adapt the prices of using the infrastructure to the real costs of constructing and of operating it. In most developing countries, consumers pay only a fraction of these real costs. Prices are heavily subsidized and the infrastructure is left to decay and rot away. This, obviously, is a political decision to be taken by the political echelons. In many countries it could create social unrest and have severe political ramifications.
The country could condition investments in multilateral infrastructure projects upon investments in its own, local infrastructure. A multinational firm wishing to invest in a highway (thus reaping considerable cash rewards) - should invest a portion of the future profits in local roads and other forms of infrastructure. A multinational fund which is interested to invest in a telecommunications project connecting three countries, must oblige itself to a "local investment" clause, a "local content purchase" clause or an "offset" (the purchase of local goods against any import of goods connected to the project to the country) clause.
The country must open its markets to domestic and foreign competition by de-regulating itself. It must dismantle trade barriers : tariffs, quotas, restrictions, anti-investment regulations, restrictive standardization and so on. Competition will both lower the costs of the infrastructure and improve its quality, as rival firms will strive to supply more value at less price.
An important condition is that the country does not promote one kind of infrastructure over another. All categories of infrastructure should be simultaneously and similarly stimulated. This will carry favour with the international business community and is bound to alter the image of the country for the better. It will also create a positive feedback loop whereby an improvement in one category of infrastructure will yield improvements in all the others.
Last - but far from being least - the country must promote international agreements which will facilitate reductions in the costs of cross-boundary transport of goods, services and information, packaged no matter in which form. Less documentation, less one sided fees, less bureaucracy - will reduce the costs of businesses and the total damage to the national economy. The less encumbered by red tape - the more a country tends to prosper.
Sam Vaknin is the author of "Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited" and "After the Rain - How the West Lost the East". He is a columnist in "Central Europe Review", United Press International (UPI) and ebookweb.org and the editor of mental health and Central East Europe categories in The Open Directory, Suite101 and searcheurope.com. Until recently, he served as the Economic Advisor to the Government of Macedonia.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/32554
Today, we distinguish three additional categories of infrastructure which were unbeknownst to our forefathers:
Social infrastructure - laws, social institutions and agencies, social stratification, demographic elements and other social structures, formal and informal.
It is amazing to think that previously no one thought of the legal codex as infrastructure. It has all the hallmarks of infrastructure: it spans all the country, it dynamically develops on the basis of a previous strata, without it no goal oriented human activity (such as the conduct of business) is possible. A foreign investors is more interested in the answer to the question whether his property rights are protected under the law - than in the availability and accessibility of electricity lines.
He can always buy a generator and produce his own electricity - but he can never enact his own laws unilaterally. A local citizen is bound to encounter the law (or resort to it) sometime in his life - even if he never travels a road or uses a telephone.
The second category of infrastructure is the human infrastructure. What is the mentality of the people? Are they lazy, industrious, submissive, used to improvise, work in groups, individuals, rebellious, inventive or stifled and so on? Are they conservative, open to the world, xenophobic, ethnically radicalized, likely to use brute force to settle disputes? Are they ignorant, educated, technologically oriented, consume information or reject it, trustful and trustworthy or suspicious and resentful?
An educated workforce is as much an infrastructure as any phone line.
The last category of infrastructure is the information infrastructure. It is all the infrastructure which tackles the manipulation of symbols of all kinds : the accumulation of data, it processing and its dissemination. Words are symbols - but so is money and computer bytes. So banks, computers, Internet linkups, WANs and LANs (Wide and local area computer networks), standardized accounting, other standards for gods and services - all these are examples of the information infrastructure.
The development of all these infrastructures is intimately linked. They usually develop almost concurrently. They form feedback loops. The slow or hindered development of one of them will disturb all the others.
This is really quite easy to understand. If the workforce is not educated, it will not be keen on the manipulation of data and symbols. It will buy less computers, use the Internet less, bank less and so on. This, in turn, will reduce the need for phone lines, office buildings and so on. There seems to be an "infrastructure multiplier".
This multiplier is a two way street: an increase or decrease in each type of infrastructure adversely or positively influences the others.
The West is in dire need of infrastructure itself. Its infrastructure is either old and crumbling - or overloaded and crumbling. Roads in large parts of the USA are in poorer condition than roads in many countries in Africa. America-On-Line, a major Internet provider was unable to provide services to its customers in the last few weeks because communication lines in the USA were totally blocked. Certain places in Israel could receive television signals only in the last few years, as infrastructure reached them. Infrastructure is a universal problem.
No surprise that the West invests in the infrastructure in developing countries in two venues only:
Through international finance organizations (such as the World Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development). The terms and conditions of this kind of financing are very lenient. Those are really grants more than credits.
The implementation of these infrastructural projects is awarded to contractors through international tenders, wherein bids are submitted from the world over.
Rarely, a local firm outbids its better financed, better equipped and better motivated first world rivals. Local firms usually have the lower hand.
