Day 24 - a Wednesday not in the office

 Today is the 4th day of the 4th week, the 24th day of the 1st month, the 24th day of 2024 [with only 335 shopping days until Christmas], and:

• Beer Can Appreciation Day
• Belly Laugh Day
• Feast of Our Lady of Peace
• International Day of Education
• International Mobile Phone Recycling Day
• Library Shelfie Day
• Macintosh Computer Day - hard to believe it's been 40 years
• National "Just Do It" Day - to this day, 36 years later, Nike gets credit for one of the most successful and enduring advertising campaigns ever run on TV 
• National Compliment Day
• National Edy's Pie Patent Day - patented back in 1922.  If you don't recognize the name of the ice cream treat, the "pie" was formerly known as Eskimo Pie 
• National Lobster Thermidor Day
• National Peanut Butter Day
• Talk Like a Grizzled Prospector Day - on this day in 1848, James Marshall discovered gold in California.  I guess you could try sounding like Lee Marvin?
• Tu B'Shavat - occurs on the 15th day of the Shevat month in the Jewish calendar and is the new year for trees. 
• World Day for African and Afrodescendant Culture

Quote of the day:

“When people say I changed the culture of Boeing, that was the intent, so that it’s run like a business rather than a great engineering firm.”

~ former Boeing CEO Harry Stonecipher 

One of the prime causes of the soaring income inequity in wages has been the rise of the C-suite [CEO, CFO, COO, et al] salaries in proportion to the average employee, a trend that started in the late 1980's and escalated rapidly.  There was a marked shift from the emphasis on a company's contribution to its STAKEholders [community, employees, investors, owners] to an inclusive emphasis on the SHAREholders [owners/investors].   CEO's especially are recognized and rewarded for creating profits by any means, and very little scrutiny was [or is] given to how the measures to create those profits impacted  the end product.

And, back in the late 1960's, GAAP moved employees to the liability side of the balance sheet.  No longer was human capital an organization's most valued asset, employee salaries, pensions, and benefits were defined exclusively costs, and costs to be contained in order to maximize short-term profits.  The first visible impact was the death of the pension, replaced by the 401(k), but slowly it became obvious companies weren't investing in training/development of their employees as much and that even as productivity increased, wages stagnated.   Entire communities suffered.

And where did all those profits go?  Into the pockets of owners, the C-suite, and investors, rewarding them for stiffing their workers and skimping in other areas, such as quality control.   Funny how no one worried about that until something went wrong.

The sad thing is?   Companies, including Boeing, were profitable before all those changes were made.  All this was to wring more disposable income for the 1% and devil take the future. The bottom line is that building an airplane really needs a "great engineering firm" rather than a business, neh?