Mar 14 2009
The Reason
Joe Smith started the day early having set his alarm clock (MADE IN JAPAN) for 6am. While his coffeepot (MADE IN CHINA) was perking, he shaved with his electric razor (MADE IN HONG KONG). He put on a dress shirt (MADE IN SRI LANKA), designer jeans (MADE IN SINGAPORE) and tennis shoes (MADE IN KOREA). After cooking his Breakfast in his new electric skillet (MADE IN INDIA) he sat down with his calculator (MADE IN MEXICO) to see how much he could spend today. After setting his watch (MADE IN TAIWAN) to the radio (MADE IN INDIA) he got in his car (MADE IN GERMANY) filled it with Petrol from Saudi Arabia and continued his search for a good paying Australian JOB.
At the end of yet another discouraging and fruitless day checking his Computer (MADE IN MALAYSIA), Joe decide to relax for a while.. He put on his sandals (MADE IN BRAZIL) poured himself a glass of wine (MADE IN FRANCE.! ) and turned on his TV (MADE IN INDONESIA), and then wondered why he can’t find a good paying job in … Australia…..
At least his clothes in the closet are hanging on Australian Made Coat Hangers.
Winners make things happen~~ Losers let things happen.
Which category do you bogans fall into… I wonder?
A Boss Who Tells It like It Is
Date: 4 February 2009
To All My Valued Employees,
There have been some rumblings around the office about the future of this
company, and more specifically, your jobs. As you know, the economy has
changed for the worse and presents many challenges. However, the good news
is this: The economy doesn’t pose a threat to your job. What does threaten
your job however, is the changing political landscape in this country.
However, let me tell you some little titbits of fact which might help you
decide what is in your best interests.
First, while it is easy to spew rhetoric that casts employers against
employees, you have to understand that for every business owner there is a
back story. This back story is often neglected and overshadowed by what you
see and hear. Sure, you see me park my Subaru Outback outside. You’ve seen
my big home at last year’s Christmas party. I’m sure all these flashy
icons of luxury conjure up some idealised thoughts about my life.
However, what you don’t see is the back story.
I started this company 28 years ago. At that time, I lived in a 2 bedroom
flat for 3 years. My entire living area was converted into an office so I
could put forth 100% effort into building a company, which by the way,
would eventually employ you.
My diet consisted of baked beans, stew and soup because every dollar I
spent went back into this company. I drove a rusty Toyota Corolla with a
wonky transmission. I didn’t have time to go out on dates. Often times, I
stayed home on weekends, while my friends went out drinking and partying.
In fact, I was married to my business — hard work, discipline, and
sacrifice.
Meanwhile, my friends got jobs. They worked 40 hours a week and made a
modest $50,000 a year and spent every cent they earned. They drove flashy
cars and lived in expensive homes and wore fancy designer clothes. Instead
of hitting the David Jones for the latest hot fashion item, I was trolling
through the discount store extracting any clothing item that didn’t look
like it was birthed in the 70′s. My friends refinanced their mortgages and
lived a life of luxury. I, however, did not. I put my time, my money, and
my life into a business with a vision that eventually, some day, I too,
will be able to afford these luxuries my friends supposedly had.
So, while you physically arrive at the office at 9am, mentally check in at
about noon, and then leave at 5pm, I don’t. There is no “off” button for
me.
When you leave the office, you are done and you have a weekend all to
yourself. I unfortunately do not have the freedom. I eat, and breathe this
company every minute of the day. There is no rest. There is no weekend.
There is no happy hour. Every day this business is attached to my hip like
a 1 year old special-needs child. You, of course, only see the fruits of
that garden — the nice house, the Subaru, the vacations… you never
realise the back story and the sacrifices I’ve made.
Now, the economy is falling apart and I, the guy that made all the right
decisions and saved his money, have to bail-out all the people who didn’t.
The people that overspent their pay suddenly feel entitled to the same
luxuries that I earned and sacrificed a decade of my life for.
Yes, business ownership has its benefits but the price I’ve paid is steep
and not without wounds.
Unfortunately, the cost of running this business, and employing you, is
starting to eclipse the threshold of marginal benefit and let me tell you
why:
I am being taxed to death and the government thinks I don’t pay enough. I
have state taxes. Federal taxes, Property taxes, Sales and use taxes,
Payroll taxes, Workers compensation, Unemployment taxes, Taxes on taxes. I
have to hire an accountant to manage all these taxes and then guess what?