The other possibility is that multinational firms get involved. But this kind of financing comes with a lot of strings attached. The multinationals expect to get back both their investment and a reasonable return on it. They come heavily subsidized by the governments of their countries. Their contribution to the local economy, during the construction of the infrastructure, is fleeting, at best. They prefer to employ their own crews and equipment. They do not trust the locals too much or too often.
But whichever way the infrastructure is created, problems arise to the host country.
International, multilateral, finance organizations inevitably think on a global scale.
They invest in infrastructure only if and when it services - or has the potential to service in the larger scheme of things - a cluster of neighbouring countries.
Clear benefits to regional groupings of countries has to be unequivocally demonstrated. Such finance organizations will forever prefer to invest in a cross-border highway. They will neglect, overlook, or outrightly reject an investment in a much needed local road, for instance. The benefit to the domestic economy of the local road could be appreciatively more sizeable. Still, the international fund would encourage the cross border highway. This is its charter - to promote multilateral investments - and this is what it does best. The interests of the host country are a secondary consideration.
On the other hand, the private sector invests only in countries with well developed infrastructure in all the aforementioned categories. That this is a tautology, no one seems to notice. If the infrastructure is already developed - an investment is not needed. When it is needed, the private sector will not supply it, unless it is already developed. The result is that proper investments of the private sector - not subsidized, not partial, not correlated by international funding - is limited to the developed, industrial world.
Research discovered four disadvantages of countries with under-developed infrastructure:
Such countries suffer from interminable bottlenecks in all the levels of economic activity, especially in the production phase and in the transportation of raw materials to the factories and of finished products from them to the marketplace.
This adversely affects the availability of the domestic product both in the domestic and in the foreign markets. Agricultural produce is most affected but, to a lesser extent, so are industrial goods. If the infrastructural problem is with lines of communication, the service sector is harmed and cannot provide its products (the services) to its customers.
A second issue is the distortion of the price mechanism. Prices are heightened due to the resources wasted on trying to overcome problems in infrastructure. Prices are supposed to reflect inputs and values and thus to assist the markets to optimally allocate its resources. If the prices reflect other, unrelated, issues - then they are distorted and they distort the economic activity.
The third problem is that a disadvantage of a country - is an advantage to its competitors, rivals, neighbours and enemies. Other countries, with better infrastructure benefit : they attract more foreign investment, they conduct more business, they export more, they have lower inflation (cheaper prices) and their economy is not distorted by irrelevant, ulterior, non business considerations.
The fourth - and maybe largest and longest term - handicap is when the country's image is affected. Infrastructure is much easier to fix than a country's image. If the country acquires a reputation of a mere transit area, an underdeveloped, inefficient, non productive, hopeless case - it will suffer greatly until this is amended. This - the image - has the gravest possible consequences: repelled investors, reluctant financiers, frightened bankers, disgusted foreign investors. All this amounts to an ex communication of the country.
There are eight known solution to the problems of a country with underdeveloped infrastructure:
It can start by privatizing its infrastructure (commencing with its energy and telecommunications sectors, which are the most attractive to foreign and domestic private investors alike).
Then, it can allow the business sector to operate parts of the national infrastructure. The usual arrangement is that the business sector invests in creating the infrastructure and then collects a fee for operating and maintaining it. The fees collected are large enough to cover both the investment and the maintenance costs. The most famous example are toll roads which are constructed by private sector firms.
Another way is to commercialize the infrastructure (to collect fees for using the telephony network, or highways) and to ploughback the proceeds exclusively into projects of infrastructure. Thus, all the income generated by cars passing in a highway will be dedicated to the construction of additional highways and not be funnelled to the general budget.
The fourth method is to adapt the prices of using the infrastructure to the real costs of constructing and of operating it. In most developing countries, consumers pay only a fraction of these real costs. Prices are heavily subsidized and the infrastructure is left to decay and rot away. This, obviously, is a political decision to be taken by the political echelons. In many countries it could create social unrest and have severe political ramifications.
The country could condition investments in multilateral infrastructure projects upon investments in its own, local infrastructure. A multinational firm wishing to invest in a highway (thus reaping considerable cash rewards) - should invest a portion of the future profits in local roads and other forms of infrastructure. A multinational fund which is interested to invest in a telecommunications project connecting three countries, must oblige itself to a "local investment" clause, a "local content purchase" clause or an "offset" (the purchase of local goods against any import of goods connected to the project to the country) clause.
The country must open its markets to domestic and foreign competition by de-regulating itself. It must dismantle trade barriers : tariffs, quotas, restrictions, anti-investment regulations, restrictive standardization and so on. Competition will both lower the costs of the infrastructure and improve its quality, as rival firms will strive to supply more value at less price.
An important condition is that the country does not promote one kind of infrastructure over another. All categories of infrastructure should be simultaneously and similarly stimulated. This will carry favour with the international business community and is bound to alter the image of the country for the better. It will also create a positive feedback loop whereby an improvement in one category of infrastructure will yield improvements in all the others.
