Originally written back in 2005, but still circulating today as a topic in news shows and "talk TV." This explains why the equal-pay-for-equal-work issue is still an issue everywhere but in the military and for government employees.
_______________________________________________________
On Sunday, 2/13/05, I was channel-surfing and stopped briefly on the Book TV program at C-SPAN 2. At the podium was Warren Farrell, the author of Why Men Earn More. I’d seen this topic dealt with in some of my other books, and they all have this to say about why women earn less:
· Lack of knowledge of her true worth in the labor market.
· Lack of accomplishments (or the acknowledgment of accomplishments)
· Lack of willingness to take risks to potentially make more money (through commissions)
· Lack of negotiating skills to leverage true market worth and accomplishments into a higher salary or bonuses
· Lack of knowledge or interest in negotiating a signing bonus or a termination agreement with pay
Notice I said nothing about education levels or family status—ultimately, they don’t matter. Degrees only serve as a barrier to entry, and as a weeding-out tool for applicants--they tell the employer how much education (as well as experience) he can buy in an employee for what he's offering in salary. This is how market worth is set.
Everybody needs to learn how valuable his or her education, skills, and experience are in the labor market. One place to do that is the Salary Wizard. Once you have this information in hand, you can then compare the national average salary to your current one, and learn just how far behind the curve you are.
With the new salary information in hand, ask yourself what you’ve done for the boss lately—what accomplishments have you made over and above your current job duties that served to boost the company’s bottom line (through cost-cutting, product or system innovation, opening new markets, gaining new clientele, or boosting the repeat buys from existing clientele). Have you made any contributions? If so, have you asked for more money in return as a reward for your efforts? Have you made a record of your accomplishments in your resume’ to use as valuable bargaining chips when looking for a new job?
Men do this all the time, especially executive-level men. It’s time to bring the executive-level tactics down to your level. If you want to make the big pay, you have to deliver the big present, ask for recognition, and get rewarded in return. It’s that simple.
The other play is to go out on a limb and sell for commissions. The more you sell, and the more consistently you sell, the more you’re worth to the boss.
Another issue to keep in mind: the cash flow of the company. If the boss just doesn’t HAVE money to pay you more, then it’s time to look elsewhere. All the accomplishment in the world isn’t going to help if the coffers are empty—ask for it in writing, and put your feelers back out in the market (employing the use of a headhunter for discretion if needed). There’s no need to continue your achievement output if there’s no reward coming in the end.
You need to keep track of your market value and accomplishments throughout your working life, and they won’t become any handier than when you find your next job. You also need to know how to negotiate for that new “base” salary you rightly deserve, plus any signing bonuses and termination agreements—these allow you to make money on the deal coming into the job, at the job, and exiting the job. Making accomplishments doesn’t stop here—you need to continually ask what the boss needs and assess what you can do about it—at every job you hold. This is the new norm in the working world.
Don’t settle for what the job initially offers. Learn to ask for more by being worth more. This is the only way salary gaps will ever be narrowed when working with men on an otherwise level playing field (education and experience being roughly the same). There is no discrimination at work here—you just need to catch up on information and tactics.
Some interesting facts from the working world:
The two highest-paying fields in America = engineering and computer science. With very few exceptions, women make more than men in those fields. Here's another list of medical-based high earning careers for women. Here's how to get more bang for the college buck.
Men who never marry make less than women who never marry. Men who never marry are considered losers, while women who never marry are considered winners.
Businesses owned by women pay women less than businesses owned by men.
Do you know the difference between a person working 34 hours/week and someone working 44 hours/week? The pay is almost doubled.
For further reading on the subjects of salary negotiation and accomplishment pay, please consult the books Negotiate This! by Herb Cohen and Fire Your Boss by Stephen Pollan and Mark Levine.
Monday, September 29, 2008
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Updated: Will The REAL Economy Please Stand Up? (L-O-N-G)
Original article written back in January.
No doubt you’ve heard everyone’s grand plan for bailouts and rescuing our “economy”, but what is it they should be rescuing--the common man or business? Just what IS the economy, anyway?
Well, let me pull up a chair and get the tissues for you…it’s not at all what you think.
You probably think the economy is the reflection of ease in which you make your way through life, particularly financial life—can you afford to spend after the bills are paid, food procured, and gas tank topped off? This couldn’t be further from the truth, and in all honesty, the measure of the economy has nothing whatsoever to do with you or your spending habits personally. We don’t make up 2/3 of the economy with our spending—only about half.
