What's Valuable to Me.

What’s valuable to me? Right under my wife and my son, my privacy is important. I love my privacy. Rather hypocritical coming from a blogger right? But the fact of the matter is that I don’t like to give out too much info about myself. Okay you might find me on LinkedIn but I don’t like Facebook, and you won’t find me there. Despite using services from Google you won’t find me through the Google plus. Mark Zuckerberg might have this vision of having everyone united and connected through social networks, preferably through Facebook. If you ask me it seems that the more we connect and share with others on Facebook, or through other social networks we become more the Borg from the Star Trek series, and I’m definitely against that notion that we become connected like the Borg. I prefer to be individualistic, and allow for the creativity of the individual which can trump the collective mindset any time. The more we share the more we connect with others through the internet and social networks the more we tell companies about ourselves. I can have a conversation with a few people and know that what I just told them won’t will stay with them, if I had the same conversation online then companies can take what I said to try, and use it to sell to me or whoever else was in on the conversation, some product or service. Which is great for selling me product that I didn't even know I wanted or needed, but at the same time by having that conversation online I gave up my right to privacy because what said is now part of a data pool that is analysed and parsed for meaning and substance beyond the intended result. Thus the value of my privacy. If I value it, then I must safeguard it, right? The first rule here is limit what you say or do online. Another good rule use the tools available to surf online anonymously. There’s a whole host of tools that a person can use. The next rule is to never post a blog. I am in clear violation of my own rule here since I love sharing my thoughts with the world! Another good rule of thumb if a person values their privacy remain reclusive to the rest of the world. Do we need that set top tv box that we place our calendars and a list of our daily activities in? When use such services we are giving service providers and even Governments more information about our selves, so that they can either sell us adds or can monitor our activities. So in a nutshell if a person wants to protect their privacy they should limit their activities online. It’s almost like being a groundhog popping out of his hole only to duck back in it for safety. One last point about staying off line is that by doing so enables a person to stay off everyone’s radar. How can you be found if you don’t do anything online that might identify who you are, and what you do?

Eric........................

Should Government regulate what our children eat?

Should government tell us what to eat and how big of a portion we should have? Should government  limit the right our children to eat what they want? Should government forbid the freedom of parents, of school children to have bake sales, or sell candy bars for fundraisers? We have the right to choose however we see fit. Thus if we find pleasure in eating, then it is our right  to eat as we please. It is not the role of government to tell us what we can and cannot eat. The main role for government when it comes to the food chain is to ensure that food quality and food safety standards have been met. It is our right to find pleasure however we might please, so that we can eat as big of a portion as want or that our wallet says that we can afford to eat. Government has no right  to say what portion size that we may have when we eat out. When it comes to school lunches for the children, government's attitude is that if it's paying for the school lunch program then it has a “right” to tell schools and parents what the children can and cannot eat at lunch. It is with this same attitude that the government pays for our children’s  education, thus government claims it has a “right” to regulate what types  of food are sold on school premises. Thus if a food item is deemed unhealthy for everyone then that item needs to be banned from school premises, which has the same effect as outlawing that item to school children, thus barring its sale on public property. But this argument is flawed in a couple of ways. The first way that the government’s argument is flawed is the government assumption that since government pays for the program that it can  demand terms and conditions that the people must follow in order to participate. This line of  thinking is wrong since it is through revenue generated by the collection of taxes paid by the taxpayer, which gives government the funds to hand out for the school lunch program. Thus any and all authority resides with the taxpayer the source of government revenues. The second reason as to why government thought is wrong, is that such mandates and regulations infringe on a person’s right to freedom. Such an infringement by the government of a person's right to freedom whether its choice or its freedom of movement is so immoral as to make the government regulations illegal since they either limit or take away freedom. But one might say that this talk of freedom and rights is all and good in the real world but it cannot nor should it be applied to the school system and or its properties. Again this line of thought ignores the rights of the taxpayer parents in the education of their children. A parent has every right to say either that I don’t care what my kid eats at school for lunch so that they can buy whatever they want. Thus a child is learning about the importance of choice and the freedom of choice. Or a parent might say “I want my child to eat only healthy things, thus they will take the time and spend the money for healthy snacks and lunches. In this respect  the child is learning what to eat to be healthy. Thus two students are learning two different  lessons. One is learning about the empowerment of choice and the other is learning about the benefits of a healthy lifestyle. A person might ask but what about students selling candy bars and or having bake sales  at their schools to help pay for after school programs? I am of the belief following my earlier line of thought that parents being taxpayers are in effect stakeholders in government. What this means is that through the payment of taxes taxpayers own a part of government. A person might believe that such a status might include certain rights or a privilege not accorded to those who pay no taxes. In theory it should, in reality it does not. In theory parents being taxpayers, and thus stakholders in government would have the right to organize through  the PTO’s bake sales, cookie sales and or candy sales to help fund  after school programs such as trips for the school band, equipment for sport programs etc. In reality the government does not recognize the status of the taxpaying parents as being stake holders in government and thus does not  recognize their right to pay for  such activities by any means they might deem fit and proper. By not recogizing the rights of parents as being stake holders, the the government is acting  ileagally and unconstitutionally by denying the parents the right to choose how after school activities ought to be paid for. Furthermore by the government saying any and all sales cannot take place anywhere on school grounds it is again acting in an unconstitutional manner since it fails to either recognize or acknowledge that school grounds are like parks in that they too are public property. If the school grounds are public like the parks then the government cannot deny their use by the taxpaying public since it is the taxpayer who pays for their matience and up keep in the first place. Thus we have a government assuming rights never accorded  to it while denying the people their rights. So in effect government squashes the rights of the people so that it might assume those rights never accorded to it, nor meant to have. To summerize then the government has no right, to tell us what to eat. The government has no right what size portions we should eat. The government has no right to tell our children what they can and cannot eat. Lastly government has no right to forbid parent fund raisers on public school grounds since parents are taxpayers and thus stake holders in government.