Last - but far from being least - the country must promote international agreements which will facilitate reductions in the costs of cross-boundary transport of goods, services and information, packaged no matter in which form. Less documentation, less one sided fees, less bureaucracy - will reduce the costs of businesses and the total damage to the national economy. The less encumbered by red tape - the more a country tends to prosper.
Sam Vaknin is the author of "Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited" and "After the Rain - How the West Lost the East". He is a columnist in "Central Europe Review", United Press International (UPI) and ebookweb.org and the editor of mental health and Central East Europe categories in The Open Directory, Suite101 and searcheurope.com. Until recently, he served as the Economic Advisor to the Government of Macedonia.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/32554
The Sickly State of Public Hospitals
There are many types of hospitals but the most well known are the Public Hospitals. What sets them apart is that they provide services to the indigent (people without means) and to minorities.
Historically, public hospitals started as correction and welfare centres. They were poorhouses run by the church and attached to medical schools. A full cycle ensued: communities established their own hospitals which were later taken over by regional authorities and governments - only to be returned to the management of communities nowadays. Between 1978 and 1995 a 25% decline ensued in the number of public hospitals and those remaining were transformed to small, rural facilities.
In the USA, less than one third of the hospitals are in cities and only 15% had more than 200 beds. The 100 largest hospitals averaged 581 beds.
A debate rages in the West: should healthcare be completely privatized - or should a segment of it be left in public hands?
Public hospitals are in dire financial straits. 65% of the patients do not pay for medical services received by them. The public hospitals have a legal obligation to treat all. Some patients are insured by national medical insurance plans (such as Medicare/Medicaid in the USA, NHS in Britain). Others are insured by community plans.
The other problem is that this kind of patients consumes less or non profitable services. The service mix is flawed: trauma care, drugs, HIV and obstetrics treatments are prevalent - long, patently loss making services.
The more lucrative ones are tackled by private healthcare providers: hi tech and specialized services (cardiac surgery, diagnostic imagery).
Public hospitals are forced to provide "culturally competent care": social services, child welfare. These are money losing operations from which private facilities can abstain. Based on research, we can safely say that private, for profit hospitals, discriminate against publicly insured patients. They prefer young, growing, families and healthier patients. The latter gravitate out of the public system, leaving it to become an enclave of poor, chronically sick patients.
This, in turn, makes it difficult for the public system to attract human and financial resources. It is becoming more and more destitute.
Poor people are poor voters and they make for very little political power.
Public hospitals operate in an hostile environment: budget reductions, the rapid proliferation of competing healthcare alternatives with a much better image and the fashion of privatization (even of safety net institutions).
Public hospitals are heavily dependent on state funding. Governments foot the bulk of the healthcare bill. Public and private healthcare providers pursue this money. In the USA, potential consumers organized themselves in Healthcare Maintenance Organizations (HMOs). The HMO negotiates with providers (=hospitals, clinics, pharmacies) to obtain volume discounts and the best rates through negotiations. Public hospitals - underfunded as they are - are not in the position to offer them what they want. So, they lose patients to private hospitals.
But public hospitals are also to blame for their situation.
They have not implemented standards of accountability. They make no routine statistical measurements of their effectiveness and productivity: wait times, financial reporting and the extent of network development. As even governments are transformed from "dumb providers" to "smart purchasers", public hospitals must reconfigure, change ownership (privatize, lease their facilities long term), or perish. Currently, these institutions are (often unjustly) charged with faulty financial management (the fees charged for their services are unrealistically low), substandard, inefficient care, heavy labour unionization, bloated bureaucracy and no incentives to improve performance and productivity. No wonder there is talk about abolishing the "brick and mortar" infrastructure (=closing the public hospitals) and replacing it with a virtual one (=geographically portable medical insurance).
To be sure, there are counterarguments:
The private sector is unwilling and unable to absorb the load of patients of the public sector. It is not legally obligated to do so and the marketing arms of the various HMOs are interested mainly in the healthiest patients.
These discriminatory practices wreaked havoc and chaos (not to mention corruption and irregularities) on the communities that phased out the public hospitals - and phased in the private ones.
True enough, governments perform poorly as cost conscious purchasers of medical services. It is also true that they lack the resources to reach a substantial segment of the uninsured (through subsidized expansions of insurance plans).
40,000,000 people in the USA have no medical insurance - and a million more are added annually. But, there is no data to support the contention that public hospitals provide inferior care at a higher cost - and, indisputably, they possess unique experience in caring for low income populations (both medically and socially).
So, in the absence of facts, the arguments really boil down to philosophy. Is healthcare a fundamental human right - or is it a commodity to be subjected to the invisible hand of the marketplace? Should prices serve as the mechanism of optimal allocation of healthcare resources - or are there other, less quantifiable, parameters to consider?