In fact, what we spend the bulk of our money on—food and energy—isn’t even counted when gauging economic performance.
What the economy DOES measure, in reality, is the business cycle economy—how many jobs are created and lost, how much inventory/raw material is bought, stored, and used, how many sales were made, and how much profit margin there was in each product sold. John and Jane Q. Public don’t even show up until the very end, as the ultimate buyers of the finished product. The faster this cycle repeats itself, from the manufacture to the finished good sale, the better our economy does.
So please tell me: if a politician makes “economic stimulus package” promises to make money available to heat homes or extend unemployment benefits, how is this affecting the economy?
Also tell me: if we spend the bulk of our after-tax dollars on food and energy, which aren’t counted in tallying economic performance, how will putting tax rebate money into the hands of John and Jane Q. Public help the economy? Politicians are quick to agree that our mere spending will re-energize the economy by buying more end products from businesses, allowing them to buy more inventory to make more stuff, then continue to hope to make future sales—getting the raw materials-to-finished product cycle moving again. This is the theory behind the “keep America shopping” campaigns.
No matter how you get it, you’d most likely spend it on debt, food, energy, or savings/investments. Not very much of it would go into the actual economy, buying largely unnecessary goods and services.
Leftovers are leftovers, whether it’s food, houses, or machinery—when you make too much of something with no plan to use it or get rid of it, it’s waste. Businesses made too much, and now they’re sitting in their own resource waste. Nobody wants this stuff at any price, so it just sits there, causing recession in the business world as it depreciates into worthlessness and backs up the flow of goods, services, and credit.
Here’s the real economy: the bulk of personal spending is pretty much steady—we buy what we need, want, and not much else. Business spending, on the other hand, is as erratic as Britney Spears: huge cycles up, then down, then up again, depending on money availability, investment need, inventory replenishment needs, labor needs, and tax deductibility. Currently, we are in a prolonged down-cycle with business and bank spending grinding to a halt, and inventories rising higher and higher, causing a backlog all the way to the raw materials stage. The only perceived way to unclog this pipeline and get the process flowing again is to finance the end buyer (you)—either by discounting the final retail price, or offering you money to buy at any price--or by financing the business (known as a bailout). In some cases, both have happened at the same time—prices have been discounted to rock-bottom, and credit extended to even the riskiest borrowers, and look what happened! Now that credit has been tightened, business and bank spending has come to a near-halt. To get the economy moving again, that clog needs the Roto-Rooter of large cash infusions, and only Uncle Sam has access to that kind of cash (even if he has to print it himself, which is what he's been doing).
When people talk about the economy and how bad it is, they’re talking about PERSONAL economy if they aren’t in business. Personal economy has nothing to do with business economy, and business economy is what the feds are all concerned over. Your buying a loaf of bread and some milk don’t really affect things like a construction company buying six brand-new Caterpillar bulldozers, or an airline company buying new Dreamliner jets, because those purchases run in the millions (even billions), while your bread and milk may run less than $10. The economy runs on millions, billions, and trillions (as witnessed in the Freddie/Fannie and AIG bailouts), not hundreds.
When a company that buys huge, costly pieces of equipment suddenly stops doing so, and is followed by other companies doing the same, it stalls the economy. Now, the huge, expensive equipment manufacturer has no reason to keep making huge equipment, and is stuck with inventory he can’t sell, and this leads to a write-down (or de-valuation), which leads to a tax loss—this directly affects the tax revenue stream our government relies on for spending.
When we all stop buying and/or start applying tax code loopholes, the taxes stop racking up. Government and business alike are then forced to borrow money (from foreign investors, bond sales, etc.) to make up for the loss in revenue. When they can’t borrow any more, they’re forced to sell assets, as we saw in the Citibank stock sale to the Saudis, selling pieces of big-name Wall Street finance firms to other countries like China, India, Singapore, and Saudi Arabia, as well as Countrywide Mortgage going to Bank of America. When there are no buyers and no other alternatives, businesses go out of business, as witnessed by some big-name home builders and investment banks filing for bankruptcy—there are too many homes and not enough buyers with access to adequate income or credit.
Your personal economy is how well you manage your money: spending, saving, and investing. If you have money available to do all three after taxes, you’re doing just fine. If you have to borrow (use credit) to get by day-to-day, you’re in trouble—that source of credit could dry up with higher rates and shorter payback times, causing you to do the same as businesses: sell off assets, make trade deals (renegotiating your debt), or default altogether.