I have to pay taxes for employing him. Government mandates and regulations
and all the accounting that goes with it, now occupy most of my time. On
Oct 15th, I wrote a cheque to the Australian tax Office for $288,000 for
quarterly taxes. You know what my “stimulus” cheque was? Zero, Zip, Zilch.
What is Kevin 07 Rudd doing with all my taxes? He’s giving them away to
people who don’t work as hard as me, to people who have never worked and
have no intention to, deliberately single mums breeding more drones,
recent migrants legal & otherwise plus their huge extended families. They
are told to spend, spend, spend – the very thing that got us into trouble
in the first place!. Go out and buy that you-beaut widescreen TV for say
$2000 of which $1,750 goes to China, Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore & Malaysia
where all the bits are made or assembled, the remaining $250 keeps the
salesperson & delivery guy in a job for another day & pays a franchise fee
to Harvey Norman. As we hardly manufacture anything in Australia any more
virtually all the money spent on manufactured goods keeps overseas workers
in jobs much longer than any locals.
Now, to cap off mere financial incompetence, Rudd has risen to mind
boggling levels of truly monumental stupidity by borrowing about 40 billion
dollars every year from foreigners, we don’t have the savings here!…….
to GIVE AWAY!!!!. The State Labor governments have all been grossly
mismanaged, even QLD & WA are in trouble despite the good mining boom
years, NSW is effectively bankrupt & VIC is not far behind, SA & TAS are
reverting to basket case status. The infrastructure funds are a thinly disguised
bailout to incompetent Labor mates in the States but at least that will
employ Australians, however inefficiently.
Rudd has blown what we thought of a huge multi-billion dollar surplus in
one hit, in just one year!. But borrowing to give people $950 to spend on
goods that will employ Asians mostly?, that will make our current account
deficit worse and create a HUGE DEBT that will have to be repaid by us, our
kids and our grandkids. Taxes will have to go up drastically for decades to
pay for all this – there is no other way. Rudd’s cure is going to be vastly
more painful than the illness, unemployment is still expected to increase
by 500,000 by the end of the march quarter 2010. Bringing forward the next
tax cuts would reduce that to 350,000 and if we were to spend stimulus
money productively on pipelines, bridges, hospitals, rail systems etcetera
instead of wasting it on $950 gifts we’d have to better off and have more
people in jobs.
Rudd wants to emulate Obama’s huge spending spree without realising that we
simply can’t do that. The US dollar is the world’s reserve currency, they
can print money and it will still be worth a dollar, but if we print 30%
more money, which is effectively what borrowing does, our $A will be worth
30% less which makes everything we import be it petrol or TV’s 30% dearer
and so. Rudd plans to do this for four years to the tune of $200
billion! …. Despite Rudd often referring to Turnbull as the (wealthy)
Merchant Banker, Rudd, or at least his wife, has many more millions than
Turnbull and his family, most of it from Liberal Government training
programs ironically. We’d be better off if Ms Rein was running the
country, her husband’s ego is such that he’d never listen to her
unfortunately, at least they will still be sitting pretty when it all goes pear shaped.
Turnbull is right about Tax Cuts, it has been proven over & over again in
all Western democracies that for all tax brackets, for every $1 of tax cut
the multiplier effect is $3 – now that’s a stimulus!. That stimulus
happens each year, every year because it’s a gift that keeps on giving as
the saying goes. Give away $1 and that’s it – spent $1 no multiplier
effect, this or any other year. Once Rudd borrows & gives it away forget about tax cuts for a decade – think higher taxes, higher GST until we repay the huge debt
burden he’s creating. This is not rocket science! it’s real, as opposed to
Rudd’s fairy’s at the bottom of the garden approach to ruining the economy.
Rudd’s hero is Gough Whitlam, for those who are old enough to remember,
Whitlam came within a whisker of sending Australia bankrupt and the
country was saved from financial disaster by the Governor General, Sir John
Kerr dismissing his government. The Greens & Independents, being the
populists that they are, will pass Rudd’s so called stimulus with minimal
changes. We are going to be lumbered with this very bad mistake. Let’s hope
that Ms Quentin Bryce will likewise act with courage and conviction before
Rudd looks like losing the plot completely and takes us down with him.