Whatever the philosophical predilection, a reform is a must. It should include the following elements:
Public hospitals should be governed by healthcare management experts who will emphasize clinical and fiscal considerations over political ones. This should be coupled with the vesting of authority with hospitals, taking it back from local government. Hospitals could be organized as (public benefit) corporations with enhanced autonomy to avoid today's debilitating dual effects: politics and bureaucracy. They could organize themselves as Not for Profit Organizations with independent, self perpetuating boards of directors.
But all this can come about only with increased public accountability and with clear measuring, using clear quantitative criteria, of the use of funds dedicated to the public missions of public hospitals. Hospitals could start by revamping their compensation structures to increase both pay and financial incentives to the staff.
Current one-fits-all compensation systems deter talented people. Pay must be linked to objectively measured criteria. The Hospital's top management should receive a bonus when the hospital is accredited by the state, when wait times are improved, when disrollment rates go down and when more services are provided.
To implement this (mainly mental) revolution, the management of public hospitals should be trained to use rigorous financial controls, to improve customer service, to re-engineer processes and to negotiate agreements and commercial transactions.
The staff must be employed through written employment contracts with clear severance provisions that will allow the management to take commercial risks.
Clear goals must be defined and met. Public hospitals must improve continuity of care, expand primary care capacity, reduce lengths of stay (=increase turnaround) and meet budgetary constraints imposed both by the state and by patient groups or their insurance companies.
All this cannot be achieved without the full collaboration of the physicians employed by the hospitals. Hospitals in the USA form business joint ventures with their own physicians (PHO - Physicians Hospital Organizations). They benefit together from the implementation of reforms and by the increase of productivity. It is estimated that productivity today is 40% less in the public sector than in the private one. This is a dubious estimate: the patient populations are different (sicker people in the public sector). But even if the figure is incorrect - the essence is: public hospitals are less efficient.
They are less efficient because of archaic scheduling of patient-doctor appointments, laboratory tests and surgeries, because of obsolete or non-existent information systems, because of long turnaround times and because of redundant lab tests and medical procedures. The support - which exists in private hospitals - from other (clinical and nonclinical) personnel is absent because of impossibly complex labour rules and job descriptions imposed by the unions. Most of the doctors have split loyalties between the medical schools in which they teach and the various hospital affiliates. They would tend to neglect the voluntary affiliates and contribute more to the prestigious ones. Public hospitals would, therefore, be well advised to hire new staff, not from medical schools, share risks with its physicians through joint ventures, sign contracts with pay based on productivity and put physicians in the governing boards. In general, the hospitals must shrink and re-engineer the workforce. About half the budget is normally spent on labour costs in private hospitals - and more than 70% in public ones. It is no good to reduce the workforce through natural attrition, mass layoffs, or severance incentives. These are "blind", nondiscriminating measures which affect the quality of the care provided by the hospital. When compounded by work rules, seniority systems, job title structures and skewed grievance procedures - the situation can get completely out of hand.
The government must contribute its part. Public hospitals cannot comply or compete with the demands of national, publicly traded HMOs with political clout and the capacity to raise capital to finance hyper-sophisticated marketing. Public policy must be written to support "safety net" institutions. They must be allowed to organize their own MCOs (Managed Care Organizations of patients), to insure patients and to market their services directly to groups of potential consumers. This way they will save the 20% commission that they are paying HMOs currently. If they become more efficient and reduce utilization, they will absorb the full benefits, instead of ceding them to contracting groups of patients and insurance companies or even to the government's medical insurance plans. The hospitals will thus be able to construct their own networks of suppliers and share their risks with their physicians or with the insurance companies as best suits their objectives.
An example: a Public Hospital with its own healthcare plan is likely to make use of all its specialists and facilities, increase capacity utilization and profits - whereas today only its primary care, less lucrative, services are used by independent HMOs.
The government can limit the total number of healthcare plans available, so that the one propagated by the public hospital will stand out and not be swamped by hundreds of other plans. Such a public hospital plan could also be declared the "healthcare plan of default" - anyone who has not selected a plan will be automatically referred to and included in the public hospital plan.
Not every hospital can start an HMO plan. Only the big ones can support the necessary insurance payments, the reserve requirements and the marketing and administrative costs. The paradox is that big public hospitals are already committed to HMOs, insurers, other patient groups, or government-sponsored MCOs. These resist the inclusion of hospitals which own competing healthcare plans - in their networks. This is natural: a hospital with a plan - is a direct competitor of a private provider of healthcare management and insurance. Another obstacle is that governments are very reluctant to encourage the public sector on account of the private one. This is definitely out of fashion nowadays.
So, an alternative strategy looks more viable:
Public hospitals can act as direct contracting networks. They can team up, pool their resources, exercise political lobbying, relegate administrative and audit functions (data processing, claim processing, payment system, accounting, legal services) to a common centre. This will eliminate the need for middlemen like the HMOs. These joint networks will be able to negotiate contracts with other contractors: physicians, pharmacies, specialized laboratories and so on. This will assist the public hospitals to preserve a loyal and stable (low churning) patient base.
