We expect so much of others and fail to see our own failings. Quite often, our own failings would not be appreciated by even ourselves. Hypocricy is the rule.

The last two years, I worked in an organization dominated by non-performance, non-execution and too many meetings where we simply confirm that no progress is being made. Deadlines were never met. Promises were broken. Tasks were forgotten. Yet nobody was ever fired. Instead, all the good employees quit in frustration. The cloud of incompetence went far up the ladder.

Some of you tossed 50 billion dollars at one of these BSers and lost your shirts. Justice, for blindly putting your eggs in one basket. I'm certain they feel cheated. They were chasing high yields and ignoring sound investment strategy. Hadn't they heard the proverb of putting all your eggs in one basket. Diversify? Bah, humbug. Don't cry now.

Bernanke of the Federal Reserve appears to be another one of these BSers that has risen through the ranks. Nobody appears ready to blame this idiot. He failed to reduce the funds rate for six months before going to George Bush for the financial bailout. Then he reduces the rates hours after the bailout is approved three times for two points to a record low. If the financial industry was frozen as he said, then why didn't he reduce interest rates before it was too late? And how come CNN and MSNBC aren't asking these tough questions?

Why do we persist in allowing failures like George Bush to run this world? Let's stop accepting excuses. When he failed to catch bin Laden, he should've been removed from office and not re-elected. We have a managerial crisis in this world that far out-weighs the financial crisis. Fixing the financial industry is a bandaid. People have to start evaluating each other based on performance and not their ability to justify failure.

I didn't care that the stupid Americans were willing to give billions to companies whose executived haven't taken basic business courses in risk management, but F-U if you think this Canadien is gonna pay taxes to bail-out fools.

I was raised in Oshawa and worked for a couple years on automotive assembly lines and a summer in the Oshawa CDNian GM headquarters. I buy only GM cars, except my Ford truck. My entire family worked in some way for GM and we have bought more than our fair share of GM  `vehicles. We did our part to support a local company that was badly managed. Now, the government wants me to pay more taxes to support this pathetic company?

I don't think so. In fact, if this goes thru, then I will buy a Toyota instead of a GM in the future. And I will laugh at every person with a GM, Ford or Chrysler cars who complains about high taxes.  I will never vote for the federal Conservative or provincial Liberal parties ever again.

I'm also asking every other CDNian to help me tell our politicians and auto-COs that they will do the same. This is the only way to save these free-loaders from corporate welfare.

And remember that legislation about welfare recipients being drug tested. I want the same to apply to all managers of these welfare companies. I demand it. And if one exec fails, then they don't get my money.

Update: Looks like Ford isn't taking any more. I think my next car will be a Ford.

PEP LMAO!

"You know what would be good for the world? .... If there was no such thing as Loading..."

Adelaine said this to me as we were scanning through movie trailers over the Web.

A MODERN PARABLE . . . .

A Japanese company ( Toyota ) and an American company (Ford) decided to have a canoe race on the Missouri River . Both teams practiced long and hard to reach their peak performance before the race.

On the big day, the Japanese won by a mile.

The Americans, very discouraged and depressed, decided to investigate the reason for the crushing defeat. A management team made up of senior management was formed to investigate and recommend appropriate action.

Their conclusion was the Japanese had 8 people rowing and 1 person steering, while the American team had 8 people steering and 1 person rowing.

Feeling a deeper study was in order, American management hired a consulting company and paid them a large amount of money for a second opinion.

They advised, of course, that too many people were steering the boat, while not enough people were rowing.

Not sure of how to utilize that information, but wanting to prevent another loss to the Japanese, the rowing team's management structure was totally reorganized to 4 steering supervisors, 3 area steering superintendents, and 1 assistant superintendent steering manager.

They also implemented a new performance system that would give the 1 person rowing the boat greater incentive to work harder. It was called the 'Rowing Team Quality First Program,' with meetings, dinners, and free pens for the rower. There was discussion of getting new paddles, canoes, and other equipment, extra vacation days for practices and bonuses.

The next year the Japanese won by two miles.

Humiliated, the American management laid off the rower for poor performance, halted development of a new canoe, sold the paddles, and canceled all capital investments for new equipment. The money saved was distributed to the Senior Executives as bonuses and the next year's racing team was out-sourced to India .

Sadly, The End.

Here's something else to think about:
Ford has spent the last thirty years moving all its factories out of the US , claiming they can't make money paying American wages.

TOYOTA has spent the last thirty years building more than a dozen plants inside the US . The last quarter's results:

TOYOTA makes 4 billion in profits while Ford racked up 9 billion in losses.

Ford folks are still scratching their heads.

IF THIS WEREN'T TRUE, IT MIGHT BE FUNNY.

Working with them is very frustrating. I once had two day mettings where the meeting lead was a heavy smoker. Every 30 minutes we took a 30 minute break so that he could get his fix.

Get served by them is even more frustrating. They leave for 30 minute breaks and leave you wondering when you are gonna get your next beer or your serving of wings sitting on the counter in front of you.

I don't like discrimination, but I think you should be allowed to ask someone if they smoke in an interview and refuse to hire, if they do. I also think you should fire people for taking too many smoke breaks.

Unfortunately, the opposite is true. Smokers tend to band together during layoffs. I once saw a manger, who smoked, lay off all the non-smokers in her department. One subordinate of this manger, who had just stopped smoking, reasoned that all the smokers were her best friends, since they often smoked together. In fact, if anything, this is more proof you should avoid hiring smokers.