The question I have is this: Who is stimulating the economy? Me, the guy
who has provided 14 people good paying jobs and serves over 2,200,000
people per year with a flourishing business?, or the single mother sitting
at home pregnant with her fourth child by the latest unemployed layabout
who won’t pay child support, waiting for her next welfare cheque?
Obviously, government feels the latter is the economic stimulus of this country.
The fact is, if I deducted (Read: Stole) 50% of your pay you’d quit and
you wouldn’t work here. I mean, why should you? That’s nuts. Who wants to
get rewarded only 50% of their hard work? Well, I agree which is why your
job is in jeopardy.
Here is what many of you don’t understand … to stimulate the economy you
need to stimulate what runs the economy. Had the government suddenly
mandated to me that I didn’t need to pay taxes, guess what? Instead of
depositing that $288,000 into the Canberra black-hole, I would have spent
it, hired more employees, and generated substantial economic growth. My
employees would have enjoyed the wealth of that tax cut in the form of
promotions and better salaries. But you can forget it now.
When you have a comatose man on the verge of death, you don’t defibrillate
and shock his thumb thinking that will bring him back to life, do you? Or,
do you defibrillate his heart? Business is at the heart of Australia and
always has been. To restart it, you must stimulate it, not kill it. But
the power brokers in Canberra believe the poor of Australia are the
essential drivers of the Australian economic engine. Nothing could be further from
the truth and this is the type of change you can keep.
So where am I going with all this?
It’s quite simple.
If any new taxes are levied on me, or my company, my reaction will be
swift and simple. I fire you. I fire your co-workers. You can then plead
with the government to pay for your mortgage, your 4WD and your child’s
future. Frankly, it isn’t my problem anymore.
Then, I will close this company down, move to another country, and retire.
You see, I’m done. I’m done with a country that penalises the productive
and gives to the unproductive. My motivation to work and to provide jobs
will be destroyed, and with it, will be my citizenship. There will be many,
many more small & medium sized businesses that do the same and between us
we employ 60% of all Australians in work and produce 68% of GDP (more when
China is not paying top dollar for everything we mine). Fewer people
paying taxes mean higher taxes. Much higher taxes for the remaining
taxpayers who have no choice but to work. Countries like China are thrifty,
have all the money, and will own all the mines and a lot more because we
will have no choice but to sell them the family farm to pay our debt.
That’s business – whether it’s mine or the Country’s.
So, if you lose your job, it won’t be at the hands of the economy; it will
be at the hands of a politician that swept through this country changed
its financial landscape forever. If that happens, you can find me sitting
on a beach, retired, and with no employees to worry about….
Signed,
Your boss
Some very basic errors in this argument but a number of home truths as well. Welcome aboard Xyzmann.
I own this site & am always happy to expand my readership.
Ben, Just so you know, Iamasmartman does not own this site, he is just delusional.
The scroll wheel on my mouse just broke from reading xman’s post
Very timely anti labor article the week before the Qld election. Thank you for your insight xyzmann (Or is it Mr Springborg?)
Shut up Dipstick. Have you been let out of the hospital and stopped taking your drugs? As Krusty correctly stated, you STILL are delusional
Tunksy, my 6 year old just told me a joke that you might like.
QUESTION: What time is it when your team has 50 points put on them by the Rabbitohs? ANSWER: time to get a new team.
I just phoned Dipstick to ask him to phone Freddy to advise him that the trials were over and that the competition has now started.
Dipstick said he was having luch with Freddy and would raise it with him. He also said that Freddy was a good bloke
I thought IASM was having lunch with the PM, planning the third stimulas package for Take-Away Chicken and Chip shop owners.
May I assume that the Skunk is a Roosters supporter? I would have assumed you went for Brisbane or Wests. I’m very pleased to know that you aren’t all bad. Go the Chookies!!
For the record I do not know Brad Fittler personally. I do know a number of the board however & could probably influence selection if I really wanted to.
I had no doubt about that Dipstick. Of course you have influence. I think it is time to change my team allegiances. I am suddendly feeling quite ill over the thought of barracking for the Roosters!
Of course IASM goers for the roosters, it’s his core business!!!!!
Did you mean that as a joke chicken man or do you really love the chooks………
Since we are all so keen to learn from you IASM, what exactly were the errors and home truths?
Red Roosters?