Finally, public hospitals are large employers with political muscle. All they lack is the will to exercise it. They should do it to force governments to adopt some unpopular decisions: offer incentives to HMOs which will refer patients to public hospitals, require HMOs to use all the range of services (both primary and speciality), compensate public hospitals directly for nonpaying patients.
But the public hospitals must begin to behave as public entities: they must open their decision making processes and make them community-oriented. They must shift from relying on contractual language to relying on administrative law (regulations) - except when it comes to employment. In a nutshell: they should be business oriented, on the one hand - and publicly accountable on the other.
There is the little matter of Public Relations and advocacy. Public Hospitals have a terrible image and they are doing very little to change it. They do not even collaborate with researchers trying to establish a factual fundament concerning "safety net medical and social care". In a world where images count more than realities this may well be the public hospitals biggest mistake.
Eight Ways to Improve the Operation of Public Hospitals
A public hospital can lease physical space or temporal slots, or computer equipment or any other equipment which suffers capacity underutilisation - to their physicians for private practice.
The lessee physicians will undertake to pay the hospital - either in the form of fixed fees or in the form of participation in the income (franchise arrangements).
They will also commit themselves to provide community-oriented, non profit services in return for the right to use what is, essentially, community property.
Another method of using the excess capacity is to sell it, rent it, or lease it to entrepreneurs who are not members of the hospital staff. There are many such possibilities: small laboratories, speciality medical services, primary care and specialist practitioners. All these would love to use the superior infrastructure of the hospital. The right to use this infrastructure can be given in the form of a concession, a franchise, a rental arrangement, or any other arm's length mode of collaboration. Professionals are likely to jump on the bandwagon when they realize that the hospital provides them with a "captive market" of patient. This is very much like the relationship between an "anchor" in a shopping mall and the small retail shops surrounding it. The small shops benefit from the business diverted in their direction from the big "anchor" outlets.
The next logical step would be to sell products and services to the community on a commercial, competitive basis. The hospital does not have to limit itself to the sale of medical goods and services. It can also sell medical legal services, use its print shop to offer print jobs, organize its social services as a profit centre and sell them to the community or to individuals, offer medical consultancy on a fee per service basis, even sell food from the hospital kitchen through a catering service or data to researchers from its archives. A natural extension of this approach would be "internal privatization".
A hospital is a collection of small (to medium) size businesses operating under one organizational roof. Laundry, cleaning, kitchen, the provision of television sets and telephones to patients, a business centre for the hospitalized businessmen - these are all profit or loss generating centres.
Internal privatization entails the transformation of the hospital into a holding company. This holding company will own and operate a host of corporations. Each corporation will constitute a separate contractor which will provide the hospital with a service or a product. Thus, all laundry will be done by a corporation which will charge the hospital for its services. The same will go for the kitchen, the printshop, the legal services and so on. These corporations will employ the former staff of the hospital. This way, the knowledge and experience accumulated within the hospital will not be lost. The corporations owned by the former employees will have a "right of first refusal" in the first five years following the transformation. The employee-owned corporations will be allowed to match the best offers in yearly tenders that the hospital will conduct for the services that they are offering.
These corporations will also be allowed to offer their services to other clients. Thus, they will reduce their dependence on one employer, the hospital. They will become truly entrepreneurial entities, competing for profits in a market environment.
A part of the re-engineering process is to determine which of the functions that the hospital fulfils are "core functions", indispensable functions without which the hospital will cease to exist or will change its identity to such an extent that it will no longer will be recognizable as a hospital. All other, "noncore", functions should be tendered out (a concept called "outsourcing"). They should be awarded in a tender to the most competitive bidders, regardless of their identity and previous allegiance. The hospital is likely to benefit from the transfer of functions, in which it has no relative competitive advantage, to outsiders whose expertise these functions are. This is somewhat akin to international (free) trade, where each nation optimizes its resources and passes the (beneficial) results of this optimization process to its trading partners.
To control this kind of transformation, medical information management systems need to be introduced. Many are available and they improve both the quality and the quantity of data available to the management of the hospital and, as a result, the decision making process. This will make it easier for the management to pinpoint which areas require doing what. For instance: the management of the hospital will be able to determine what kind of incentives should be provided to which members of the staff, where could costs be cut and where and how could productivity be improved.
Finally, a novel concept is emerging. Universities and hospitals are two important repositories of human knowledge and experience. Virtually every hospital somehow collaborates with an academic institution, or with a medical school.
There is symbiosis between hospital and medical and social researchers.
Hospitals should actively encourage this. It improves their image, it contributes to their ability to provide quality services. But should not do it for free. They should be contractual partners to the commercial exploitation of the results of research conducted within their premises or with their co-operation. There is a vast field for pharmaceutical, medical, genetic and bioengineering research - and a lot of opportunities to make money for the benefit of the entire community. By not getting commercially involved - hospitals give up money which really is not theirs to give up.
