electoralcollege.pptx |
I read an article recently that Amazon was changing its system for determining who it keeps and who gets the shaft. The concept they have been using has been called Rank and Yank for decades after it came to prominence by GE CEO Jack Welch in the 1980s. Today however the policy has gained a new title: The Hunger Games. From what I have been reading, it’s an example of what happens when people implement policies based on the newest fad and not on what it was designed to do.
First, lets note that Jack Welch was downsizing GE when he began using the concept. The idea of determining who were the lower 10% performing employees is a means of determining who should be let go VS who should be kept for a company trying to lower costs in a downturn. But the wholesale use of it by companies today is based on the mis-understanding that to be successful “you must use” this concept. The reason is, as a company expands, Rank and Yank forces people out. Thus a company trying to capitalize on a new product is hamstrung by a lack of personnel to bring it to market, or expand production. Rank and Yank’s policy of constantly removing the lower 10% only works for a company that is expanding if you have a huge pool of new employees to fill the void. This void being the number of new people needed to replace the removed 10%, plus the extra people needed to meet the needs of the expansion. As has been noted for the last few years, tech firms are struggling to find engineers and programmers. Thus we constantly hear of the need to bring in foreign workers with H-1B visas. But as even the foreign worker pool has shrunk, the forced reductions in employees required by Rank and Yank continue. Thus, the concept has become counter productive. In regards to those employees removed by Rank and Yank, more then likely new employers look at them as a liability not a potential value. Once you have been “Yanked” you are viewed as a sub performer and thus only fit to go into a new profession. Thus why new college hires with no experience, or foreign workers with dubious credentials, get more favored treatment by hiring managers. The end result being this wonderful shortage of tech personnel constantly talked about, even as the number of early-retired engineers continues to grow. When Rank and Yank begins, yes it can be a good way to clean out some dead wood in various groups within a company. But continuous use of it and its required removal of the lower 10% eventually means the removal of people who were doing well a few years before: their performance hasn’t changed, they were just now the lowest person on the totem pole. That being said, once they are removed they are then viewed as an under performer by HR managers and thus politely rejected for open positions in favor of the new college hire and foreign workers with no history. The rise of the pre-employment tests, now given to determine the potential future performance of new hires, mirrors the Rank and Yank system within the companies and serves only to insure that there are no “Qualified Applicants” for the positions. Given how long this has been going on its not surprising that companies like Microsoft and now Jeff Bezos’s Amazon are trying to change (key word- Trying). The recession of 2008 masked the negative features of the system as companies downsized. But the economic growth of the last four years has been notably slow, all reported to be due to a lack of trained people. Since Rank and Yank requires reduction, it insures the companies cannot grow. And its obvious, once the system starts it seems impossible to shutdown. The election of Donald Trump suddenly made a minor Website dedicated to the secession of California into something more media prominent. Originally, this site was for Ultra Libs who didn't feel even Hillary Clinton was left enough for them and thus it was time for California to leave the Union. Of course now people are suggesting that California would take Oregon and Washington with them and make a new West Coast nation. The number of people both viewing this site and even joining is a superb example of how, as Michael Savage states, Liberalism is a mental disorder.
