by pedalling_faster » Tue 13 Feb 2007, 12:29:08
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('TommyJefferson', 'I')nstead, we have a system of national socialism wherein we subsidize the irresponsible behavior of both parties.
one of my favorite co-workers at a large defense contractor in Southern California was the grandson of the company's founder. he didn't have any special privileges by virtue of being a grand-son, just did his job as a project manager of some kind.
we were allowed to bill the customer on the basis of "earned value". so we had some of the wierdest meetings in the world. i would walk in knowing that i had added 3 connectors to the backplane interface and had the change paperwork signed by all but the QC engineer, for example.
then we would spend an hour having conversations like, "well, last week, you said you were about 50% done." "OK, so now i'm 52% done." "how about 52.5% done ? then we can take 2.5% earned value for each week of the month".
thank God for that company founder's grandson, for making those absurd meetings surviveable.
it was his observation that the military industrial complex is a social welfare system for engineers.
instead of taking government money and building national rail systems, etc., we take government money and build military hardware.
Americans have been taught that "socialism is bad", when many of them participate in a HUGE social welfare program, and are unable to tell a fundamental truth about Canada - it's much more small business and employee friendly because health care costs are paid as a part of taxes, after the business is profitable. in America, health care costs are a huge up-front burden for any start-up business.