How awkward was THAT?

The big story in today's newspaper was the State Dinner hosted at the White House last night by Brick and Michelle O'bama in honor of their special guest, the President of France.  I read that, then looked at the photo and thought, "Since when did Bob Newhart become the President of France?"

I looked closer through my steroid-eyedrop-filled inflamed eye and saw that it wasn't Bob Newhart at all, but Francois Hollande (pronounced "o-LAUND").  The awkward part was he showed up alone, or as we called in back in my yout, stag.

Poor Francis.  Poor France.  It looks like they've pretty much hit bottom.  For a while it looked like they might make a comeback when they dumped that old guy (can't remember his name) who used to be President and elected Nicholas Sarkozy.  Actually he wasn't anything special either until he hooked up with my old girl friend (before K, of course), Carla Bruni.

I first met Carla when she was a singer / songwriter...

She would sing me beautiful love songs in French.  Or maybe it was just the Paris phone book put to music, I have no idea.  Anyway, we kept our fling private, or at least she did.  VERY private.  (She used to cryptically call me Who?)

But like most long-distance romances ours eventually floundered and Nick the Shark got her on the rebound.  I really didn't mind because he was pretty much a zero by himself and now he at least had an attractive lady to take to fancy parties.

I like to think of it as my little contribution to American / French relations.

But now look what the French have gone and done.   They elected "o-LAUND", their economy sank even deeper into the toilet, he left one "companion" for another (which now looks like they had little more than a one night stand), and now he shows up stag at a fancy party in his honor.  He couldn't even get a woman to go with him on a private jet to a free dinner in America!

But as they say, all's well that ends well.  Michelle made a few calls and set "o-LAUND" up with a friend of hers on a blind date.  It was said that everyone had a nice time, "o-LAUND" agreed to keep sending us Dannon yogurt, and we agreed to keep sending France old Jerry Lewis movies.  Diplomacy at its finest.

Vive la France!  ;)

S

       

Was Henry Ford a Socialist?

I recently read an interesting piece about Henry Ford, the person who almost singlehandedly put America on wheels and introduced manufacturing to the "moving assembly line".  He was an innovative thinker for sure.  

Consider this:  In 1914 the average daily wage for a blue collar worker (in high-wage Detroit) was $2.34.  Henry Ford was having difficulty with employee turnover at his car factory (300% annually) so he addressed it by raising the wages of (almost all) his workers to $5.00 a day.  In other words, he took money out of his pocket (and his investor's pockets) and put it in his employee's pockets.  WHAT?  Without being coerced by government or a union?  Was he NUTS?   Some might call that a massive transfer of wealth.  I wonder what his Board of Directors had to say about it at the time?  Was Henry a closet Socialist?

But in reality here's what happened:  His Model T sales went from 250,000 cars in 1914 to 472,000 in 1916.  How?  All those now-well-paid employees could afford to buy the cars they were building.  Plus increases in productivity dropped the price of his basic Model T by approx. 50% to $360.  And to keep their employees motivated other automakers had to follow Ford's lead, and most of them (both the workers and the owners) prospered greatly also.  But it was Henry Ford and his company and his family who prospered the most.  Well-to-do before, the Ford's became wealthy beyond their wildest dreams when his workers prospered, too. 

Well....was he a Socialist?*  Was Henry a "re-distributor of wealth" or just a "pump primer"?  Is there a difference?  Could his example have any relevance for us today?  That's a tough one.  A policy to tax the rich like that being carried out today by Socialist French President Francois Hollande (with a top tax rate of 75%!) seems to be more vindictive than based on business logic.  But as Henry Ford demonstrated, a more balanced income distribution across the board can yield huge positives for workers and entrepreneurs alike.  It's all just a numbers game....unless a thriving middle class can afford to buy what entrepreneurs are offering, businesses stagnate or fail.  

It seems to me the trick is walking the fine line between a vindictive Socialist "share the wealth" money grab and finding that ideal "pump priming " point.  Do the ends ever justify the means?  Semantics aside, was Henry Ford's social experiment a good idea or not?

Thoughts anyone?  

S

*Henry was NOT a "card-carrying" Socialist.  In fact he was outspokenly anti-Socialist, anti-Communist, anti-union, and unfortunately anti-Semitic, too.