Sam Vaknin is the author of "Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited" and "After the Rain - How the West Lost the East". He is a columnist in "Central Europe Review", United Press International (UPI) and ebookweb.org and the editor of mental health and Central East Europe categories in The Open Directory, Suite101 and searcheurope.com. Until recently, he served as the Economic Advisor to the Government of Macedonia.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/32553
Historically, public hospitals started as correction and welfare centres. They were poorhouses run by the church and attached to medical schools. A full cycle ensued: communities established their own hospitals which were later taken over by regional authorities and governments - only to be returned to the management of communities nowadays. Between 1978 and 1995 a 25% decline ensued in the number of public hospitals and those remaining were transformed to small, rural facilities.
In the USA, less than one third of the hospitals are in cities and only 15% had more than 200 beds. The 100 largest hospitals averaged 581 beds.
A debate rages in the West: should healthcare be completely privatized - or should a segment of it be left in public hands?
Public hospitals are in dire financial straits. 65% of the patients do not pay for medical services received by them. The public hospitals have a legal obligation to treat all. Some patients are insured by national medical insurance plans (such as Medicare/Medicaid in the USA, NHS in Britain). Others are insured by community plans.
The other problem is that this kind of patients consumes less or non profitable services. The service mix is flawed: trauma care, drugs, HIV and obstetrics treatments are prevalent - long, patently loss making services.
The more lucrative ones are tackled by private healthcare providers: hi tech and specialized services (cardiac surgery, diagnostic imagery).
Public hospitals are forced to provide "culturally competent care": social services, child welfare. These are money losing operations from which private facilities can abstain. Based on research, we can safely say that private, for profit hospitals, discriminate against publicly insured patients. They prefer young, growing, families and healthier patients. The latter gravitate out of the public system, leaving it to become an enclave of poor, chronically sick patients.
This, in turn, makes it difficult for the public system to attract human and financial resources. It is becoming more and more destitute.
Poor people are poor voters and they make for very little political power.
Public hospitals operate in an hostile environment: budget reductions, the rapid proliferation of competing healthcare alternatives with a much better image and the fashion of privatization (even of safety net institutions).
Public hospitals are heavily dependent on state funding. Governments foot the bulk of the healthcare bill. Public and private healthcare providers pursue this money. In the USA, potential consumers organized themselves in Healthcare Maintenance Organizations (HMOs). The HMO negotiates with providers (=hospitals, clinics, pharmacies) to obtain volume discounts and the best rates through negotiations. Public hospitals - underfunded as they are - are not in the position to offer them what they want. So, they lose patients to private hospitals.
But public hospitals are also to blame for their situation.
They have not implemented standards of accountability. They make no routine statistical measurements of their effectiveness and productivity: wait times, financial reporting and the extent of network development. As even governments are transformed from "dumb providers" to "smart purchasers", public hospitals must reconfigure, change ownership (privatize, lease their facilities long term), or perish. Currently, these institutions are (often unjustly) charged with faulty financial management (the fees charged for their services are unrealistically low), substandard, inefficient care, heavy labour unionization, bloated bureaucracy and no incentives to improve performance and productivity. No wonder there is talk about abolishing the "brick and mortar" infrastructure (=closing the public hospitals) and replacing it with a virtual one (=geographically portable medical insurance).
To be sure, there are counterarguments:
The private sector is unwilling and unable to absorb the load of patients of the public sector. It is not legally obligated to do so and the marketing arms of the various HMOs are interested mainly in the healthiest patients.
These discriminatory practices wreaked havoc and chaos (not to mention corruption and irregularities) on the communities that phased out the public hospitals - and phased in the private ones.
True enough, governments perform poorly as cost conscious purchasers of medical services. It is also true that they lack the resources to reach a substantial segment of the uninsured (through subsidized expansions of insurance plans).
40,000,000 people in the USA have no medical insurance - and a million more are added annually. But, there is no data to support the contention that public hospitals provide inferior care at a higher cost - and, indisputably, they possess unique experience in caring for low income populations (both medically and socially).
So, in the absence of facts, the arguments really boil down to philosophy. Is healthcare a fundamental human right - or is it a commodity to be subjected to the invisible hand of the marketplace? Should prices serve as the mechanism of optimal allocation of healthcare resources - or are there other, less quantifiable, parameters to consider?
Whatever the philosophical predilection, a reform is a must. It should include the following elements:
Public hospitals should be governed by healthcare management experts who will emphasize clinical and fiscal considerations over political ones. This should be coupled with the vesting of authority with hospitals, taking it back from local government. Hospitals could be organized as (public benefit) corporations with enhanced autonomy to avoid today's debilitating dual effects: politics and bureaucracy. They could organize themselves as Not for Profit Organizations with independent, self perpetuating boards of directors.
