Some days are just for fun

This is from Hot Wax International's Pontiac Girls. Some days we should just have fun!!!

My best to everyone this week!

Obama and Maslow

Maslow had it right!

Famed Psychologist Abraham Maslow developed his hierarchy of needs in the 1940’s and the 1950’s. The five levels of human needs have been an important part of motivation, leadership and management since it first was published. We need to look no further than this great piece of work to understand what is wrong in America.

The five levels of needs are as follows:

1. Biological and Physiological needs - air, food, drink, shelter, warmth, sex, sleep, etc.

2. Safety needs - protection from elements, security, order, law, limits, stability, etc.

3. Belongingness and Love needs - work group, family, affection, relationships, etc.

4. Esteem needs - self-esteem, achievement, mastery, independence, status, dominance, prestige, managerial responsibility, etc.

5. Self-Actualization needs - realizing personal potential, self-fulfillment, seeking personal growth and peak experiences.

The principle is that humans work and live through each level of needs consecutively. That is, once level one is fulfilled a human will move to level two and so forth until they reach level five. Of particular importance is that when a lower level of needs is no longer fulfilled a person will revert of trying to fulfill that need and not the level he/she had reached.

In a simple example, when someone is having their house repossessed, you cannot expect them to focus on a world currency, health care for all, or even a war to help other nations. Yet, the latter items seem to be what our Government is focused on achieving.

Seemingly the vast majority of the electorate in the country has reverted to levels one and two. The examples of why they would be clinging to these levels are truly so numerous they cannot be all enumerated. A couple of examples: Laws are not enforced (immigration, GM bankruptcy, voter disruption, health care law exemptions, home foreclosures, bank fraud, etc.). Belief in our Government’s ability to properly respond and manage the country (Katrina, BP oil spill, bank bail out, unemployment, lobbyists, healthcare). Unemployment continues unabated and there are no programs in place to create jobs.

Many have said that we are not “on the same page”; the taxpayers and Government. Truly we are not on the same page and the hierarchy of needs explains why and what needs to be done by the Country’s leadership. As in any business or in any management role, the leaders must lead at the level of their constituencies. If your employee is worried about losing his job because his employer might go out of business, you do not encourage him by talking about strategic initiatives of the next five years. No, you spend the time explaining and demonstrating that the Company has a bright short term future and he should not be concerned.

In contrast, what we see daily is a Governmental leadership that has a “don’t worry be happy” attitude. Instead of leading on the level of the hierarchy in which the electorate lives our leaders seem to be focused on their personal self actualization while telling the followers that it will get better soon. President Obama’s proclamation that we should “buck up” only confirms that he is happy at level five and can’t be bothered with the predicament of the masses.

When a collective we, are managed on the level at which we live that means we are all on the same page and we are working together to move everyone to the next level. This is not hard to do, it is more empathy and a willingness to show compassion by acknowledging the level on which the followers live and taking some actions to ensure the followers that the leaders are working to solve the problems.

Imagine if tomorrow you woke up and the Government was working on real American jobs. Suddenly they would be leading at the level on the hierarchy that you can agree with. Imagine if it was announced tomorrow that Pontiac was reinvented and 60,000 jobs would result. On the same page? Of Course. www.savingpontiac.org

America Is a Yard Sale

Does it strike you that America has become a Walmart with no employees and no security but the doors are open? What other country allows border crossings to steal jobs? What other country allows currency imbalances of up to 40% that results in jobs leaving the country? What other country allows its oil and gas to be plundered for less than market rates to be sold back to its citizens for $4 a gallon? What other country allows its middle class to be plundered to make sure China and India are happy?

It is a yard sale with the owner permanently at lunch. Arianna Huffington has it right; we are a third world country. The analogies are plain. Whether it is blood diamonds in Africa, Bauxite in Jamaica, or rain forest timber in Malaysia, we are allowing our country to be similarly plundered. And this all at the expense of the American public.

Turbo Tax Timmy has all the right causes and in fact seems to understand them. With understanding a backbone does not come. It is time to stop this nonsense and return to a modicum of nationalism that can restore our pride and more importantly restore our economy and the middle class. Ask yourself; Does China or Germany allow the rest of the world to strip their resources? Of course not! And guess which countries are doing "just fine" in this worldwide downturn.