First, they seem to miss the fact that such an action would leave the United States with no west Coast Ports. Oh, they would allow commerce through, as long as the items met their strict environmental standards. This being said I am reminded of how often the port of New Orleans was closed by Spanish officials to American Commerce until the Louisiana purchase. One disagreement between the new government and Washington and you could expect port access to be rescinded. And the Billions of dollars in losses to East Coast Liberal Millionaires and Billionaires would be heard all the way to Europe. Again, regarding Port access, the US Navy would literally be incapable of operating in the Pacific without Puget Sound or Coronado. And I suspect the leaving of the union would also prompt a pacifist push by the Ultra Libs to remove the few remaining military bases on the West Coast. This would make extremely difficult our supporting of our Pacific allies- Japan and Australia- as well as the defense of California, Oregon and Washington. I would expect within months following a required US military pull-out military forces from Russia, China and even Mexico would enter the State. What would be there to stop them, the San Jose Police Department? Even the Cal Guard exists only because of the support of the United States government. All the weapons would have to be returned to the United States, the actual owner. And California's own Assault Weapon law has provisions to prohibit the State from raising secondary troops: out-side of the fact they would have no arms to give them because of the quarter century prohibition. I particularly like the remarks of how the United States would collapse if California left since they had all the tech people. Most engineers I know are getting ready to leave California because the companies were leaving to avoid the high taxes and general costs of the State. The West Coast may be the center for Software manufacture (if you can call it that), but the making of physical items is mostly done out of State. Even Big Bad Boeing has threatened to move all its engineering off shore and has farmed production of key components to Japan and Europe. I doubt a secession would make them want to bring the work back, or slow down the present rate of withdraw. Finally, The movements backers (mostly Software types) seem to forget that there are a number of conservatives in California and more then a few Democrats who would not want to leave the United States and US Citizenship. 3 million Californians voted for Trump, one third of the votes cast. Even if the total number of conservatives was 6 million, that would be 20% of the population. I doubt California would find such a loss of people a blessing. They would bring with them all their skills and knowledge and start new companies to fill the gap caused by the California exit. Copyrights would only be valid if they were international. In short, outside of the general legality of leaving the Union, West Coasters would more then likely find themselves without jobs, without property, and living under either foreign occupation, or United States protection. According to Hillary Clinton on Wednesday Night, the Heller case was wrong because it endangered children. According to her it removed a necessary firearm safety requirement allowing children access to guns. She also stated the usual gun controlist line that now 33,000 people die to gun violence every year.
Total politics!! Just to explain how these simple statements are designed to confuse people lets start with the 33,000 number. Many years ago my director at Boeing walked up to me and asked how I could support people owning guns when 50,000 people die by guns every year. I looked back at him dumbfounded unable to understand how he could take 30,000 people and suddenly boost it to 50,000. The answer was simple, he was adding the number of suicides (20,000 on average) without realizing the gun control movement had already done it. The term firearm violence, now so generally used, makes people think of murders. Thus most people never realize that 2/3 of the number the gun controlists constantly state is people who took their own life. In the same regard, since Sandy Hook the gun control movement has been pushing gun control to prevent child killings. It’s a regular activity of the movement to change the reasoning for their ban to keep the movement fresh. Back in the late 80s following the school shooting in California, the gun control movement was able to passé an assault weapon ban. Over the years since they have switched policy to push gun control as a public safety issue, a public health issue, and even a counter domestic terrorism method. Since Sandy Hook they are back to pushing it as a child safety issue. Of course it’s already gotten the public image that they are preventing children killing children: or worse toddlers killing toddlers. What do they use to legitimize this? Well they first say they are preventing child violence and then they say the 33,000 number. So the 33,000 dead are all murdered toddlers even though as previously stated 2/3 of that number are suicides. Now you go to the media and you find such headlines as a child shoots mom in Walmart with her gun, or of a five year old who shot his sibling. Yes they happen, but how actually often: about as often as a child put the car in drive when their parents left them alone in a running car. But these incidents were a child killed a child are not what the gun control movement really tries to make political headway with. They say that 7 children die from guns per day and that 2,600 children die per year. Sounds like a big number but again numbers can be deceptive. Getting to the facts, we are a nation of 330 million people. Even using the gun control numbers (33,000) guns are involved in the death of 0.01% of the population. We have more Americans dying of complications of diabetes then by firearms. Again using their numbers children’s deaths by guns constitute less then 8% of the gun deaths. To increase the percentage we have to drop the suicide numbers reverting to just the murders by guns, which are less then 10,000 per year. If all the child deaths are murders, which the news reports are not claiming (they are saying they are accidents), we would get then 2,600/10,000 which comes to 26% of all deaths. Now that’s what gun controlists want people to believe. Of course its not even close to the facts. What do I mean, well the gun control movement defines a child as anyone from age 0 to age 22. Why is this important? Because from age 18 to age 22, the ages were most young people become involved in gangs, a total of 1,600 murders occurred or nearly 62% of the so-called child deaths by guns. But the story begins to truly unravel when the FBI states there were only 533 deaths (total, all means) were the victim was under 18 years of age and only 67 were the offender was under 18. Even gun controlists undermine their argument by publishing that only 83 deaths can be attributed to accidental gun use with the victim under age 18. They insinuate that “Most of the shootings” involved toddler and teens, but they also report that half of the 83 deaths involved the shooter: which means they could have been suicides. In short, in a nation of 330 million people, we have to implement major gun control because 150 young adults to children were either murdered or accidentally killed by guns. And again, Hillary needs Heller changed to save these 150 Americans and implement her safety program which includes total gun bans and requirements that all guns owned be kept in a disable or disassembled condition when in a home (which was the Washington D.C. Law). I listen to Michael Savage from time to time because on a whole he tends to have something intelligent to say. But then there are the days when he should stay off the air.