But all this can come about only with increased public accountability and with clear measuring, using clear quantitative criteria, of the use of funds dedicated to the public missions of public hospitals. Hospitals could start by revamping their compensation structures to increase both pay and financial incentives to the staff.
Current one-fits-all compensation systems deter talented people. Pay must be linked to objectively measured criteria. The Hospital's top management should receive a bonus when the hospital is accredited by the state, when wait times are improved, when disrollment rates go down and when more services are provided.
To implement this (mainly mental) revolution, the management of public hospitals should be trained to use rigorous financial controls, to improve customer service, to re-engineer processes and to negotiate agreements and commercial transactions.
The staff must be employed through written employment contracts with clear severance provisions that will allow the management to take commercial risks.
Clear goals must be defined and met. Public hospitals must improve continuity of care, expand primary care capacity, reduce lengths of stay (=increase turnaround) and meet budgetary constraints imposed both by the state and by patient groups or their insurance companies.
All this cannot be achieved without the full collaboration of the physicians employed by the hospitals. Hospitals in the USA form business joint ventures with their own physicians (PHO - Physicians Hospital Organizations). They benefit together from the implementation of reforms and by the increase of productivity. It is estimated that productivity today is 40% less in the public sector than in the private one. This is a dubious estimate: the patient populations are different (sicker people in the public sector). But even if the figure is incorrect - the essence is: public hospitals are less efficient.
They are less efficient because of archaic scheduling of patient-doctor appointments, laboratory tests and surgeries, because of obsolete or non-existent information systems, because of long turnaround times and because of redundant lab tests and medical procedures. The support - which exists in private hospitals - from other (clinical and nonclinical) personnel is absent because of impossibly complex labour rules and job descriptions imposed by the unions. Most of the doctors have split loyalties between the medical schools in which they teach and the various hospital affiliates. They would tend to neglect the voluntary affiliates and contribute more to the prestigious ones. Public hospitals would, therefore, be well advised to hire new staff, not from medical schools, share risks with its physicians through joint ventures, sign contracts with pay based on productivity and put physicians in the governing boards. In general, the hospitals must shrink and re-engineer the workforce. About half the budget is normally spent on labour costs in private hospitals - and more than 70% in public ones. It is no good to reduce the workforce through natural attrition, mass layoffs, or severance incentives. These are "blind", nondiscriminating measures which affect the quality of the care provided by the hospital. When compounded by work rules, seniority systems, job title structures and skewed grievance procedures - the situation can get completely out of hand.
The government must contribute its part. Public hospitals cannot comply or compete with the demands of national, publicly traded HMOs with political clout and the capacity to raise capital to finance hyper-sophisticated marketing. Public policy must be written to support "safety net" institutions. They must be allowed to organize their own MCOs (Managed Care Organizations of patients), to insure patients and to market their services directly to groups of potential consumers. This way they will save the 20% commission that they are paying HMOs currently. If they become more efficient and reduce utilization, they will absorb the full benefits, instead of ceding them to contracting groups of patients and insurance companies or even to the government's medical insurance plans. The hospitals will thus be able to construct their own networks of suppliers and share their risks with their physicians or with the insurance companies as best suits their objectives.
An example: a Public Hospital with its own healthcare plan is likely to make use of all its specialists and facilities, increase capacity utilization and profits - whereas today only its primary care, less lucrative, services are used by independent HMOs.
The government can limit the total number of healthcare plans available, so that the one propagated by the public hospital will stand out and not be swamped by hundreds of other plans. Such a public hospital plan could also be declared the "healthcare plan of default" - anyone who has not selected a plan will be automatically referred to and included in the public hospital plan.
Not every hospital can start an HMO plan. Only the big ones can support the necessary insurance payments, the reserve requirements and the marketing and administrative costs. The paradox is that big public hospitals are already committed to HMOs, insurers, other patient groups, or government-sponsored MCOs. These resist the inclusion of hospitals which own competing healthcare plans - in their networks. This is natural: a hospital with a plan - is a direct competitor of a private provider of healthcare management and insurance. Another obstacle is that governments are very reluctant to encourage the public sector on account of the private one. This is definitely out of fashion nowadays.
So, an alternative strategy looks more viable:
Public hospitals can act as direct contracting networks. They can team up, pool their resources, exercise political lobbying, relegate administrative and audit functions (data processing, claim processing, payment system, accounting, legal services) to a common centre. This will eliminate the need for middlemen like the HMOs. These joint networks will be able to negotiate contracts with other contractors: physicians, pharmacies, specialized laboratories and so on. This will assist the public hospitals to preserve a loyal and stable (low churning) patient base.
Finally, public hospitals are large employers with political muscle. All they lack is the will to exercise it. They should do it to force governments to adopt some unpopular decisions: offer incentives to HMOs which will refer patients to public hospitals, require HMOs to use all the range of services (both primary and speciality), compensate public hospitals directly for nonpaying patients.