America is a country not a yard sale. Our priorities should be to Americans not to "the world". While I agree that these problems are not the doing of President Obama, he is the President when we have reached the tipping point and must actually do something to stop the wholesale destruction of this nation and for the good of the world. America must take its place as the consumer for the world and not the yard sale for the world. It is time!!!

Please visit savingpontiac.org for more of the facts.

Germany is Fine; What About Us?

"BERLIN (AP) — German business confidence unexpectedly rose to its highest level in over three years in September as a stronger economy supported business"

Unemployment is down and the economy as well as exports is growing. Why? Manufacturing. The US has let it's manufacturing base dwindle and we are struggling because of it. In fact, it is the exact reason the administration's stimulus did not work. There was no manufacturing base to stimulate to create goods for Americans. Instead we sent the stimulus money to China for imports.

We must save every jobs we can!

Economic Recovery Ideas by Obama

President Obama is to issue newly planned recovery measures today. One is extension of the R&D tax credit, one is the proposal of infrastructure investment, and the last is related to tax credits for investment. All these may be a good part of an overall plan but none of them resonate with Voters that jobs are on the way.

It seems easy to us that by saving Pontiac and using the assets that the taxpayers already own, we would see American jobs right away and the Administration could show real job creation instead of some sort of credit that may or may not create jobs.

Just my thoughts. Have a wonderful day!

Aliens in Our Midst

Headlines in the New York Times proclaimed today:

Growth in Jobs Beats Estimates, Easing Concerns

I do not know what Country the Author lives in but it cannot be the United States. Middle Americans must fight with the Mainstream media over concerns about unemployment...this is outrageous.

I read a Woody Allen quote this morning that says it all: "That's one thing about intellectuals: They've proved that you can be absolutely brilliant and have no idea what's going on."

We need to take every; every jobs opportunity available and more specifically on manufacturing. Why can the media, like the NYT, understand that we need jobs not absurd headlines.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Stimulus works....just not here!

The Stimulus Works! Just not in America.

The New York Times ran an interesting opinion piece today entitled “Return of the Killer Trade Deficit”. The conclusions were both fascinating and, frankly, unfounded.

In this article the American trade deficit was essentially blamed on others; specifically Germany and China. This is in lock step with the Obama administration’s requests at the G-20 for Germany to not end stimulus spending (deficit reduction), continue spending wildly and, oh yeah, cut back on those exports. In sports terms this is like the St. Louis Rams asking the New Orleans Saints not to score too many points, as that might make the Rams look bad.

The trade deficit is not a living thing or even a tool of other countries. The US trade deficit is in fact the culmination of years of neglected trade management in the US that has resulted in the destruction of the manufacturing base in America. Just as the Rams made many poor decisions in player and coach selections over the years the Saints made sound choices that resulted in the Saints being a better team. America has made poor choices related to trade.

In the last year, unemployment in Germany has dropped from 8+% to 7% and appears to be on a trajectory to move lower. Over the last year or so the economies of Germany and China have grown significantly and yet the US, as it is phrased, continues to lose steam and thus our President is compelled to ask that those countries quit scoring points. This, despite huge stimulus spending in the Untied States.

Just like the bailout of AIG to the tune of $165 Billion there is a direct flow-through pipe to foreign countries for our stimulus spending. When we bailed out AIG, within minutes the money was wired to overseas banks that were the so called counter-parties. Similarly, when the stimulus money was put into the hands of the general public in the form of a Keynesian demand stimulus, it did create demand; just not for American goods because we no longer manufactured the goods demanded. Germany and China were the beneficiaries of the demand creating stimulus.

Our Country abandoned managing trade policies and started assuming that the world economy would act rationally with the admission of China to the WTO in 1999 and adoption of NAFTA and similar free trade agreements. We are, however, still individual teams known as countries competing for an economic trophy. The choices of Germany and China were to protect and grow their manufacturing base and thus create a way to manage their economy in the face of world wide recession and they recovered quite nicely (won the trophy).

Blame is pointless for the past. Our leadership now must acknowledge we made bad choices and change our direction. As an old boss used to say: There are three rules of decision making: 1) Never make a decision until it is time; 2) when the time comes make a decision; 3) If the decision is wrong, change it! It is time to change our trade policies and change to support manufacturing again in the United States. (visit www.savingpontiac.org for more)