I just stumbled across this morality tale I wrote, in the form of a letter to my daughter, 11 years ago. I recall that I wrote this in one sitting as a stream-of-thought piece. I later made some minor edits upon proofreading. Aside from that, it is exactly as it was then. The Great American Twiddle Dear Katie, Today, Id like to tell you a story. It goes as follows: Once upon a time in America, there was an American company, Joes Twiddles. Joes Twiddles had a long history in America that began when a man named Joe figured out a way to make a better twiddle. Americans loved Joes twiddles and bought them by the bezeezle. Joe hired American workers to make the twiddles. He hired Americans to service the twiddles. He hired Americans to handle the customer service phones, accounting, and every other aspect of his business. He also bought supplies to build the twiddles from other Americans and American companies. You see, America was important to Joe, and Joe was important to America. A typical mid-20th-century American success story, Joe became very wealthy selling and servicing twiddles. He gave a lot of money to charity and to his church. He was looked up to by those in his community. Joes employees were loyal, his customers were loyal and he swore to never forget that his success never could have been if it were not for the dream-making wonders that were possible only in America. He made sure that his family and everyone who worked for him understood the importance of this fact also. Joes success made him feel deeply patriotic, very proud and extremely loyal to America and it citizens. He thanked God for having been born into a unique culture like no other before it in Gods creation. He often gave thanks to God publicly and in company meetings; this made people admire him even more. Everyone who knew Joe was certain that he was incapable of doing anything to harm his countrymen and women; Americans like Joe just didnt do such things, even when it meant that doing business sometimes cost him a little more. Sometimes Joe was practically forced to be very innovative in order to to compete with cheaper foreign twiddle makers, but each challenge of this sort only seemed to make Joes company, and his twiddles, better. All of this being so, it soon came to pass that Joes company was known across the land for its slogan and mission statement, We build the Greatest American Twiddles. Eventually Joe passed away and his kids took over. Having been educated in public schools in the latter part of the 20th century, Joes kids had been somewhat indoctrinated away from the drive, morals and ethics their father had tried very hard to instill in them. You see, this group called the ACLU had made sure that schools were made into values neutral places, lest they offend someone who might possess or wish to explore moral codes considered deviant by the majority. Nobody seemed very surprised that Joes kids soon tired of running the business; they lacked what it took to twiddle for a living. So, with the help of a bunch of lawyers and accountants, they took the company public. They did keep some shares out of family loyalty, but they mostly cashed out and left the business. Soon, a newly renamed Joes Twiddle and Twiddle Service Corporation (JTTSC) was being run by a corporate board of directors. For the first time, the company was one step removed from Joes deep, abiding sense of commitment and thanks to America for being a wonderful and unique cultural and business incubator. Over time, there was less and less talk in the halls of the company about the wonders of a nation that set the stage for many concepts like Joes to flourish. And there certainly was no talk about God because the company lawyers said He might be deemed offensive by someone, an employee, a customer, a pet...whatever. Eventually people at JTTSC forgot the way that Joe had always thanked God for making an America that allowed his sweat and effort to so positively affect his family, his loyal employees and his loyal American twiddle customers. The disconnect from the ideals that Joe loved and built his business upon was soon in full-swing. Ten years and several changes to the board of directors later, some hotshot young accountant at JTTSC figured out that the company could save 5% of its overhead if it moved its twiddle manufacturing operations to Japreaindichin, a region of the earth ruled by despots, tyrants and profiteers. It boasted a low standard of living for everyone but a small and absurdly wealthy elite. Work was done in sweatshops; there was zero government regulation of work conditions. The employee prevailing wages wouldnt buy fish-food for a guppy in America. Of course it would be less costly to manufacture twiddles there, and JTTSCs board of directors didnt feel the obligations Joe had felt during his life really mattered any more. Theyd never even heard of such things. Not at all. So, the board of directors looked only at the numbers on the accountants reports and legal briefs in front of them, considered the investors (or was it their own investments in JTTSC?) and promptly moved manufacturing operations to Japreaindichin. They didnt bother to look to see if any deeper ramifications might affect America as a result of their action. They didnt bother to change the company slogan either. But they did lay off 1000 career twiddle-makers. American consumers were at first a bit shocked by this turn of events, but the board had planned for this upset. Using their market clout, they drove the worldwide price of twiddles down, temporarily...just long enough for the people who were upset to cool down. Not many Americans noticed a few months later when some government agency reported in a press release that the 1000 unemployed twiddle makers were for the most part unemployable; the press mustve missed the announcement. Or might it have had something to do with the increased money for advertising that JTTSC was sending them? Americans also didnt know, because they werent told, that their tax bills reflected the cost of retraining and social services for poor twiddlers. They werent given the information that showed the ties between the increased cost of their health insurance to the uncompensated care bills incurred by the former twiddlers and twiddler-dependent families. Some Americans might have noticed that the unemployment figures reported by the government went up, but government soon took care of that by removing the former twiddlers from the unemployment figures in the next reporting period. You see, many of the twiddlers had given up on finding new jobs because twiddling was all they knew how to or wanted to do. So the government didnt consider them to be unemployed since they werent looking for work. Poof! The twiddlers werent officially unemployed any more! The irony that American consumers ended up paying more on the side of taxes and premiums than they saved in the cost of twiddles was lost on most everyone. The fact that people that didnt even use twiddles were, in effect, subsidizing twiddle manufacture, sales and service didnt get published anywhere. Few paid much attention when the price of twiddles soon went back up to a level higher than it had been before either. It