Yesterday was one such day as he turned his attention to the growing tension between the United States and Russia. This issue has been the subject of many media reports: mostly from other people who have little idea what they are talking about. I can say this because the real issue isn't what would happen if Russia and the United States started a hot war. The issue is what the war would be like if the United States found itself fighting against both Russia and China. For if we were to start lobbing shells at Russian units, why wouldn''t we expect China to more forcefully lay claim to the South China Sea. People then talk of nuclear war. I have already voiced my concern over the condition of the United States nuclear arsenal. Only the Trident submarine force strikes me as viable as a nuclear deterrent force. The MInutemen ICBMS, which so many people now claim are 1970 vintage missiles are actually early 1960 engineering. Some have called them the Ferrari's of ICBMs: that only applies if your talking 1960 vintage cars. In short, I'll take the recent production "mobile" Russia missiles over these obsolete American ICBMS. As for the bomber force, people made a big deal of the recent flights of B-1s to South Korea. What most don't know is these are not nuclear bombers, they are officially only for conventional bombing. Yes, they can be converted back to carry strategic nuclear bombs; but we actually can't function without these bombers being available for conventional bombing. And because we use the B-1s in conventional attack we are rapidly wearing the aircraft out. Some have made a big deal of the cost of making a new Flying wing bomber, but these people need to look at what its going to cost us over the next decade to just keep the B-1s flying. No, I don't fear a sudden nuclear exchange at this time. Russia just has to wait until the B-1s are grounded for repairs, the Ohio's have to port because the subs are worn out, and the Minuteman force shuts down from lack of spare parts. They, the Russians can withdraw from any present agreement and the Democrats won't say a word. Look at all the things Obama did just to get the Iranians to sign a nuclear deal, and how many things they have since done to keep the Iranians in the deal. And if Hillary were to use an executive order to seize American guns, the Russians just need to wait until the majority of the arms have been crushed. Then they can pick and choose who they invade since we will not be in a position to raise additional troops or send arms to the attacked nation. And until the Russians actually threaten American territory the threat of the use of a strategic US ICBM is pretty slim. More news post on removing the bombs from Incirlik. Including one from a person who worked for the Clinton Administration. How did so many uniformed people end up working for the Clinton's back in the 90s. Answer, the Clinton's brought in the NRDC to run the Department of Energy. And all they did was try and prove their long standing stories of nuclear accident cover-ups.
The point this guy was making at the LA Times was that the bombs were unguarded, the Turks could have taken them at any time (or ISIS) and we should just remove them. Standard Knee-Jerk reaction one would expect from a guy who describes himself as a life-time public servant. You see, the Times didn't state he recently tried to run for Congress in Minnesota and actually lost. To be a Democrat and loose in Minnesota to a Republican, that does take talent. 1) There are as many, if not more American troops at Incirlik then Turkish so the bombs are well guarded against immediate Turkish seizure (particularly by a small sub group of the military). (2) ISIS is even less capable of seizing the bomb since the Turkish troops would fight with us to prevent the bombs being seized by this group. (3) The bombs don't just sit there ready to detonate. The PAL safety locks and other control items would prevent the devices from ever being used if seized by non-US entities. The movement of the bombs by techs has to be approved and programed into the systems before hand otherwise the bomb's safety systems would deactivate the devices. (4) Moving the bombs to Israel is actually crazy since Israel doesn't admit to their own bombs and officially holds that they are nuclear free. And this guy worked for the White House. (5) And finally, concentrating our bombs in fewer and fewer places only makes them even more prone to first strike destruction by Russia. And that is what these bombs are there for, to counter Russia nuclear weapons aimed at NATO nations. The recent attempted Coup in Turkey has given fodder to the anti-nuclear movement given the potential that Incirlik Airbase may have US Nuclear weapons. The usual people are already being allowed to speak by the media, with the New Yorker running an article by Eric Schlosser. And one can't argue that there may be nukes at Incirlik and if there are they would be B-61s since B-61s are the only tactical nuclear free-fall bombs left in the arsenal.