So you see it isn’t really “our” economy that’s in trouble, but rather the business economy that has the problem. So rather than giving money and free benefits to US as an economic bailout, the money should instead be going to businesses to shore up debt, liquidate overstock, buy more equipment and/or supplies, and create more jobs. But if nobody’s buying at even a deep discount, giving money to businesses won’t help, unless you happen to be a big business consumer—this means other big businesses and small business owners (wholesalers). Small businesses are the life blood of this economy, because they buy the most supplies and inventory (amount-wise, not dollar-wise) due to faster turnover, and they create the most jobs—but they are quick to cut jobs if the conditions are less than ideal. They have to because they want to avoid the traps of too much unsold inventory, and expensive hourly workers standing around with nothing to do. If there’s no demand for their goods or services, then nobody wins.
If we’re cutting back and only buying essentials, it means there’s a lot out there that we aren’t buying—we’ve deemed it unnecessary for whatever reason. Putting money into our hands to spend-spend-spend is not a remedy for the real problem—creating and carrying stuff we WILL buy under any financial conditions is. So far, the only two things we will continue to buy under any circumstance are food and energy (power for the home, and gas for the car). Anything beyond that is optional, and likely to be bought when we feel times are good, have excess discretionary income, or a surprise necessity arises.
The amount of “recession” in the business cycle should serve to show us just how much excess there is in our economy and business world—we’re chock full of things we don’t need or want right now, and it’s all dragging those businesses down in a big way. Even other businesses are sending this same signal by not buying from each other! A recession serves to wring out the excesses so we can get a clean start with a new economy and new business cycle based on things people and other businesses will likely buy. Competition will begin building up again, and the whole larger cycle will repeat itself over time. Tax revenues will also build up again over time, but the government can’t afford to wait until that happens—hence, the “stimulus package” to encourage SOMEBODY to buy, even if it’s us. This also is an indirect back-door way to buy votes.
Businesses have even had to go global looking for someone—anyone at all—to buy their goods and services, and even the government has helped this process by adopting pretty bizarre and seemingly desperate trade agreements (such as nuclear technology with India for mangoes, and high-tech weapons for oil in Saudi Arabia). I guess now even the globe is out of buyers—people with a need, a want, and adequate money or credit to do so.
When not enough people have a need or a want for something, then marketing steps in to CREATE a want or perceived need through trends, hype, showers of advertising, and incentives to buy in the form of money back (coupons, rebates, and other sales tactics). That's their job: want creation. They can come up with a dozen reasons why you cannot live without a particular product, and make you believe every one of them.
Meanwhile, we consumers here at home chug merrily along buying what we need and deem necessary, with our overall spending habits stable and contained. Non-food and non-energy companies would KILL for that kind of steady, stable demand, but how many of us buy bulldozers, jet airplanes, or cargo containers full of steel and wood? These companies went for the one-shot large profit, instead of opting for the small, cumulative, steady profit. Guess who won?
When WE quit buying anything because of exorbitantly high prices or no access to income, then we have collapse—depression. As long as we make money to satisfy our own needs and necessities, the economic recession isn’t our concern, and nobody should be trying to put (borrowed) money into our hands to divert our attention. As long as we still have jobs, we won’t run the risk of economic depression. If we lose those, we’ll just be unemployed. No matter if we exist on our own income, or are reduced to welfare and food stamps, we’re still going to buy food and energy—see the difference between a PERSONAL and BUSINESS economy? We can’t all lose our jobs at the same time, so there will continue to be steady spending on the part of the consumer, even if it’s a little less than usual—we have to eat, sleep, be warm, and transport ourselves somehow, and this is what keeps our PERSONAL economy afloat.
The same can be said for business: they can’t ALL go out of business at the same time, so only the strong and financially-prepared will survive, and new competition will spring up as time goes by. It just may be a rocky road to get through this die-off-and-start-anew point, and this is what our government (through stimulus package promises and bailouts) is trying to stave off—the painful and ugly sorting-out process. Good luck with that.
Better spending control, tighter inventory controls, and a keen sense of demand is what avoids recessions, not more haphazard spending by John Q. Public (financed by his own future tax refunds—they call this a “rebate”). You’d think all this was a relic of the past with the invention of just-in-time inventory control, but no—there is just too much competition out there, and the field is too diluted with weak players offering the same things at the same price points.
