Category Archives: Business

May 17, 2012

California nightmare by Ted Nugent

Posted on May 17, 2012 by ifnm| Leave a comment

This isn’t California dreamin’ but rather an American nightmare. It’s a blinding statement of the obvious, but California’s financial nightmare (and the nation’s) is a terminal addiction to bloated and expensive government completely out of control, with zero accountability.

Will the last American left in California please turn out the lights? And don’t let the door slam you in the behind. California isn’t going broke. It’s already broke and is $16 billion in the hole. With businesses leaving the state in record numbers because of punitive taxes and bizarre overregulation, the only way forward is to either raise taxes or severely cut benefits. Raising taxes is the mantra of liberals, and California is awash with liberal politicians.

In addition to business-killing taxes and regulations, California has the third-highest state income tax in the nation, the nation’s highest sales tax and the highest gas taxes in America.

Get this: Roughly half of California’s income taxes are paid by just 1 percent of California’s residents. It’s no wonder the most productive people are leaving the state each year as more bloodsuckers move in.

If that isn’t bad enough, California has one of the nation’s highest unemployment rates; its health care system is on the verge of collapse, with dozens of hospitals closing over the past decade; crime is rampant in California’s cities; its public employees are paid staggering amounts of money compared to ordinary Californians; and massive numbers of illegal aliens continue to invade the state.

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Posted in Business, Economy and Debt, Infrastructure, Ted Nugent

May 13, 2012

Bloodless bean-counters rule over us – where are the leaders?

Posted on May 13, 2012 by ifnm| Leave a comment

These habits are now pervasive across industry and the public services. “Diversity” is always “celebrated”, but it never means diversity of thought. The people who tell you they are “passionate about” X or Y are usually the most bloodless ones in the outfit.


The Armed Forces have fought several wars in the past 15 years, dealing with a Ministry of Defence staffed by people who know nothing about war

Recently, a man got in touch with me who works for the defence services contractor QinetiQ. He wanted to complain about the way it was run. The company, in his view, suffers from “managerialism”.

Managerialists, he says, are “a group who consider themselves separate from the organisations they join”. They are not interested in the content of the work their organisation performs. They are a caste of people who think they know how to manage. They have studied “The 24-hour MBA”. There is a clear benefit from their management, for them: they arrange their own very high salaries and bonuses. Then they can leave quickly with something that looks good on the CV. The benefit to the company is less clear.

I also spoke to a former senior employee of QinetiQ. He corroborated my informant’s points with gusto. He said managerialists were particularly unsuited to industries such as QinetiQ’s, where scientific knowledge is all. He put it simply: “People who are making bits of technology, or servicing them, should know about technology.”

Skills are not infinitely transferable. “You used to be the editor of a broadsheet newspaper,” he said to me. “How do you think a former chief executive of Ford would perform if he suddenly came and edited a national title?” (or, he politely didn’t say, if the reverse were to happen).

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Posted in Business, Europe, Military, Multiculturalism, Political Correctness, Technology

May 10, 2012

Outsourcing Computer Technology

Posted on May 10, 2012 by ifnm| Leave a comment

U.S. universities have educated enough Indians and Chinese to fill every high-tech job American firms have to offer. The false claim that only drudgery jobs are outsourced is laughable. It is just one more example of an entire industry slipping away from the grasp of America.

As the U.S continues to outsource its jobs and move production offshore, manufacturing is not the only industry that’s being damaged. University of California professor Norm Matloff warns that outsourcing and H-1B visas, which bring foreign workers into U.S. firms, are destroying the U.S. software engineering profession. Computer science departments have been stymied, because they are heavily dependent on research and faculty funds from the very firms whose outsourcing practices are destroying the occupation in America.

Falling enrollments mean fewer faculty positions and graduate students. Despite their funding being threatened by fewer enrollments, most computer science professors are unwilling to contradict their corporate benefactors’ erroneous claims that outsourcing is good for America.

Instead, the professors acknowledge that programming is a lost occupation for Americans and claim that there is still a future for American students in designing computer systems—a field dubbed “computer software systems architecture.” Matloff, a computer science professor himself, does not agree with this. He points out that it is impossible to design computer systems without having years of programming experience. If you lose programming, you lose the base for the occupation, and all the rest goes offshore as well.

