"I understand, for instance, how to read a balance sheet." I suggest that Mi$$ Rmoney will win

[jtuck004]

whether he becomes the chosen one or not, simply because of this. (He has no concrete positions or moral center apparently, but he has a $230 million head start - losing the race wouldn't touch that). Just like all the other tentacled bastards that have structured our economy so they can extract the wealth YOU create by your labor while they add nothing, they don't have to be in office to move it to their pockets, and they can buy or disrupt action by anyone who tries to stop them.

People who want to beat him and his ilk would better invest their time in learning how to read a balance sheet and the accounting/finance/economics that goes with it (this could be done by 8th or 9th graders, btw), online at little cost, developing an interest group, and then forming a cooperative plan to own assets that provide what you need, in a way that makes it difficult for the wealthy to touch. Such as a cooperative.

Because the greedy are more afraid of assets they can't control or profit from than people who run around in parks with signs, beating the police on the flashlight with their heads.

[TBMASE]

1. I feel like I've wasted my life getting that accounting degree and CPA Cert

now that I find out HS kids can do it on line.

I'm going to fire off a letter to the AICPA and FASB right now

[jtuck004]

3. Maybe you have, but that has nothing to do with this post. n/t

[TBMASE]

6. I thought you might have figured out how silly your comments were

without me having to tell you how little you really know about the subject you're opining on.


But, obviously I need to tell you that you suffer from a fundamental misunderstanding of the real world.

Let's say you buy your cooperative assets, how would you make them productive simply by owning them?

[jtuck004]

9. No one makes them productive by owning them, they are productive if someone wants them

or what they provide.

But in my world the people most screwing others own those assets, and the majority have been schooled to work for those who do.

Which worked ok for many (not all) for a few decades, but maybe not in the future. At least not for those who don't want to be one of the tragic stories on the Obama commercials.

It won't help everyone, but it will help a few be more secure than they were.

[TBMASE]

14. So you're going to make them attractive to buyers and productive

off the labor of others....while you reap the benefits afforded of ownership.

[jtuck004]

15. People who own assets, who can create, needn't worry so much about the Mi$$ Rmoney's of the world,

predatory assholes who own assets and use labor as a commodity. The "employee" will always be beholden to them and whatever charity they can muster above their own avarice.

For about 40 years or so a significant number of people had the idea that if you owned assets and employed people you had a responsibility to them and the community. (i.e. Henry Ford who paid his workers more, despite the protestations of others, because he thought they should be able to afford the cars they made).

That time is gone. Today we are owned by people who have used capital to buy and extract the wealth that our labor creates to line their own pockets, buying politicians as needed. Millions of people are heading into retirement thinking that the money in the stock market is what provides their retirement, just like the people in Obama's ads who now have nothing. It's like a kid who thinks milk comes from the store. The money they were going to get came from the production it provided the capital for. We have gotten rid of that production, along with the wealth it created, yet people STILL think their checks will be in the mail, despite the fact that they will be burning their principle years b4 they expected to. If they even get that.

Maybe it's time to stop schooling millions of kids and adults in how to grovel to others for a job, and instead how to create your own.

Ask the 25 million people who want work today. The single fastest growing job for the foreseeable future is home health aide. Maybe they would be better off with a government program which would get them work on a cooperative farm, or in a coop manufacturing environment, or just about anything where they won't have to work for a year and a half for barely above minimum wage only to be fired when the owner's half-cousin has a couple kids who need a job.

If workers buy into their own assets, operate their own business, they are more involved, more literate about their worth, and generally more active citizens. They may not make as much, they may make more.

If 850 people had owned a privately held steel company they may have rebuffed Mi$$ Rmoney, and found another path that would have preserved their jobs and retirement. Instead they, and thousands of others, were raided by someone who could sell other people junk bonds, buy ownership from just a few, then suck the company dry via credit instruments to take the wealth that the employees created.

Employees could do this just as easily as the junk bond folks, and stand a much higher chance of not only insuring their future but with a far higher creation of spin-off companies than any coffee bar ever thought of. And they probably wouldn't load the company up with the debt that provides the fees for the raiders and often becomes the instrument of death for leveraged buy outs.