was too bad the media tired of reporting about it and didnt have a single reporter who knew diddly-squat about twiddle economics to figure out what really had happened. However, the stockholders were very pleased by this turn of events when they got their dividend checks and saw the stock prices rise; we can only wonder if they would have cared to learn that the price of their profit was born by all Americans via cost shifting and taxation. A few years went by and that weasly little accountant (remember him?) who figured out that it would be just swell to move manufacturing offshore was promoted to CFO of JTTSC. At about the same time, the Internet came along and compressed the world. The new CFO, still out to make a name for himself and stroke his own ego, figured out that it was now possible to move most of accounting (not his job, of course), and all of the other white-collar service jobs to Japreaindichin also. It would save another 7% of overhead. The Board of Directors loved the idea. So, they voted to move the service jobs overseas too. The cycle of layoffs repeated itself and the hidden costs passed on to consumers still remained misunderstood by the idiots in the media. They didnt seem to care much anyway, they were more than happy to report about the rise in suicides, the increased substance abuse and the other ills that had cropped up in the communities around the now empty JTTSC home office and factory. They reported mostly on what sells newspapers and garners viewers: pain, suffering and blood. It never occurred to them that the social deconstruction they covered was all linked to the former twiddle-makers and those who previously had made a living selling stuff to the extended twiddle-maker family. In the next few years, twiddles became much more complex due to technological advances, so the demand for Twiddle Certified Professionals (TCPs) went up dramatically. The call went out to Americans to pay thousands of dollars for Twiddle certification courses, but the reward was a higher income that could easily offset the cost of such classes. What these suckers...er...Americans didnt know was that at the very same time that they were toiling to master the intricacies of twiddle technology, the twiddle lobby was begging Congress to allow for the import of TCPs from Japreaindichin. For about a year, the newly certified American twiddle technicians did very well...while they were unwittingly training their lower-paid Japreaindichinese replacements! Who knew that immigrants on work visas could afford to live much cheaper than Americans straddled with mortgages, healthcare costs and the other trappings of American culture and society? Who knew that they didnt mind living with 14 people in a two-bedroom apartment? Such is the sad story of the Great American Twiddle, which isnt really American at all any more. From a truly American perspective, the biggest thing we probably should wonder about is good ole Joe, you remember Joe? That patriotic, charitable American success of a man? How do you think he would feel about his company today? The End So, Katie, the point Im trying to make here is that American traditions, ideals and ethics are worth fighting to keep; it is just as important to be mindful of them in business as it is to cherish them with your family. They represent the best things that mankind has ever accomplished on this earth. It is important for you to strive to see that your ancestors vision of America remains alive, even through the darkest times. It bothers me greatly to admit it, but unless a lot of things change quickly, you will come to know of far too many leaders in government and business who do not possess the comportment that used to be required of American leaders and role models. You will meet many people who lack an important uniquely American sort of morality and love of country. As a result, these people will be uninhibited and unable to make decisions based upon American ethical standards. They will be like those who led Joes company after he was gone. Learn to recognize them and never give in to them. During my lifetime, too many of our leaders have listened to, been co-opted by or have become just like the folks who turned Joes company upside down. Thanks to their neglect, and even a bit of malevolent intent, Im afraid youll never learn anything about true American morality and ethics in any public school, and probably not in any private school either. Over the past two generations, I believe that all of our teachers have been educated in a system that has intentionally attempted to obfuscate and obliterate some of the core elements that make up what we call traditional American values. So, it is up to your mother and me to make sure you learn them...and you must learn them so that you can live by them and pass them on. There just is no room for compromise when it comes to becoming and being an honest, honorable American. The hurt caused to many good people, good Americans, by greedy, uncaring and ignorant people immersed in and obsessed by numbers and legalities and profit in the name of some corporation is unforgivable. Unchecked Corporatism, like its cousin Socialism, may obliterate American shared community values just as surely as Globalism harbors seeds to obliterate every nations heritage. Too much is being done for the sake of profit and the enrichment of a small elite and not enough is being done to maintain Americas middle class. Never let anyone sell you the notion that elitism is the natural result of Capitalism...at least not the American brand of Capitalism. If there is a vision I have for how Id like to see you become a participant in business during your time, Id just like for you to remember how important it is to think, act and be like Joe. An important lesson that underlies the story of Joes Twiddles is that America, from its inception as a nation, thrived through the good times and survived the bad times by leveraging the unique culture, values, ethics and mores that evolved during its formative years...America was an ideal before it became a nation. Our founders went on endlessly about the dangers of entering into entangling alliances with alien sovereignties. I believe this admonition should just as strongly apply to companies, the corporate world, government policy and any other thing that may too tightly tie us to cultures and values that may conflict with or undermine our own. Just because it is easier today to do things on a global scale, that fact does not absolve Americans who run corporations...any business for that matter...from their responsibility to turn first to citizens, second to citizens, third to citizens and always to citizens to fill their human resource needs and solve their business problems. This admonition is especially valid when the true reason a business has for reaching to other nations to fill positions is to hold down or deflate wages of American citizens; the effect of each and every imported workers low pay ripples across and negatively affects our entire economy even before we consider the added broad social infrastructure costs. Love, Dad 5/24/03
Posted on: Tue, 29 Jul 2014 17:25:37 +0000
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