One of Trump’s first tells

 

First of all I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

 

Mainly though I wanted to just touch on Trump’s pick for Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent. When CEOs and Wall Street breath a sigh of relief as one headline stated then you know where his economic policies are really headed. And for all the working and middle class people that voted for him, well you won’t be the benefactors.

I certainly understand why so many people voted for him since for years I have been calling the National Democrats clueless elitists, however, what drove these people to Trump will not be rewarded by Trump. He got their votes, but Trump won’t be initiating economic and tax policies that in the long run will help his voters. Sorry guys and gals, two years from now you will be wishing the Democrats had a clue.

More corporate greed, well in a weird way

 

Have you called an 800# to request help with something or to buy a product or to follow up on something? And you get hit with the infamous hold time. You know the drill. The wait time is approximately “x’ number of minutes or you can request a call back instead of waiting on hold.

You can choose to wait and hear upteen number of messages of them telling you your time is valuable etc etc etc or you can request the call back and hope you are not doing something when they call back.

And then the “x” number of minutes goes for an extra hour or you never receive the requested call back.

What gives?

Why cannot the entity hire enough people to take care of their customers? We all know the answer. They do not care about you. No matter how good of a customer you are or how important “your time is”, they do not care.  Not one iota. Sure maybe the people you speak to eventually care, and will try to help you, but the corporation or entity or whatever in general does not care about you.

Or they finally answer the phone and then you hear oh you need one of our specialist agents I need to transfer you and boom you are back into the “x” number of hold minutes for this new group.

And younger people say, we just go online, but really do you get the service you need when things go wrong. Some corporations offer a chat feature, then it takes forever to find out they cannot help you.

Corporations are in the business of making money and I certainly understand that. We wouldn’t have their product or service if they couldn’t make a profit. Yet lately, they keep cutting and cutting service to the point that it costs me more to try and be their customer than it is worth.

Yet so many people accept this as a it is what it is. No, it is wrong, but as long as we accept it, we will get this.

Switching gears, is it worth it to work 60, 70 or more hours a week? Who benefits? Do you? In some cases you might. Yet so many entities expect us to work an absurd amount of hours for them. Do you get paid enough in overtime to make it worthwhile, but after 2, 3 year of it are you burnt out? And once the overtime stops what do you have. Your same old weekly job with no future.

So you can give it up and hope you do something successful for yourself by working serious amounts of hours. Or you can work for your “job” until they lay you off. Either way you are taking a gamble.

Back in the day so to speak either option may have been opportunistic for you. Yet more and more it isn’t. You can try to start your own business, but it is hard. Even if you get it started, your labor costs will kill you and you continue to work excessive hours. And there is no loyalty ever from corporations for their labor force. You are always the first to get laid off if you aren’t salary. Why because if they can convince people to work salary and stick them with 70 hours of work they certainly will.

Mid management sucks because in the long run no matter how many hours you work, you will not get ahead. The people that get promoted are either predetermined by higher ups who are clueless or are people that kiss back ends not who work hard. And yes there are exceptions to this madness, but in the long run, most people are stuck. And this can be in a wide range of industries or services. The boss will always take advantage of you to their benefit. Even mid management tries to get people to work excessive hours so they can look good and most times it really doesn’t benefit them because they are stuck in the same loop you are working extra to make their boss look good.

It would be great if working extra meant something for you, yet in the long run it doesn’t except for a small few. Even in areas such as non profits or whatever, people are expected to work enormous amount off hours because of the cause or need. And good people do. It is a shame that this happens. Why cannot we receive an even trade?  The upper echelon of management of whatever entity you work for will always say your sacrifices are worth it, but in the long run it only benefits them, not you.

People seem to expect this though. And I am one that will say working hard is not bad, but we have to evaluate is it good for me. I may get a promotion or a small raise, but in the long run, am I allowing some person to make millions or billions because I am a cog in that person’s machine. If they are making billions, why am I struggling.

And I know people will say that is lazy talk. No it isn’t. You have a right to be paid. And the best recourse is to start your own business, but that is a gamble and if it fails you are back to square one.

So why in 2024 are so many struggling. Inflation is one answer, but by no means the large answer.

We are struggling because a small select group of people make a fortune taking advantage of a system that benefits those at the top. So many will say that is because they worked hard and they earned it and for a few that is true, but when you put the pieces of the puzzle together, most people are taken advantage of to benefit the few that somehow through fate, family luck, or other reasons have risen to the top and do not give a rat’s back end about you.

What to do? Not much unfortunately if we just sit here and complain. How do we effect the people that put us on hold for a hour and then never answer the phone even though it is our money that supports their business. The more and more the world is consolidated into fewer and fewer hands the more we are going to struggle.

As always we need change, politically we need new parties, economically we need to quit bending over backwards for people who live in world detached from the reality of the rest of us. Support small businesses that care about  you as a customer. When on hold, spend the time looking for new companies that do the same business and try reaching out to them to see what they offer in regards to customer service.

If you are willing to work for someone for 70 hours a week because you are told that is what the job requires then why are you supporting a business with your hard earned dollars that doesn’t care about you. And by the way, quit working 70 hours a week for someone that isn’t interested in your future. They may say they care, but if you still are working 70 hours a week and nothing changes. It is time you change.

You should do your job and you should do it well. I whole heartedly believe that, yet I also believe if you are working hard and producing quality work then eventually the company needs to recognize that and reward you. If not they have no reason to expect you to go above and beyond for them. If they treat you as a mediocre worker no matter what you do give them mediocre work. Eventually they will run out of good workers and mediocrity will be their product. And then hopefully customers will look elsewhere to spend their money.

We accept so much bullshit because we are told hard work is a requirement and yet we do not receive it in return.