Just when we’re salivating at the thought of getting checks in the mail, this caveat comes from the White House: “taxpayers” will get these checks. This means that if you didn’t work and file a return, didn’t make enough money to be charged a federal income tax, or your federal tax burden was wiped out by the saver’s credit, then you would get nothing. In other words, the bulk of this money would go to the rich, business owners, or just people who owed on their taxes—not what the presidential candidates had in mind (or you either, I’m guessing). This is precisely what should happen, because this will short-circuit the indirect vote-buying some candidates were hoping for, and most likely stimulate the spending that’s REALLY needed—business spending and large-ticket items.
What we need to spend like drunken sailors again (like our government wants us to) is job creation, and higher-paying job creation at that (even this is no guarantee, as it is done with the efforts of individuals--see The Truth About the Economy and Job Creation). No “stimulus package” direct to consumers, or succession of massive bailouts is going to do that for us.
No doubt you’ve heard everyone’s grand plan for bailouts and rescuing our “economy”, but what is it they should be rescuing--the common man or business? Just what IS the economy, anyway?
Well, let me pull up a chair and get the tissues for you…it’s not at all what you think.
You probably think the economy is the reflection of ease in which you make your way through life, particularly financial life—can you afford to spend after the bills are paid, food procured, and gas tank topped off? This couldn’t be further from the truth, and in all honesty, the measure of the economy has nothing whatsoever to do with you or your spending habits personally. We don’t make up 2/3 of the economy with our spending—only about half.
In fact, what we spend the bulk of our money on—food and energy—isn’t even counted when gauging economic performance.
What the economy DOES measure, in reality, is the business cycle economy—how many jobs are created and lost, how much inventory/raw material is bought, stored, and used, how many sales were made, and how much profit margin there was in each product sold. John and Jane Q. Public don’t even show up until the very end, as the ultimate buyers of the finished product. The faster this cycle repeats itself, from the manufacture to the finished good sale, the better our economy does.
So please tell me: if a politician makes “economic stimulus package” promises to make money available to heat homes or extend unemployment benefits, how is this affecting the economy?
Also tell me: if we spend the bulk of our after-tax dollars on food and energy, which aren’t counted in tallying economic performance, how will putting tax rebate money into the hands of John and Jane Q. Public help the economy? Politicians are quick to agree that our mere spending will re-energize the economy by buying more end products from businesses, allowing them to buy more inventory to make more stuff, then continue to hope to make future sales—getting the raw materials-to-finished product cycle moving again. This is the theory behind the “keep America shopping” campaigns.
No matter how you get it, you’d most likely spend it on debt, food, energy, or savings/investments. Not very much of it would go into the actual economy, buying largely unnecessary goods and services.
Leftovers are leftovers, whether it’s food, houses, or machinery—when you make too much of something with no plan to use it or get rid of it, it’s waste. Businesses made too much, and now they’re sitting in their own resource waste. Nobody wants this stuff at any price, so it just sits there, causing recession in the business world as it depreciates into worthlessness and backs up the flow of goods, services, and credit.
Here’s the real economy: the bulk of personal spending is pretty much steady—we buy what we need, want, and not much else. Business spending, on the other hand, is as erratic as Britney Spears: huge cycles up, then down, then up again, depending on money availability, investment need, inventory replenishment needs, labor needs, and tax deductibility. Currently, we are in a prolonged down-cycle with business and bank spending grinding to a halt, and inventories rising higher and higher, causing a backlog all the way to the raw materials stage. The only perceived way to unclog this pipeline and get the process flowing again is to finance the end buyer (you)—either by discounting the final retail price, or offering you money to buy at any price--or by financing the business (known as a bailout). In some cases, both have happened at the same time—prices have been discounted to rock-bottom, and credit extended to even the riskiest borrowers, and look what happened! Now that credit has been tightened, business and bank spending has come to a near-halt. To get the economy moving again, that clog needs the Roto-Rooter of large cash infusions, and only Uncle Sam has access to that kind of cash (even if he has to print it himself, which is what he's been doing).
When people talk about the economy and how bad it is, they’re talking about PERSONAL economy if they aren’t in business. Personal economy has nothing to do with business economy, and business economy is what the feds are all concerned over. Your buying a loaf of bread and some milk don’t really affect things like a construction company buying six brand-new Caterpillar bulldozers, or an airline company buying new Dreamliner jets, because those purchases run in the millions (even billions), while your bread and milk may run less than $10. The economy runs on millions, billions, and trillions (as witnessed in the Freddie/Fannie and AIG bailouts), not hundreds.