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Posted in Business, Employment, Outsourcing

May 7, 2012

The U.S. & the World with Patrick J. Buchanan: Chapter 3 of 5 (Video)

Posted on May 7, 2012 by ifnm| Leave a comment

Pat Buchanan talks about manufacturing and free trade in the U.S. He also explains the consequences of NAFTA and the productivity of jobs.

Video linked here.

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Posted in Business, Employment, NAFTA, Outsourcing, Pat Buchanan

May 2, 2012

U.S. Puts Limits On Employee Background Checks To Protect Minorities

Posted on May 2, 2012 by ifnm| Leave a comment

“It’s going to be much more burdensome,” said Pamela Devata, a Chicago employment lawyer who has represented companies trying to comply with EEOC’s requirements. “Logistically, it’s going to be very difficult for employers who have a large amount of attrition to have an individual discussion with each and every applicant.”

Is an arrest in a barroom brawl 20 years ago a job disqualifier? Not necessarily, the government said Wednesday in new guidelines on how employers can avoid running afoul of laws prohibiting job discrimination.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s updated policy on criminal background checks is part of an effort to rein in practices that can limit job opportunities for minorities that have higher arrest and conviction rates than whites.

“The ability of African-Americans and Hispanics to gain employment after prison is one of the paramount civil justice issues of our time,” said Stuart Ishimaru, one of three Democrats on the five-member commission.

But some employers say the new policy — approved in a 4-1 vote — could make it more cumbersome and expensive to conduct background checks. Companies see the checks as a way to keep workers and customers safe, weed out unsavory workers and prevent negligent hiring claims.

The new standard urges employers to give applicants a chance to explain a report of past criminal misconduct before they are rejected outright. An applicant might say the report is inaccurate or point out that the conviction was expunged. It may be completely unrelated to the job, or an ex-con may show he’s been fully rehabilitated.

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Posted in Affirmative Action, Business, Employment, Government, Political Correctness

Rupert Murdoch not fit to run a major company, British panel says

Posted on May 2, 2012 by ifnm| Leave a comment

“The Company fully acknowledges significant wrongdoing at News of the World and apologizes to everyone whose privacy was invaded,” the firm said.

The news just keeps getting worse for media baron Rupert Murdoch.

In a scathingly worded report growing out of the long-running British phone-tapping scandal, a parliamentary committee on Tuesday declared Murdoch “not a fit person” to run a major company — an embarrassing decree that has no immediate effect but further darkens the cloud over Murdoch’s British media operations.

Murdoch, the 81-year-old chief executive of New York-based News Corp., has been beset for many months by the scandal, which involved illegal prying by his British newspaper journalists and hired investigators into the phone accounts of hundreds of British celebrities, executives and newsworthy individuals. British investigators are also looking into accusations of widespread bribery of police and government officials and a coverup by executives of Murdoch’s British newspaper arm, News International.

The fallout hasn’t traveled across the Atlantic to the United States, where Murdoch and News Corp. own their largest and most profitable assets, including Fox News Channel, the Fox broadcast network and the 20th Century Fox studio.

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Posted in Business, Crime, Journalism, Law & Courts

April 28, 2012

Job Creators Fighting Back by John Stossel

Posted on April 28, 2012 by ifnm| Leave a comment

“Somebody who wants to compete with us can’t because we can afford to hire the guys that can read this stuff and to keep us in compliance with the law. They can’t.” Brad Anderson, former CEO of Best Buy.

[Note: This article was originally posted on December 21st, 2011. The IFNM website was attacked by hackers and many articles are now gone from the archives. As a public service, IFNM is now reposting said articles.]

Some politicians claim that politicians create jobs.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says, “My job is to create jobs.”

What hubris! Government has no money of its own. All it does is take from some people and give to others. That may create some jobs, but only by leaving less money in the private sector for job creation.

Actually, it’s worse than that. Since government commandeers scarce resources by force and doesn’t have to peddle its so-called services on the market to consenting buyers, there’s no feedback mechanism to indicate if those services are worth more to people than what they were forced to go without.

The only people who create real, sustainable jobs are in private businesses — if they’re unsubsidized.

Some CEOs are upset that people don’t appreciate what they do. So they formed a group called the Job Creators Alliance.

Brad Anderson, former CEO of Best Buy, joined because he wants to counter the image of businesspeople as evil. When he was young, Anderson himself thought they were evil. But then he “stumbled into a business career” by going to work in a stereo store.