In other posts I rant and rave about how the wealth gap is growing and that is a problem for our society, one reason is the macro economic policies they  have Congress implement that benefits them only.  The other is the two reasons I very un-succinctly described here. We let these entities abuse our time either in trying to get them to help us as a customer or abuse our time in what they offer in return for our efforts.

I do not have many answers, but first I offer if you are willing to work hard, start your own business and treat your employees well that help you succeed. Or second look for employers that treat you with respect not just for your efforts, but also for you as a person. Maybe some days you do need to work extra because of business and there is nothing wrong with that, but in the long run, how do they treat you. Finally take the time as a customer to go where you are treated well even if it costs a few extra cents. Support businesses that care about their customers. Don’t accept being treated as a customer by a business that has the attitude it is your responsibility to help them make more money, not that it is their responsibility to earn your business. We don’t need more wait time, we need more people willing to resolve our situation and that is the responsibility of the entity to hire enough people to care about our issues. Yes it will affect their bottom line, but we are at the point that a few billionaires don’t need anymore money. What they heck do they need to make 3 billion instead of 2 or whatever.

Time for those extra unnecessary profits to go back to the full economy so we can all benefit.

 

And on a side note, just like websites get hacked and all your personal information is now on the dark web, someone is going to figure out “apps” and so many people are going to be screwed. Will the customers be protected? Sheesh

Problem solved Mr. President elect, problem solved.

 

I know there is much on your mind nowadays so let’s brush all that under the rug since you have won the election. No need to fret about anything, just gather together the troops, VP elect Vance, a few top Congressional leaders and head out and golf your way through America.

You can tour all the major golf courses, then once you have done that hit the best country club course for each major city. And maybe for the really big cities hit the top two or three.

Oh you might have to sign a bill or two each year to fund the budget, but hey no worries. The Senate and House can continue to produce continuing resolutions, leaving the budget as it is now. No worries about how much to give each agency, no listening to squabbles from Congress about all their pet projects, just keep the budget as it is for the next four years then let the next administration deal with the headaches.

As you say everyone loves you abroad so need to get tangled up in any new wars, let NATO and everyone else deal with Russia and Iran, just stay out of it all. The next administration can pick up where Biden left off and deal with Russia. Israel will take care of Iran and I know you won’t fret about what really happens to Israel as long as Saudi Arabia keeps funding all your most crazy business adventures.

So pack up, get new sets of clubs to try out and hit the links for the next four years. You won so nothing left to prove. Happy trails.

Well I stand corrected.

 

I said many moons ago back when it was Biden v Trump, that if either party choose someone else the new candidate would win. I forgot how clueless are the elitists in the Democrat party. That was stupid. And apparently there is some discussion about “mainstream” media being completely wrong about what was going to happen and we need to re-evaluate the “mainstream” media. The problem is they are part of the elitist thinking of the Democrat party. They just need to become more unbiased going forward, but that topic is for another day.

And another point which I made in an offhand manner somewhere else was that the Democrats were relying way too much on one issue, which was the abortion issue. I wish I had said it here, but I didn’t.

I still do not trust Trump. I still am worried. One thing that really burns my chops is that people will say you are not conservative if you do not support Trump. That is just wrong and it goes along with the massive pandering the Republican Party does for Trump. I am conservative and a populist with some of my policy ideas. Trump is neither and never has been. He gives lip service to what people want to hear and everyone is right including the mainstream media that he better understood what the people want to hear than anyone else. To me though he still won’t accomplish anything from his verbiage except what his allies in Congress will produce. And what they want is just as bad as what he wants, which is complete power. They will feed off each other for the next few years. And when the deal goes down, and it will do down, Trump will find a way to blame someone else and unfortunately he may get away with that too.

Two things this Trump victory shows to me. First is the educational decline I rant and rave about all the time is real.

Second is the moral decline this country has succumbed to allow Trump to have won. I have said before in multiple places that bad policy is easier to overcome than bad government. We are about to see what is bad government. Let’s hope we can find away out of it down the road. And the irony is the people who scream the most about how our country is in moral decline right now are the biggest reason we are in moral decline. You cannot accept someone as morally corrupt as Trump as your leader and say you have the moral high ground. That just doesn’t fly, but we are so far down the twentieth level of hell, no one sees it right now.

Also when the deal does go down, all the people that voted for Trump are going to be sitting there thinking what just happened. Again the education decline is obvious and will allow Trump to walk away without any consequences for what is doing to this country. Some of it by omission since it will let his allies do what they want as long as it doesn’t affect him personally.

Well there is one chance at an out and I wonder, does Trump have a desire to think about a legacy. Who knows, yet if he does maybe some of the madness that could  go down Trump may put a hold. I doubt it,  but let’s hold out hope.

Otherwise if much of Trump’s verbal rants that he calls policy comes to fruition, the vast majority of people who voted for Trump are about to get screwed.

And to reiterate a point, the Democrats are clueless and this is at all levels. The State Party was sending out an excessive amounts of literature that was horrible political strategy. Two things, it hammered to hard on their one issue campaign and they sent so many mailers that never said the name of the candidate they were supporting and plastered the name of the Republican candidate all over their mailers. They need help badly, but since I do not like their public policies they just won’t get it from me except for the occasional critique here in my blog of what they are doing.

Well I am deciding either to go hide somewhere or become even more of a vocal critic of Trump’s administration. I do not know right now. I am a bit worried, but I am also concerned what his policies could do to this country. My first hope is he just doesn’t care and just wants to end his days playing golf and the Trump Republicans in Congress screw up because they cannot make up their minds how they want to screw everyone over so they can maintain power. Hopefully enough goes down that in two years we see saw back to the clueless Democrats and slow some of the madness down.

Which leads me to what I keep telling y’all, WE NEED NEW PARTIES.