Business as Usual

[xoxoxoBruce]

From the Wall Street Journal, how business works.

Caterpillar Inc. says it will close five more factories, including an Oxford, MS, plant, as the heavy equipment maker reacts to slowing demand for construction and mining equipment worldwide by cutting capacity. With Thursday’s announcement, Caterpillar is closing or consolidating 20 facilities. That sounds like a reasonable approach.

The Oxford plant, with 240 employees, earning $15 to $17 and hour, stamping me hose couplings, will continue work into 2017, then shift some production to Caterpillar’s plant in Menominee, Michigan, and some work to outside suppliers.

Over the next 18 months Caterpillar is also closing:
325-employee facility in Newberry, SC, and
75-employee in Ridgeway, SC, shifting work to company plants in Seguin, TX; Lafayette, IN; and Griffin, GA.

70-worker plant in Jacksonville, FL, shifting work to outside suppliers.
110-worker Morganton, NC, shifting work to other company plants and suppliers.

Caterpillar says it has laid off 5,300 workers between last September through March 30.
5300+240+325+75+70+110 = 6120

Caterpillar CEO’s 2015 Pay Package Reached $17.9 Million
Doug Oberhelman, CEO since July 2010, compensation for 2015 rose 4.5% to $17.9 million, but his performance-based pay plunged as the sales and profit fell in the face of weak markets.

20 plants closed
6120 peons pay goes to zero
CEO pay up 4.5% to $17.9 million

Yeah, business as usual.

[Griff]

Classy.

[tw]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Caterpillar Inc. says it will close five more factories, including an Oxford, MS, plant, as the heavy equipment maker reacts to slowing demand for construction and mining equipment worldwide by cutting capacity. With Thursday’s announcement, Caterpillar is closing or consolidating 20 facilities.

How does an economy create more jobs? Same job is done by less people every year. Otherwise more jobs must be eliminated.

So the question is whether Caterpillar is doing what should have been done long ago. Or if management is destroying jobs due to something that actually means less jobs. Less workers can be good or bad. If done because productivity increases, then America grows, all workers (even in other industries) are wealthier, and only good things result. If done because of cost controls, then costs increase, American living standards decrease, job losses continue into the future, and only bad things result.

Article cites a red flag. Spread sheets only report what a boss was doing four and more years ago. Carly Fiorina was so dumb, ignorant, and destructive as to start driving HP into bankruptcy in only four years. This one has been there 6 years. Is he only trying to make profits or trying to make better products? One cannot do both.

6 years means work that started when he took over is only just now being measured by spread sheets. Worse, he comes from the finance side - having been a CFO. We all know from so many examples that CFOs make bad CEOs by stifling innovation (Archie Bunker would be proud of them).

When Steve Ballmer replaced Bill Gates, then Microsoft no longer created innovative products. Destruction of innovation and resulting jobs four to ten years later is so common as to be biblical (maybe it should be called Revelations).

Is Doug Oberhelman really a bean counter mentality? Or is he product oriented? Those are the only people in the world. CFO would explain why Caterpillar is destroying jobs. Purpose of a company is profits - not the product. Purpose of a company is to enrich the Central Committee of the Communist party - also called managers who do what is taught in business schools. (Also known as Donald Trump.)

So what new and innovative products have been introduced by Caterpillar in a past 6 years? To say anything useful about job losses means such details must be known. Since jobs are only created by innovation (not by money as bean counters would have us believe).

How much more bad news has come out of Michigan? Another example of what happened when its largest industry - automotive - were taken over and subverted in the early 1970s. Job losses in that industry were so massive that other state industries were seriously and adversely affected. What a bean counter does today has adverse effects years and decades later. Including so many kids with diminished intelligence because a bean counter decided to put lead in their drinking water.

Is Oberhelman that kind of person? He takes massive income increases while (and maybe by) destroying jobs.

[xoxoxoBruce]

KCCI talking about the Farm News newspaper in Fort Dodge, Iowa.

Apparently a large company affiliated with one of the corporations mentioned in the cartoon was insulted and cancelled their advertisement with the paper, thus, resulting in the reprimand of my editor and cancellation of its Friday cartoons after 21 years of service and over 1,090 published cartoons to over 24,000 households per week in 33 counties of Iowa.

Streisand Effect, don't fail us now.