Read the history of Springfield Manufacturing. That's one way.

Here's another - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation

Organizing principles - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rochdale_Principles

Maybe the United Steelworkers and Mondragon are on the leading edge of helping their members own their own future. Doesn't do much good to picket in front of empty factories after KKR or Blackstone has extracted everything you've ever worked for.

Here are people who are thinking about these and other things - http://community-wealth.org/

[madrchsod]

2. well my mom could be a president by mittens definition

let`s see...started doing the books for a man who sold his own brand of shampoo in the late 30`s. after the war they started expanding their product line and selling other brands. by the mid 50`s they were covering an ever expanding territory which now included barber and beauty shops. during this time my mother did the books,paid the bills,and made sure every cent was counted for. by the time she retired in the early 90`s the business was close to 25 million. her job at the end of her career was making sure the accountants were keeping the books balanced.

not bad for a woman that had no formal training in accounting,worked on and off while working the job i described. oh yes she also raised three kids and a my dad.

to bad she`s not around to tell mittens a thing or two about balancing books

[jtuck004]

4. Don't need to tell Mi$$. We need to tell our kids her story, and how to write more like it,

especially the version where they become owners and run the assets for the good of their self, cooperative, and community, instead of building wealth for those who provide nothing more than overpriced money.

[TBMASE]

7. So you're going to run the assets for the good of their self

how would you make those assets productive to make them worth investing in? There's nothing keeping you from purchasing a building and letting people live there rent free or from buying a farm and letting people farm it for their own needs.


How would you provide for your wants and needs? If you say "charge rent" you've become one of those people who is building wealth on the backs of the labors of others.

[jtuck004]

8. Uh, THEY own the assets. And run them.

Why can't they buy it or build just like their old master/owner/boss did? They can borrow, if they can make a business plan, read a balance sheet. And assets are assets, anything that people want or is used to make such.

But buy them a farm? Like this?

"It was dem Carpetbaggers dat ‘stroyed de country. Dey went an’ turned us loose, jus’ lak a passel o’ cattle, an’ didn’ show us nothin’ or giv’ us nothin’. Dey was acres an’ acres o’ lan’ not in use, an’ lots o’ timber in dis country. Dey should-a give each one o’ us a little farm an’ let us git out timber an’ build houses. Dey ought to put a white Marster over us, to show us an’ make us work, only let us be free ‘stead o’ slaves. I think dat could-a been better’n turnin’ us lak dey done."

From “Henri Necaise, ex-slave, Pearl River County,” image 122

"free 'stead o' slaves"?

Surely that's not what you are suggesting?

I tend to start with more respect for people than that.

[TBMASE]

13. I can tell you have no fundamental understanding of how a business works

if it were that simple, the majority of business ventures wouldn't fail. There are plenty of people who are highly educated and have failed at starting and sustaining a business

reading a balance sheet is useless unless you know what assets, liabilities and equity are and how they relate to the income statment and cash flows.

I'm sure you equate profits with cash too

[jtuck004]

5. United Steelworkers and Mondragon Cooperatives forge agreement

http://www.usw.org/media_center/releases_advisories?id=0234


"... Too often we have seen Wall Street hollow out companies by draining their cash and assets and hollowing out communities by shedding jobs and shuttering plants. We need a new business model that invests in workers and invests in communities.”
...
Highlighting the differences between Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs) and union co-ops, Gerard said, “We have lots of experience with ESOPs, but have found that it doesn’t take long for the Wall Street types to push workers aside and take back control. We see Mondragon’s cooperative model with ‘one worker, one vote’ ownership as a means to re-empower workers and make business accountable to Main Street instead of Wall Street.” ..."

If one is interested, this might be worth watching...

[Skidmore]

10. He also probably understands how to cook the books.

[MNBrewer]

11. THat might qualify him to work in the GSA or IRS, but not in the White House

Unless he's applying for a civil service position. POTUS doesn't suit him.

[cali]

12. yeah, that'll work. NOT.

what a silly conceit.

And I'm all for living as much outside of the corporate frame as possible.