When a company that buys huge, costly pieces of equipment suddenly stops doing so, and is followed by other companies doing the same, it stalls the economy. Now, the huge, expensive equipment manufacturer has no reason to keep making huge equipment, and is stuck with inventory he can’t sell, and this leads to a write-down (or de-valuation), which leads to a tax loss—this directly affects the tax revenue stream our government relies on for spending.
When we all stop buying and/or start applying tax code loopholes, the taxes stop racking up. Government and business alike are then forced to borrow money (from foreign investors, bond sales, etc.) to make up for the loss in revenue. When they can’t borrow any more, they’re forced to sell assets, as we saw in the Citibank stock sale to the Saudis, selling pieces of big-name Wall Street finance firms to other countries like China, India, Singapore, and Saudi Arabia, as well as Countrywide Mortgage going to Bank of America. When there are no buyers and no other alternatives, businesses go out of business, as witnessed by some big-name home builders and investment banks filing for bankruptcy—there are too many homes and not enough buyers with access to adequate income or credit.
Your personal economy is how well you manage your money: spending, saving, and investing. If you have money available to do all three after taxes, you’re doing just fine. If you have to borrow (use credit) to get by day-to-day, you’re in trouble—that source of credit could dry up with higher rates and shorter payback times, causing you to do the same as businesses: sell off assets, make trade deals (renegotiating your debt), or default altogether.
So you see it isn’t really “our” economy that’s in trouble, but rather the business economy that has the problem. So rather than giving money and free benefits to US as an economic bailout, the money should instead be going to businesses to shore up debt, liquidate overstock, buy more equipment and/or supplies, and create more jobs. But if nobody’s buying at even a deep discount, giving money to businesses won’t help, unless you happen to be a big business consumer—this means other big businesses and small business owners (wholesalers). Small businesses are the life blood of this economy, because they buy the most supplies and inventory (amount-wise, not dollar-wise) due to faster turnover, and they create the most jobs—but they are quick to cut jobs if the conditions are less than ideal. They have to because they want to avoid the traps of too much unsold inventory, and expensive hourly workers standing around with nothing to do. If there’s no demand for their goods or services, then nobody wins.
If we’re cutting back and only buying essentials, it means there’s a lot out there that we aren’t buying—we’ve deemed it unnecessary for whatever reason. Putting money into our hands to spend-spend-spend is not a remedy for the real problem—creating and carrying stuff we WILL buy under any financial conditions is. So far, the only two things we will continue to buy under any circumstance are food and energy (power for the home, and gas for the car). Anything beyond that is optional, and likely to be bought when we feel times are good, have excess discretionary income, or a surprise necessity arises.
The amount of “recession” in the business cycle should serve to show us just how much excess there is in our economy and business world—we’re chock full of things we don’t need or want right now, and it’s all dragging those businesses down in a big way. Even other businesses are sending this same signal by not buying from each other! A recession serves to wring out the excesses so we can get a clean start with a new economy and new business cycle based on things people and other businesses will likely buy. Competition will begin building up again, and the whole larger cycle will repeat itself over time. Tax revenues will also build up again over time, but the government can’t afford to wait until that happens—hence, the “stimulus package” to encourage SOMEBODY to buy, even if it’s us. This also is an indirect back-door way to buy votes.
Businesses have even had to go global looking for someone—anyone at all—to buy their goods and services, and even the government has helped this process by adopting pretty bizarre and seemingly desperate trade agreements (such as nuclear technology with India for mangoes, and high-tech weapons for oil in Saudi Arabia). I guess now even the globe is out of buyers—people with a need, a want, and adequate money or credit to do so.
When not enough people have a need or a want for something, then marketing steps in to CREATE a want or perceived need through trends, hype, showers of advertising, and incentives to buy in the form of money back (coupons, rebates, and other sales tactics). That's their job: want creation. They can come up with a dozen reasons why you cannot live without a particular product, and make you believe every one of them.
Meanwhile, we consumers here at home chug merrily along buying what we need and deem necessary, with our overall spending habits stable and contained. Non-food and non-energy companies would KILL for that kind of steady, stable demand, but how many of us buy bulldozers, jet airplanes, or cargo containers full of steel and wood? These companies went for the one-shot large profit, instead of opting for the small, cumulative, steady profit. Guess who won?