But the public hospitals must begin to behave as public entities: they must open their decision making processes and make them community-oriented. They must shift from relying on contractual language to relying on administrative law (regulations) - except when it comes to employment. In a nutshell: they should be business oriented, on the one hand - and publicly accountable on the other.
There is the little matter of Public Relations and advocacy. Public Hospitals have a terrible image and they are doing very little to change it. They do not even collaborate with researchers trying to establish a factual fundament concerning "safety net medical and social care". In a world where images count more than realities this may well be the public hospitals biggest mistake.
Eight Ways to Improve the Operation of Public Hospitals
A public hospital can lease physical space or temporal slots, or computer equipment or any other equipment which suffers capacity underutilisation - to their physicians for private practice.
The lessee physicians will undertake to pay the hospital - either in the form of fixed fees or in the form of participation in the income (franchise arrangements).
They will also commit themselves to provide community-oriented, non profit services in return for the right to use what is, essentially, community property.
Another method of using the excess capacity is to sell it, rent it, or lease it to entrepreneurs who are not members of the hospital staff. There are many such possibilities: small laboratories, speciality medical services, primary care and specialist practitioners. All these would love to use the superior infrastructure of the hospital. The right to use this infrastructure can be given in the form of a concession, a franchise, a rental arrangement, or any other arm's length mode of collaboration. Professionals are likely to jump on the bandwagon when they realize that the hospital provides them with a "captive market" of patient. This is very much like the relationship between an "anchor" in a shopping mall and the small retail shops surrounding it. The small shops benefit from the business diverted in their direction from the big "anchor" outlets.
The next logical step would be to sell products and services to the community on a commercial, competitive basis. The hospital does not have to limit itself to the sale of medical goods and services. It can also sell medical legal services, use its print shop to offer print jobs, organize its social services as a profit centre and sell them to the community or to individuals, offer medical consultancy on a fee per service basis, even sell food from the hospital kitchen through a catering service or data to researchers from its archives. A natural extension of this approach would be "internal privatization".
A hospital is a collection of small (to medium) size businesses operating under one organizational roof. Laundry, cleaning, kitchen, the provision of television sets and telephones to patients, a business centre for the hospitalized businessmen - these are all profit or loss generating centres.
Internal privatization entails the transformation of the hospital into a holding company. This holding company will own and operate a host of corporations. Each corporation will constitute a separate contractor which will provide the hospital with a service or a product. Thus, all laundry will be done by a corporation which will charge the hospital for its services. The same will go for the kitchen, the printshop, the legal services and so on. These corporations will employ the former staff of the hospital. This way, the knowledge and experience accumulated within the hospital will not be lost. The corporations owned by the former employees will have a "right of first refusal" in the first five years following the transformation. The employee-owned corporations will be allowed to match the best offers in yearly tenders that the hospital will conduct for the services that they are offering.
These corporations will also be allowed to offer their services to other clients. Thus, they will reduce their dependence on one employer, the hospital. They will become truly entrepreneurial entities, competing for profits in a market environment.
A part of the re-engineering process is to determine which of the functions that the hospital fulfils are "core functions", indispensable functions without which the hospital will cease to exist or will change its identity to such an extent that it will no longer will be recognizable as a hospital. All other, "noncore", functions should be tendered out (a concept called "outsourcing"). They should be awarded in a tender to the most competitive bidders, regardless of their identity and previous allegiance. The hospital is likely to benefit from the transfer of functions, in which it has no relative competitive advantage, to outsiders whose expertise these functions are. This is somewhat akin to international (free) trade, where each nation optimizes its resources and passes the (beneficial) results of this optimization process to its trading partners.
To control this kind of transformation, medical information management systems need to be introduced. Many are available and they improve both the quality and the quantity of data available to the management of the hospital and, as a result, the decision making process. This will make it easier for the management to pinpoint which areas require doing what. For instance: the management of the hospital will be able to determine what kind of incentives should be provided to which members of the staff, where could costs be cut and where and how could productivity be improved.
Finally, a novel concept is emerging. Universities and hospitals are two important repositories of human knowledge and experience. Virtually every hospital somehow collaborates with an academic institution, or with a medical school.
There is symbiosis between hospital and medical and social researchers.
Hospitals should actively encourage this. It improves their image, it contributes to their ability to provide quality services. But should not do it for free. They should be contractual partners to the commercial exploitation of the results of research conducted within their premises or with their co-operation. There is a vast field for pharmaceutical, medical, genetic and bioengineering research - and a lot of opportunities to make money for the benefit of the entire community. By not getting commercially involved - hospitals give up money which really is not theirs to give up.
Sam Vaknin is the author of "Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited" and "After the Rain - How the West Lost the East". He is a columnist in "Central Europe Review", United Press International (UPI) and ebookweb.org and the editor of mental health and Central East Europe categories in The Open Directory, Suite101 and searcheurope.com. Until recently, he served as the Economic Advisor to the Government of Macedonia.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/32553
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