But the one thing both Schlosser and Han's Kristensen don't mention is the command and control systems used to prevent unauthorized use of these bombs. They made mention of the fact that when we had Jupiter IRBMs in Turkey, the missiles were operated by Turkish military units. But the warhead on top could only be released by the US Air Force Liaison officer assigned to the unit. Going back to the early 60s, our bombs were equiped with a Permissive Action Link (PAL). In the early years this was a very special pad lock that when installed blocked key functions of the bomb (meaning it couldn't detonate). Complete equipping of all european based nuclear weapons was completed in September of 1962 (one of the first orders of JFK). Over the decades these devices have been significantly improved. Where the originals were padlocks, the present ones are actually embedded within the bomb and are thus impossible to bypass. Modern nuclear weapon controls are powered by radio-isotopes, have external command and control links. duel release codes, etc. As of the late 80s a 12 digit code had to be inserted, and you had a limited number of tries before the bomb self destructed key components. Now some would like to say that all anyone has to do is drop the bomb, or set it on fire, to cause an explosion. But that is where the bombs presently in stockpile make this impossible. Since the late 80s the newest models of the B-61 have been using insensitive high explosives. The bomb could be dropped into a blast furnace from 20 stories up and it would not set the bomb off. Thus even if someone was to through thermite grenades into the storage bunker for the bombs they wouldn't cause a detonation. And the move the bombs off site would require first the defeating of the 1,000 American troops guarding the airbase and then removing the bombs without setting off the security systems. Security systems that would damage key components of the bomb's detonation system if any tampering is detected. And of course while all this is happening additional American units (airborne or seaborne) would be moving to assist the troops at Incirlik. This would not be Benghazi. The news from France tonight is grim. At least 70 dead and well over a hundred injured when a truck driver deliberately drove his vehicle into a crowd of people watching fireworks. The driver was then killed by French Police, though we do not know the specifics. Did he try to run down the Police and was shot through the windshield, or did he exit the vehicle with a weapon as some have reported. And of course no information on whether he was white (european) or some other nationality. But the most important fact is he didn't use an assault weapon. This killing that exceeds the Orlando killing by nearly 50% will never be mentioned by those who scream about mass killings in the United States. Because those killings are done by guns, not by a delivery truck. In the end France has probably seen more people killed in mass attacks in the last two years then in the previous 20.
Update: The driver had opened fire on the Police and civilians, and after he was killed, the Police found then other additional weapons and grenades in the truck. Some people have remarked on the fact Obama made this statement at the ceremony for the officers ambushed during a Black Lives Matter protest. Obama, “We flood communities with so many guns that it is easier for a teenager to buy a Glock than get his hands on a computer, or even a book.” A number of people took issue with him turning the ceremony into a gun control event, while others thought the comment was just rather strange. Yet this is a recurring theme of Obama for the last two years or more.
On October 27 2015, at a law enforcement gathering in Chicago Obama said that “It is easier for a lot of young people in this city and [communities around the country] to buy a gun than it is to buy a book.” At Benedict College, Columbia. S.C., March 6, 2015. “And as long as you can go into some neighborhoods and it is easier for you to buy a firearm than it is for you to buy a book, there are neighborhoods where it’s easier for you to buy a handgun and clips than it is for you to buy a fresh vegetable — as long as that’s the case, we’re going to continue to see unnecessary violence.” And there were probably other occurrences further back. In point of fact the statement “that’s its easier to buy a gun then <blank>,” can be traced as far back as a Daily Beast article following the Newtown shooting of 2012. And this author vaguely remembers an even earlier statement from a gun controlist politician “that it was easier to get a gun then a Six Pack of Beer”. In short its become the standard rhetoric from the gun control movement in the last decade even though people find it more ridiculous then memorable. Its still on going, but we have had a serious situation in Dallas. If it wasn't bad enough that this morning we were being told that Police officers were leaving the Dallas Police Department for other departments, tonight we have had ten officers shot and three have died (plus one DART officer). Shot by two snipers from an elevated position near the Kennedy assassination site.
It all started as a protest against Police violence, marking the recent shootings in Minnesota and Baton Rouge. Who ever these shooters were they waited until the protest reached a specific location, before, what appears, opening fire on the Police doing crowd control. Thus there were a lot of civilians in the area. |
James N. GibsonPublished Author, Degreed Engineer and amateur Military Historian. Archives
January 2024
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