When WE quit buying anything because of exorbitantly high prices or no access to income, then we have collapse—depression. As long as we make money to satisfy our own needs and necessities, the economic recession isn’t our concern, and nobody should be trying to put (borrowed) money into our hands to divert our attention. As long as we still have jobs, we won’t run the risk of economic depression. If we lose those, we’ll just be unemployed. No matter if we exist on our own income, or are reduced to welfare and food stamps, we’re still going to buy food and energy—see the difference between a PERSONAL and BUSINESS economy? We can’t all lose our jobs at the same time, so there will continue to be steady spending on the part of the consumer, even if it’s a little less than usual—we have to eat, sleep, be warm, and transport ourselves somehow, and this is what keeps our PERSONAL economy afloat.
The same can be said for business: they can’t ALL go out of business at the same time, so only the strong and financially-prepared will survive, and new competition will spring up as time goes by. It just may be a rocky road to get through this die-off-and-start-anew point, and this is what our government (through stimulus package promises and bailouts) is trying to stave off—the painful and ugly sorting-out process. Good luck with that.
Better spending control, tighter inventory controls, and a keen sense of demand is what avoids recessions, not more haphazard spending by John Q. Public (financed by his own future tax refunds—they call this a “rebate”). You’d think all this was a relic of the past with the invention of just-in-time inventory control, but no—there is just too much competition out there, and the field is too diluted with weak players offering the same things at the same price points.
Just when we’re salivating at the thought of getting checks in the mail, this caveat comes from the White House: “taxpayers” will get these checks. This means that if you didn’t work and file a return, didn’t make enough money to be charged a federal income tax, or your federal tax burden was wiped out by the saver’s credit, then you would get nothing. In other words, the bulk of this money would go to the rich, business owners, or just people who owed on their taxes—not what the presidential candidates had in mind (or you either, I’m guessing). This is precisely what should happen, because this will short-circuit the indirect vote-buying some candidates were hoping for, and most likely stimulate the spending that’s REALLY needed—business spending and large-ticket items.
What we need to spend like drunken sailors again (like our government wants us to) is job creation, and higher-paying job creation at that (even this is no guarantee, as it is done with the efforts of individuals--see The Truth About the Economy and Job Creation). No “stimulus package” direct to consumers, or succession of massive bailouts is going to do that for us.
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Updated: Why Your Vote Really Doesn't Matter
Boy, I’m just a real shot in the arm, huh? First, I tell you why you aren’t part of “the economy” everyone’s worried over, then I tell you how you aren’t really a taxpayer unless you owe the IRS, and now I’m going to rip one more hole in your psyche (again): your vote doesn’t count for squat.
Sure, you can show up to as many voting places as you want, cast as many ballots as you want, but in the end, it’s only for LOCAL issues, not federal ones. All this presidential ballyhooing that’s going on all across the country, and the super-duper-pooper Tuesday hype is mostly all for naught. We’ve forgotten in a big way that our president is NOT chosen by THE people, but by a very small and select group of individuals called The Electoral College.
Yep—super-duper Tuesday was a “duper” alright. It duped many states at once into thinking their citizens’ votes count for something, when it’s really a giant exercise in mobility and futility. The whole electoral process has managed to dupe us all into thinking we actually matter, have a voice, and representation in government. The only thing that matters is that we continue to pay our taxes on time and in full, but the country goes through this huge charade every four years to keep us from revolting en masse.
In spite of what you may think about casting your vote, the Electoral College doesn’t refer to, or take into consideration, your individual vote—or the majority votes of the country. Instead, they do this: a select group of Presidential Electors (each state has its own number of Electors—see map)), go to their state capitols to cast a ballot for their presidential and vice-presidential choice. Your individual vote determines who the Presidential Electors are, not who the actual President is going to be.
The entry in Wikipedia goes on to say: “In each state, voters vote for a slate of pre-selected candidates for Presidential Elector, representing the various candidates for President. State ballots, however, are designed to suggest that the voters are voting for actual candidates for President. Most states use what is termed the short ballot, in which a vote for one party (such as Democratic or Republican) is interpreted as a vote for the entire slate of Presidential Electors. In these states, with rare exceptions, one party wins the entire electoral vote of the state (by either plurality or majority). Maine and Nebraska choose Presidential Electors using what is termed the District Method, which makes it possible for the voters to choose Electors of different political parties and split the electoral vote of these two states.
