What would best work in finishing that title?

Sure, there is a word that fits for me. What excites you, the unique reader of this post, whom is searching for something on these forums? Tired of seeing the same ol' things hashed over until they look like over-cooked potatos?

That's probably why there is a hugely thriving entertainment industry. Film and console gaming are excellent examples of the billions of dollars flowing in and out. Books, both fictional and non are at excessive prices for those first-print hard covers. How many of us rush out and buy hardbacks? It seems that it has to be something scandalous to push sales over the brink of desired levels. Something like a Scott Peterson killing his wife or Jose Canseco letting the cat out of the bag on steroid usage. Oh, and sports... that's another vortex spinning out of control.... with tonnes of cash flowing not only through the organizations but through Vegas or online betting.

And let's not forget the whole reason the Internet flourishes. Gotta thank pornography for that, right? Honestly, who cared about all those Usenet groups until they foud the dirty pictures or adult stories? Oh... wait... revealed a bit too much there, didn't I? Okay, I'm one of the guilty.

So I've been there and done that. Heck, even guilty of spamming people a couple of times with bulk, unsolicitied e-mail. My boss made me do that. But then, is it really against the law or simply against proper etiquette or ISP policy? Advertising in America is a way of life... a professional career. How to open the door to selling, that's what it's all about. Tele-marketing, bulk postal mailings and fax distribution. Telephone directories, e-mail and postal address databases are up for sale.

We live in a Society of "too much information" (TMI). Too much to consume, too much to filter for to find the truth or the really interesting stories from our perspectives. Details are hidden in massive FAQ's on support sites or requires hours of search-engine strings that are altered to try to minimize the number of results with maximum efficiency. Efficiency? What's that? Is there such a thing in corporate America?!

Oh yes. They squeezed every last ounce of maximum productivity out the American worker that was physically humanly possible. You remember. They laid off workers and didn't replace them. The remaining workers picked the slack. Albeit with some mechanical or electronic help. Then they laid off more, changed job titles, and the constant reorgs. All maximizing American worker productivity until you couldn't humanly get more work out of them with out side effects like burn out & calling in sick. So how do increase the productivity of the worker now? You reduce the cost of the worker. You eliminate the perks like hour lunch breaks become a half hour, decrease health benefits, eliminate family from worker benefits, eliminate pensions (make them invest it right back into the company with 401K's), decrease 401k contributions, eliminate health care, decrease worker incentive costs (Don't give a bonus, Give a balloon with a cheap plaque and brief speech. Don't have a corporate picnic, have them make floats with their own money & parade around the office for half an hour.) Decrease bonuses. Decrease wages. Don't pay for expanding their knowledge with the newer technology. Give them beepers and electronic leashes so that they're always at your beck & call, even on their day off. Give them more work than can be humanly done in a week so that they come in on weekends to finish up because they want their jobs. Make them evaluate each other so that they turn on each other & focus less on what management is doing. While this hostility goes on as they balance the increased costs their picking up and work demands, start a corporate policy of diversity training. This is so that they won't want to be called rascist as you bring in foreign workers who will work for less for them to train to do their jobs. This was very effecient even as the panic sets in the remaining workers after another lay off that they will be next as they continue training more foreign workers. Make inane policies that create havoc and other more place hostility.As you do this start eliminating entire departments by outsourcing the work to cheaper foreign workers in other countries who were trained by those you laid off. Make sure those countries don't have the awful restrictive labor protections that the US has. Make this cheaper worker work 10 or 12 hour days. Give bonuses to incompetent managers who are willing to sell out & lay off their fellow workers. Then bring in high managers from other companies with no loyalty to any workers to lay off managers and more workers as more of the company is offshore outsourced to the country with the most exploitable work force. Continue to not hire American workers for any flimsy excuse you can think of then tell the government you have a shortage of workers. You have jobs that Americans just won't do for some inexplicable reason you can't phanthom. Do all this as the American worker has lost his community to his other workers because of the distractions you created in the work place. Lobby to keep Americas borders open in the name of free trade & do everything you can to keep its work force glutted. The economy will hold until the American consumer is tapped out. At that point you have a crashed American dollar and cheap American labor. Return to America to exploit its cheap labor at minimal subsistant living wages. The middleclass destroyed it is now a two class nation where the only the richest elite have any power for a very long time. And even as you do this lobby to keep corporate welfare in place and tax cuts for top 1% of the population. You now have a select group of family dynasties who will remain in power for a long time. You can even bully the government, telling them to "change their tone" as it demands more transparency in the accounting and handling of investors dividends because some even outright stole/embezzled even that money. I think the corporations have been rather effecient in their exploitation of not just their workers but their consumers too. Endless little fees now, like ATM's which after programming and only minimal maintainence cost almost nothing to run, yet charge $1.50 usage fee each time a consumer uses it. Oh and don't back up your products with a one year warranty. Give it a 3 month limited warranty and charge and charge 10 or 15 dollars for a real one. Make sure there's a weak point in your product so another will be bought again soon. Like an all metal can opener except the turning cogs are plastic or a toilet seat with plastic hardware. Or give it electronic buttons that wear out with use. Charge exhorbitant prices for a replacement part and the consumer will just buy another one instead. Plastic handles on pots, absolutely brilliant. The all time winner. Add the word repeat to the instructions on a bottle of shampoo. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. Remember that one. Doubled shampoo sales overnight.