“I watched what happens in building a business. (My store,) The Sound of Music, which became Best Buy, was 11 years (old) before I made a dollar of profit.”

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Posted in Business, Employment, Government, Law & Courts

April 22, 2012

Report: Wal-Mart hushed up bribe network in Mexico

Posted on April 22, 2012 by ifnm| Leave a comment

The Times said its investigation uncovered a lengthy struggle at the highest levels of Wal-Mart, pitting the company’s commitment to high moral and ethical standards against its relentless pursuit of growth.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. hushed up a vast bribery campaign that top executives of its Mexican subsidiary carried out to build stores across that country, according to a published report.

The New York Times reported Saturday that Wal-Mart failed to notify law enforcement officials even after its own investigators found evidence of millions of dollars in bribes. The newspaper said the company shut down its internal probe despite a report by its lead investigator that Mexican and U.S. laws likely were violated.

The bribery campaign was reported to have first come to the attention of senior executives at Wal-Mart in 2005, when a former executive of its largest foreign subsidiary, Wal-Mart de Mexico, provided extensive details of a bribery campaign it had orchestrated to win market dominance.

The Mexican executive, previously the lawyer in charge of obtaining construction permits, said in emails and follow-up conversations that Wal-Mart de Mexico paid bribes to obtain permits throughout the country in its rush to build stores nationwide, the Times reported.

Wal-Mart’s growth in Mexico has been so rapid that one of every five Wal-Mart stores now is in that country. It is Mexico’s largest private employer, with 209,000 employees there.

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Posted in Business, Crime, Mexico/Central America

April 15, 2012

UK for sale: Uniquely in the world, Britain has sold more than half its companies to foreigners

Posted on April 15, 2012 by ifnm| Leave a comment

What tipped the balance towards foreign takeovers in the late Nineties and 2000s were three key factors: the cheap cost of borrowing; liberal takeover rules; and the presence of global investment banks in the City, with ready access to the world’s capital.


British icon? Most London buses are run by a Spanish company

Just for a moment, imagine being a tourist in search of the full British experience. Where would you start? Well, you might take a sight-seeing trip around London on a red double-decker bus.

You’d possibly visit a quintessentially British store, such as Boots the chemist, Selfridges or Harrods, before having a proper English tea at the Savoy, Fortnum & Mason or the Dorchester.

You’d almost certainly go home, via a British airport, thinking you’d seen a slice of the real Britain. But, in one sense at least, you’d be totally wrong.

That bus you boarded at Trafalgar Square is run by a German company. Boots fell to the Italians in 2007. Selfridges, Fortnum & Mason and the Savoy are owned by Canadians; Harrods has been bought by a firm based in Qatar; the Dorchester by one based in Brunei. As for our airports, most of them are now run by a Spanish firm.

Maybe a tourist wouldn’t care all that much, even if he knew. But should we? After all, does it make any real difference if a British company has a foreign master?

For the past three decades, the UK has had a completely relaxed attitude about selling off its assets to companies based abroad. Indeed,most of the time, the swallowing up of yet another great British institution barely makes a headline.

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Posted in Business, Europe

April 12, 2012

Cowboys, cattle, and Facebook by Lauren Chase

Posted on April 12, 2012 by ifnm| 1 Comment

Cowboys, cattle, and Facebook. This combination doesn’t seem like it fits. However, as social media sites collect more followers, advocating for agriculture has become essential, in order to reach millions of people with the cowboys’ message.


Lauren Chase, left, interviews a rancher about his work.

It is too often that Americans don’t understand the cowboy way of life.

Not only that, they can’t begin to explain where their food comes from and how it’s produced. The disconnect from the land has driven individuals to believe that cowboys don’t exist in real life, just in old Western films.

This is where I step in.

I am a recent University of Iowa graduate with a degree in both Journalism and Anthropology. During the summer of 2010, I interned at the Montana Stockgrowers Association (MSGA) in Helena, Mont. Coming from a non-agricultural background, I arrived in Big Sky Country with no horse, no cowboy boots, no hat, and no understanding of ranching.

My internship was to travel to ranches throughout the state, interview ranchers, and take photos and videos for use on MSGA’s social media websites. What I thought would be an interesting way to combine journalism and anthropology skills turned into a lifetime passion for advocating for the beef industry and ranch culture.

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Posted in Business, Culture, Technology