The Presidential Electors of each state (and DC) meet 41 days following the popular vote to cast the electoral votes. The Electors ballot first for President, then for Vice President. On rare occasions, an Elector does not cast the electoral vote for the party's national ticket, usually as a political statement; these people are called faithless Electors. Each Elector signs a document entitled the Certificate of Vote which sets forth the electoral vote of the state (or DC). One original Certificate of Vote is sent by certified mail to the Office of the Vice President.
One month following the casting of the electoral votes, the U.S. Congress meets in joint session to declare the winner of the election. If a candidate for President receives the vote of 270 or more Presidential Electors, the presiding officer (usually the sitting Vice President) declares that candidate to be the President-elect, and a candidate for vice president receiving 270 or more electoral votes is similarly declared to be the Vice President-elect.”
So you see, we really don’t count for much come election day. Some day someone will finally stand up and ask why we continue to go through this dog-and-pony show every four years, with more dog-and-pony acts of fund-raising and campaigning in between. Also, that same someone will bring to our attention in a memorable way that these same politicians who campaign and fund-raise aren’t taking care of business up on Capitol Hill like they’re paid to do.
Then there’s the issue of vote-rigging by electronic means—time and time again the electronic voting machines have been shown to already be compromised, or can easily be compromised, rendering whatever vote we may cast to be erroneous and/or fictional at best. The vote can be rigged to favor one candidate over another, so why do we even bother? Because it makes us feel better and keeps us from considering mass revolt and huge tax protests. They want our money, not our opinion.
Doesn’t it make you wonder what Obama, McCain, and their VP picks are missing back at work while they’re out parading around the country, still trying to persuade us to take part in a totally useless endeavor? How many bills might be passed or vetoed while they’re gone, and how many could’ve gone the other way with their votes? This probably accounts for the “do-nothing Congress” we have today—they do nothing but raise funds and campaign, while the others back on the Hill wait and watch, or just go on vacation for a month--it's alright...nobody's missing a thing anyway. It’s got to be hard to reach a majority when so many members are out waging media war on the common citizen, so trying to get anything passed in Congress is put on hold while the chosen few go out and play.
It gets worse. Once people get elected (whether to Congress or a higher level), this past article explains why work still doesn’t get done by anybody, and never will.
What do you suppose would happen if nobody, not a single bloody soul, showed up to vote in November? Do you think chaos would erupt? Nope, it wouldn’t…well, only in the media. The process would continue on without our input, and go to show you exactly how insignificant we are in the scheme of things. If anyone who wasn’t a Presidential Elector suddenly died or left the country, we’d still have an elected President and Vice-President—that’s how insignificant we are on Election Day. Remember, they only want our money, not our opinion.
Welcome to Uncle Sam’s Plantation, Magic Show, and Prop Shop. We’re only supposed to work, be distracted by shiny things, and breed to make more workers—everything else is optional. Lou Dobbs can screech all he wants about having yourself designated as an independent voter, but it won’t do any good. It’s still taking part in a useless activity, so where’s the independence? You ask me, I say the REAL independent voters are the ones who stay home from the polls—they spend the time and energy doing something personally worthwhile instead. This is what Hubby and I plan to do—we’re getting a little tired of writing in Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert on every ballot we get our hands on.
I have to admit it will be interesting to see how many people vote for Jon and Stephen this year. Last election, I believe they got something like 13% of the vote (I’d have to look this up to be sure). This is what happens when your choices come down to a giant douche and a turd sandwich, and it will happen again this election. I'm not going to tell you which is which, because it really doesn't matter.
Sure, you can show up to as many voting places as you want, cast as many ballots as you want, but in the end, it’s only for LOCAL issues, not federal ones. All this presidential ballyhooing that’s going on all across the country, and the super-duper-pooper Tuesday hype is mostly all for naught. We’ve forgotten in a big way that our president is NOT chosen by THE people, but by a very small and select group of individuals called The Electoral College.
Yep—super-duper Tuesday was a “duper” alright. It duped many states at once into thinking their citizens’ votes count for something, when it’s really a giant exercise in mobility and futility. The whole electoral process has managed to dupe us all into thinking we actually matter, have a voice, and representation in government. The only thing that matters is that we continue to pay our taxes on time and in full, but the country goes through this huge charade every four years to keep us from revolting en masse.
In spite of what you may think about casting your vote, the Electoral College doesn’t refer to, or take into consideration, your individual vote—or the majority votes of the country. Instead, they do this: a select group of Presidential Electors (each state has its own number of Electors—see map)), go to their state capitols to cast a ballot for their presidential and vice-presidential choice. Your individual vote determines who the Presidential Electors are, not who the actual President is going to be.