Weary, Dreary, Life's so Tearily Inhumane. The more we know, the stupider we get as a species.

Re-reading your post, Keys, glad to know that I'm not the only cynical realist that can see through the tapestry to realize much of what is happening. You'd described it quite well, in fact. And as long as people try to measure corporate success by the annual (or quarterly) bottom line of profit that was turned, the true reasources for attaining that greater success are re-shuffled and with the idea that the profit will just get bigger and bigger.

Nevermind that they don't have a single employee that's got 10 years vested at that company. Don't consider how high the turn-over rate is because the pay is better elsewhere for the same kind of treatment or the pay is lower and the employees are respected and there is reverse-loyalty to them.

Like someone once said, if you find a job you love, then it's not really work. Nowadays, many folks that had begun their "dream jobs" have simply lost interest due to the lack of empathy when they tried to bring about good changes. How many teachers started out with the hopes of passing on knowledge only to be forced to take papers home to grade them because they aren't provided with the tools or the technology to do a proper job? How much of their own monies are spent providing educational materials and learning aids?

There are people in back-breaking jobs that put in 15-20 years of solid work performance, excellent record of being on time and present, doing things that were off the clock or investing their own time at home and all carrying their jobs around with them into their private lives. Now companies are doing online research to find out what organizations or extra-curricular activities job applicants are involved with before they even bother to schedule an interview. Even posting their thoughts on forums (just as we all do) might even reduce people's chances for gaining employment because we spoke out against something we had witnessed as being broken or needing to improve, while the employer just wanted a hard working, dedicated and loyal employee that never questions what they are instructed to do. And yet, they feel that the basic pay, minimal benefits and crappy treatment is something that they are just supposed to swallow down for the sake of "keeping their jobs".

Keys, looks like you and I agree on a lot of these issues. Too bad we aren't in a good position to make the changes that are needed. Even if we were in middle-management and trying to make a difference, the pressure would be so great, we'd be forced to cave in on our stances in order to get the higher-ups off our back and to feel more secure within that corporation. It's the same, typical hierarchy B.S. that rolls downhill to the poor folks doing all the real work.

forgive me but LOL

*bows* I have met my superior in the art of ranting.

Really interesting post you got there... your also forgetting add the repeat to the process. Repeat in every major MEDC so when they collapse and their labour becomes cheap as the now LEDCs become more expensive they come back exploit us, governments eventually go in favour of the workers and the standard of living goes up and then the whole proccess stars again...

to Rancer DS, I go to secondary school (american equiv to junior high I think due to the year im in) and I know of a few teachers who've invested their own money into their lessons due to otherwise crappy equipment