Eric..................

Considering the Value of SMB's and Workers.

What is the value to society of a small business owner? What is a small business? A small business might be as  simple as selling flowers on a street corner, to an enterprise with 50 to 100 employees. A small business might serve a city or town. Such as being the only dry cleaner in town, or being the only ice cream stand around for miles. A small business might cater to a niche market and have selective buyers from all over the world. The more small businesses the better. Why? More Smb’s means that there are people willing to take risks in running a business. Furthermore more Smb’s mean more job opportunities for everyone. With job opportunities  comes the chance for a worker  to gain valuable experience. The more skilled a worker is the more money the skilled worker can demand to be paid. This in turn can help the Smb owner grow and expand  their business, in turn offering more job opportunities  to other persons seeking work. The cycle repeats itself in theory. In theory one worker or a small group of workers helps the Smb owner make their vision of their business a reality. Facebook is an example of a small group of workers who were skilled at computer programming and they helped Mark Zuckerberg turn his vision into reality. Zuckerberg needed skilled programmers to keep his business up and running, he needed it to be reliable and always on. Growth and expansion of the business created new opportunities  for other programmers, and even low level network technicians who were needed to build and maintain the server farms for Facebook’s website. Even the lawyers benefited from the success of Facebook. The bigger the company grew the more laws that started to apply to the corporation. Therefore there was a ripple effect in the economy in part just coming from the lawyer fees. But Facebook is an example of an Smb that grew into a corporate giant. Most Smb’s  don’t ever come close to the growth like Facebook did. Instead Smb’s focus on meeting the needs and demands of the local market that they serve. Typical Smb expansion might take the form of local of donut shop that gets very popular, then the owner decides to open another location across town. That location proven be profitable. In turn with every new location that is opened, and is proven to be profitable jobs are created, and people are able to buy life’s necessities even though it’s skilled or unskilled labor. Politicians like to hype the value of Smb’s when the run for office realizing the job generating potential that small companies create. As much as politicians want job creation they are always looking for new sources of revenue, and what better sources of revenue than the small businesses that are thriving and creating the very jobs that politicians love to hype so much. Not only does government seek to tax small business for additional revenue but it seeks to burden Smb’s with regulations that seek to protect the public and employees’ from every case of natural disasters and possible accidents in the workplace. All these regulations add costs to doing business for the small business owner. The more government regulate companies the more value it takes from the economy since the Smb owner might see the value of being in business dwindle away until they no longer see the value of operating their business. So at what point does government regulation becomes so burdensome as to stifle smb growth? That point is any point at which an entrepreneur no longer thinks that the value outweigh the costs of meeting regulations. Therefore though it seems unlikely, but politicians need to understand and weigh the costs to any proposed regulation that might overburden industry so as to might make it cost prohibitive to being in business. One could argue for tougher oversight of government agencies that make regulations on behalf of Congress, since these agencies are given the authority from Congress to make regulations as it sees’ necessary, which to me is wrong since the very notion of regulation making is left solely to Congress and the President according to the Constitution. Thus we could begin to look at the justification for government regulation and raise to question of the morality of certain regulations. But I will do that another time.

The value of employees.

Workers in donut shops might be considered unskilled labor since what they do can also be taught to anyone, thus they are easily replaced. Because of the value of the unskilled labor, their wages tend to be lower since society, and the market place value their skills less than that those of skilled labor. In contrast to this theory is the fact that many companies laid off/ fired some of their most skilled and knowledgeable people who tended to be older and who were expected to retire in twenty to fifteen years. Why? The most basic answer is because older more senior, in terms of years of service were making more money, as they get older their health care costs were expected to increase, thus costing the companies more than they were presumed  to be worth based in their skills. Thus the costs associated with an older worker rather than added value of the same worker became the determining factor as to whether to employ or fire certain workers. So we have a larger baby boomer population between the ages of 45-65, thus there are expected costs versus expected value. Are costs of an employee greater than, less than, or equal to the value that the employee adds to the company. Then we have to consider what effect  that the total cost and value of the employee will have on profitability. An example is the story of how Walmart for years had a position of greeter at all its stores. In theory here Walmart “valued” the position of greeter in its stores, greeting customers as they came in and acting as a security measure. But then Walmart determined that since the position was not a productive use labor capital that it need to cut the position from all its stores transitioning the costs to more productive uses of labor that are more profitable. So here Walmart determined  that the position of greeter was not as valuable to the companies bottom line, in a way it appears that it cut costs but in fact  it transitioned the costs of labor savings to the other departments that are more profitable for the company. In turn being more valuable to the company. In another example of value and employee cost is the notion in today’s corporate culture that unless the job you do can be billed to a customer you are not a valued employee because you are not adding to the companies bottom line. Today’s companies have to find the justification for the cost of having secretaries or administrative assistants as they are called. Again companies question what value admins add to an org. and whether or not the benefits of the costs  of a non billable position. Therefore job seekers in today’s tough job market have to be aware and ready to market what “value” they would bring to the company. In a nutshell companies care about two things when hiring new employees’ value and what increase in profitability can the company expect from the new hire, because companies have to be weigh the increased costs of bringing a new hire into the company. One might expect that unions might tap into the notion that companies value employees just for their ability to generate revenue for the company and that’s all companies value employees for. But that’s just it, the basic premise of any company is to generate revenue for the owners, and a return on investment. So the value basis of any employee in any company is that they help the company make a profit by providing some good or service, which without the work of an employee would not be possible.


Eric.................