The entry in Wikipedia goes on to say: “In each state, voters vote for a slate of pre-selected candidates for Presidential Elector, representing the various candidates for President. State ballots, however, are designed to suggest that the voters are voting for actual candidates for President. Most states use what is termed the short ballot, in which a vote for one party (such as Democratic or Republican) is interpreted as a vote for the entire slate of Presidential Electors. In these states, with rare exceptions, one party wins the entire electoral vote of the state (by either plurality or majority). Maine and Nebraska choose Presidential Electors using what is termed the District Method, which makes it possible for the voters to choose Electors of different political parties and split the electoral vote of these two states.
The Presidential Electors of each state (and DC) meet 41 days following the popular vote to cast the electoral votes. The Electors ballot first for President, then for Vice President. On rare occasions, an Elector does not cast the electoral vote for the party's national ticket, usually as a political statement; these people are called faithless Electors. Each Elector signs a document entitled the Certificate of Vote which sets forth the electoral vote of the state (or DC). One original Certificate of Vote is sent by certified mail to the Office of the Vice President.
One month following the casting of the electoral votes, the U.S. Congress meets in joint session to declare the winner of the election. If a candidate for President receives the vote of 270 or more Presidential Electors, the presiding officer (usually the sitting Vice President) declares that candidate to be the President-elect, and a candidate for vice president receiving 270 or more electoral votes is similarly declared to be the Vice President-elect.”
So you see, we really don’t count for much come election day. Some day someone will finally stand up and ask why we continue to go through this dog-and-pony show every four years, with more dog-and-pony acts of fund-raising and campaigning in between. Also, that same someone will bring to our attention in a memorable way that these same politicians who campaign and fund-raise aren’t taking care of business up on Capitol Hill like they’re paid to do.
Then there’s the issue of vote-rigging by electronic means—time and time again the electronic voting machines have been shown to already be compromised, or can easily be compromised, rendering whatever vote we may cast to be erroneous and/or fictional at best. The vote can be rigged to favor one candidate over another, so why do we even bother? Because it makes us feel better and keeps us from considering mass revolt and huge tax protests. They want our money, not our opinion.
Doesn’t it make you wonder what Obama, McCain, and their VP picks are missing back at work while they’re out parading around the country, still trying to persuade us to take part in a totally useless endeavor? How many bills might be passed or vetoed while they’re gone, and how many could’ve gone the other way with their votes? This probably accounts for the “do-nothing Congress” we have today—they do nothing but raise funds and campaign, while the others back on the Hill wait and watch, or just go on vacation for a month--it's alright...nobody's missing a thing anyway. It’s got to be hard to reach a majority when so many members are out waging media war on the common citizen, so trying to get anything passed in Congress is put on hold while the chosen few go out and play.
It gets worse. Once people get elected (whether to Congress or a higher level), this past article explains why work still doesn’t get done by anybody, and never will.
What do you suppose would happen if nobody, not a single bloody soul, showed up to vote in November? Do you think chaos would erupt? Nope, it wouldn’t…well, only in the media. The process would continue on without our input, and go to show you exactly how insignificant we are in the scheme of things. If anyone who wasn’t a Presidential Elector suddenly died or left the country, we’d still have an elected President and Vice-President—that’s how insignificant we are on Election Day. Remember, they only want our money, not our opinion.
Welcome to Uncle Sam’s Plantation, Magic Show, and Prop Shop. We’re only supposed to work, be distracted by shiny things, and breed to make more workers—everything else is optional. Lou Dobbs can screech all he wants about having yourself designated as an independent voter, but it won’t do any good. It’s still taking part in a useless activity, so where’s the independence? You ask me, I say the REAL independent voters are the ones who stay home from the polls—they spend the time and energy doing something personally worthwhile instead. This is what Hubby and I plan to do—we’re getting a little tired of writing in Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert on every ballot we get our hands on.
I have to admit it will be interesting to see how many people vote for Jon and Stephen this year. Last election, I believe they got something like 13% of the vote (I’d have to look this up to be sure). This is what happens when your choices come down to a giant douche and a turd sandwich, and it will happen again this election. I'm not going to tell you which is which, because it really doesn't matter.
Monday, September 01, 2008
For the Rest of the Nation: Frugal Emergency Preparedness
A rerun of a 2005 article. It's never too late or too expensive to get ready for emergencies.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