[glatt]

Is that "Dupont Pioneer" as on company,
or "Dupont, Pioneer" as two? Cause I didn't know the stereo company was into agriculture.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Dupont Pioneer.

[Gravdigr]

Pioneer is seeds ain't it?

Nevermind, clicked the link.

[Clodfobble]

To be fair, that is copy-and-pasted art (the guy on the right, WTF are his arms doing?) and a really clunky punchline. I'd have cancelled it because it's not funny.

[tw]

Did they forget to mention that the 2130th farmer is Warren Buffet's grandson?

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by Clodfobble

To be fair, that is copy-and-pasted art (the guy on the right, WTF are his arms doing?) and a really clunky punchline. I'd have cancelled it because it's not funny.

Did you miss the part about EDITORIAL cartoon? It's not trying to make them laugh, at best a knowing smile.
His right hand is holding barbed wire and his left is scratching his nuts like a real farmer.

[Clodfobble]

Okay, but... Are there only 2129 farmers in Iowa? What is the significance of that number? If it's just the amount of farmers that the three CEO salaries combined happen to equal, then pick the highest salary of the three and tell us the farmers that one guy represents, it's more powerful. Or if the three are very similar, say "each" equals "more than" the farmers the poorest CEO gets. It's a good concept, it's just clunky. There's more power in fewer words.

[Undertoad]

I'm with Clod, this would really pique my interest if the guy could draw or was funny. In fact, since the guy can't draw and is not funny, that makes me want to understand why we know about it. So I looked into it -- and guess what.

This is the result of the NY Times making hay from a WEEKLY, FREE rag that covers "farming and farm issues in 33 counties in Northwest and North Central Iowa". 24,000 households got this weekly paper, for free. Really.

But this cartoonist made his living by -- no, he's a farmer!

A shitty semi-pro cartoonist from a teeny free paper got fired, why is that Times-newsworthy?

Here is the Times story. Suspiciously, not asked for comment is the person who fired him, or anyone at all involved that chain of thinking. The cartoonist says that complaints got him fired, but the Times fails to talk to anyone in the decision chain, which is actually poor journalism. When you're writing for journalism, you're supposed to get both sides of the story. I understand that's Journalism 101.

So the Times talks to Monsanto! Who says

Monsanto said it had no role in the decision to fire Mr. Friday. It said that it first heard about it when The Des Moines Register wrote an article on May 2.

“This is not the first time we’ve been the subject of a joke or political cartoon and it probably won’t be the last. It is much easier to laugh at ourselves than it is to stifle humor,” the company said in a blog post.

K, so they didn't complain... who did?

If the NY Fucking Times won't tell us, can we figure it out from that Des Moines TV News story? WHY YES WE CAN.

Friday’s editor said a seed dealer pulled their advertisements with Farm News as a result of the cartoon, and others working at the paper disagreed with the jokes made about the agriculture corporations.

A seed dealer. Not Monsanto, Dupont Pioneer, or John Deere. Because they aren't advertisers in a small, weekly, free rag. Like, Cherry Hill Nissan buys ads in the Cherry Hill Welcomat, not fucking Nissan.

Huh. The NY Times said it was a "seed company". Does that phrasing makes you think it was Monsanto itself? Sure does! Does asking Monsanto about it make it seem like Monsanto is the "other side" of this story? Sure does! Why write the story that way? Gosh, I don't know! If you're trying to inform the public, why WOULD you write the story that way?

And other people at that little weekly paper itself disagreed with his editorial take? Huh, the Times didn't bother to point that out. I guess we didn't need that information!

That, to me, is business as usual.

[sexobon]

Originally Posted by Clodfobble

Okay, but... Are there only 2129 farmers in Iowa? What is the significance of that number? ...

It may be a humorous play on numbers for industry insiders. 12 USC 2129
deals with banking and loans for farm cooperatives.

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

As it is, this is the NY Times making hay from a rag that covers "farming and farm issues in 33 counties in Northwest and North Central Iowa". Really. A shitty cartoonist from a teeny rag got fired, when is that Times-newsworthy? The "usual suspects" here are not the big ag companies. Did this guy even have 2129 readers?

Although along those same lines, why the fuck does an ad executive from one of the big three care enough about it to complain?

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by sexobon

It may be a humorous play on numbers for industry insiders. 12 USC 2129 deals with banking and loans for farm cooperatives.

Ah... if this is the case then perhaps there is another layer that I'm missing.