PODCAST 430

You’re Not That Hot Anymore. Are the institutions of our society failing us, or just failing to live up to their over the top narratives? A bad customer service experience leads into a discussion – presented as sort of a rant but meant as a question  – about whether the business models and technology that seemed so forward five to ten years ago don’t seem that way at all now. Technology companies, Internet Service Providers, consumer products, office supplies, services, health care, travel, utilities and all kinds of services in the western world seem to have stopped progressing in terms of service to the customer a few years ago. No longer is it good enough to deliver a great product or service, you have to have an ‘amazing’ story, be saving the whales, or making your product in some aboriginal prefecture where you pay fair wages and post the obligatory pictures of building schools, or handing out water at the local marathon or breast cancer walk. What happened to buying a toaster that works, and when it doesn’t being able to rely on a customer service approach that says, “Yep, here’s a new one”? Instead you get protocols, upsells, long waits at the help desk (with the same three songs that play over and over) bored, surly or overwhelmed ticket agents, or admissions ‘techs’. The gauntlet of nose-ring festooned ‘greeters’ sporting ‘man-buns’ or just plain mean city, county, state and federal workers is actually the new normal. We need to talk about it, and we need to fix it. Is the problem that companies are spending too much time saving the whales, and not enough time saving the customer? Or is it excessive government regulation, poor economic growth, or we’re just not as competent as our ‘amazing’ history and resume says we are? No institution in our society is more dangerously corrupt and incompetent than the government, despite what the politicians say about Wall Street. What can be done? Meanwhile…still on hold with customer service. Sponsored by X Government Trucks and Pride of Homes and Luke Team Real Estate. (Editor’s Note: Podcast 429 isn’t done yet, and will be on the way…so here’s podcast 430. Don’t worry you didn’t miss one.) 

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Podcast 279

Bush Profits From Obama Care? Updates for your weekend start with The Interview; the movie that portrays the assassination of North Korean ‘leader’ Kim Jong Un. With crowds flocking to see the mediocre mad cap comedy film in 331 independent theaters across the US, on demand on line, and on You Tube, and with evidence implicating the North Koreans in the Sony Hack at this point circumstantial, we have to ask whether this could be a publicity stunt? A stunt that results in the Hollywood Studios finally getting around Theater Chain opposition to VOD, and produces some negative propaganda for the North Koreans in the west? Sound outlandish? Remember Zero Dark Thirty and Red Dawn, to name two, produced with involvement by the US Government. There’s no question the North Koreans richly deserve some bad press. Any nation that locks hundreds of thousands up in death camps, deserves at least a slap in the face internationally, right? Meanwhile, lots of snark about how ‘bad’ the movie is. (Editors Note: I have not seen The Interview, but by the time you hear this podcast I will have watched it on You Tube, and will dutifully review it.) Moving on to New York City. Can Mayor Bill de Blasio continue without support from the Police? In the wake of the murder of two NYPD by a man with ties to the Black Guerrilla Gang (which has also threatened to attack at least two precinct HQ’s in NYC), Al Sharpton protests which featured chants of ‘What Do We Want? Dead Cops!”, and attacks by professors on NYPD officers, again we ask whether protesters have jumped the shark? How much are the post Ferguson, and post New York protests protecting and supporting criminals? Is it a good for Progressives to support elements of an emerging criminal political class? Then we get to Jeb Bush, who has cynically sold his stock and resigned his board of directorship at one company that profited from Affordable Care Act. What about the other companies he has interests in? Is he making money from big government? Are you going to let ‘Common Core’ and ‘We shouldn’t repeal Obama Care’ Jeb Bush get elected President in 2016? Please Sir! Sit Down! Finally, if you voted Republican to get rid of O-Care, the think tanks are already telling people pushing for repeal, that option is ‘too much to ask for’. Really? It took only about a month and a half for them all to forget who elected them, and why. Sponsored by Baklund R & D. 

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Podcast 269

Torture. Budget. Washington struggles with the release of a damning Senate Intelligence Committee Report on Enhanced Interrogation Techniques, and democrats appear to be willing to shut the government down over language in the budget bill concerning Dodd/Frank. These issues show how the contours of ‘partisanship’ and the causes of ‘gridlock’ will change after the new congress is sworn in, in January 2015. The Senate Intelligence Committee investigation and report was conducted and written wholly by democrats, offers no suggestions on what to do about what it called torture in the future, or for curtailing the CIA when it runs amok, and none of the accused parties were interviewed for have had the chance to defend themselves. As former Democrat Senator and Senate Intelligence Committee member Bob Kerry suggests, this does not bode well for the objectivity of the report or win any friends at the CIA. Even President Obama has been put in a difficult situation, since current CIA Director Brennan is furious that the report paints a one sided picture of what happened at the agency after 9/11. Maybe it is a good thing this information is released now, maybe not. One thing is for sure, neither party has come up with a foreign policy that addresses asymmetric warfare going forward. Libertarian, Interventionist, Neoconservative, Neoliberal, or whatever you want to call them, these policies aren’t going to be effective in future conflicts where it is likely potential state enemies of the US will use asymmetric methods because they strike at our weaknesses. On the budget front, Democrat Senator Elizabeth Warren threatens to block passage of the budget bill because of changes it makes in Dodd/Frank regarding how derivatives are regulated. Which party is ‘obstructionist’ now? What will the minority party do after Republicans take over the majority in Congress? Expect a return to ideas like increasing gas taxes and ‘rebuilding’ America’s ‘crumbling infrastructure’, and to the idea that – since we can’t prove ‘inequality’ hurts the economy – we now have to deal with the ’empathy gap’. This is the idea that the working poor are just unfortunate and that we have to have laws to make the economic system ‘fair’, since hard work and brains have nothing to do with success. The founding documents talk about being created equal and having unalienable rights to life and liberty … not a ‘fair’ economic system. What you do with your liberty is your choice, rich or poor. The good news? All of these stories will be swept from television screens because of the storm-of-the-century in California. Finally, out of nowhere a movement we can all get behind, or in front of. “Free The Nipple”. Sponsored by Baklund R&D. 

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