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Sippican Cottage Deeply Regrets The Use Of Forced Labor In His Factory, Especially His Own

December 11, 2012 15 Comments

BERLIN – Swedish furniture giant Ikea expressed regret Friday that it benefited from the use of forced prison labor by some of its suppliers in communist East Germany more than two decades ago. The company released an independent report showing that East German prisoners, among them many political dissidents, were involved in the manufacture of goods that were supplied to Ikea 25 to 30 years ago. The report concluded that Ikea managers were aware of the possibility that prisoners would be used in the manufacture of its products and took some measures to prevent this, but they were insufficient. “We deeply regret that this could happen,” said Jeanette Skjelmose, an Ikea manager.

Sippican Cottage today released a statement expressing remorse for the use of forced labor in his factory, and promised to do better in the future.

“I deeply regret forcing the sole employee of Sippican Cottage to work up to sixteen hours a day, seven days a week, for no paycheck, for the last eight years,” said Mr. Cottage, the sole employee of Sippican Cottage, “and I have no idea what I was thinking not taking a vacation since 1998, either; I should be ashamed of myself.”

Mr. Cottage said the near-slave conditions he kept himself in seemed necessary at the time, but he realizes in hindsight he should have just given a state senator an envelope full of twenties and gotten a block grant or something, and been at the pub at noon on Friday like everyone else. He admits he was just being unreasonable. “I kept trying to pay my property tax bill in full, instead of giving an easement to the conservation committee for the four acres of swamp in the back to get an abatement, and it just sort of spiraled from there. Pretty soon I was forcing the only employee I’ve got to work for four hours on Christmas Day to make enough to pay the excise tax on my rattletrap truck before the interest started piling up like last year. Jeez, I’m a bastard.”

Mr. Cottage describes a slippery slope confronted by many businessmen: when does the desire for profit trump simple human decency? For Mr. Cottage, the answer was simple. “You’d think I’d have learned after my wife had the first kid, but somehow or another your mind gets fuzzy from listening to the dull bandsaw blade screeching in a case-hardened piece of wood all day, and you sorta drift off to the dark side a little at a time. Like an idiot you think that once a kid’s big enough, you won’t need four hundred dollars a week for Enfamil and diapers, and maybe you can let the only employee sleep until after sunrise on Saturday once in a while. But no; then the little bastards start eating real food, like, twice a day or something, and it’s right back to Solzhinitzyn-grade time management in the shop.”

Further digging reveals Mr. Cottage’s seemingly contrite attitude towards his former transgressions masks an even darker secret. Not only did he make his only employee work in near darkness in a nasty windowless basement for almost five years straight without a break, it turns out that the employee was disabled as well, a fact that Mr. Cottage hid from both the authorities that could have helped, and from his family as well.

“OK, you got me. My only employee is north of fifty now, has had a bad back since the 1970s, Meniere’s Syndrome, bad eyesight, tinnitus that sounds like four guys with Tourette’s throwing junk cars down a mineshaft, a terrible inflammation of his plantar fascia that’s morphing into arthritis, a bad knee from a car accident thirty years ago, and even though he’s allergic to bee stings, I made him go up on the roof and reshingle it last summer. But in my defense, none of that stuff seemed like much, compared to all the really disabled people I see getting help for their ailments. Until you’ve looked into the eyes of someone that’s prone to panic attacks, or that’s had someone look at them funny at work once, or needs a miniature service horse to shop at Whole Foods, you don’t know how lucky you are. I told him, er, me, to suck it up and get back to the table saw.”

Although he’s promised to do better, Mr. Cottage says he — and his Schedule C –can’t help thinking he’s leaving money on the table if he starts taking his foot off the face of the fellow in the shop.

“I mean, I know guys that are forced to limp during an entire round of golf in case an insurance adjuster is surveilling them at the course. I really didn’t think I’d have the kind of mental toughness to persevere under that kind of tyranny. Imagine trying to remember which foot to limp with all the time! So I admit it; I just took the easy way out, and just yelled at the help to work harder. Luckily the saws drown out the yelling so my wife doesn’t hear me upstairs. I don’t want her thinking I’m crazy or anything.”

Tell Me That Joke About The Dumb Polack Again

December 2, 2012 6 Comments

Henryk Szeryng plays Bela Bartok.

Romanian Folk Dances is a good soundtrack for a Maine winter. Not sure why –although hurrying through the Borgo Pass while the wolves howl in the shadow of Castle Dracul is a lot like going to South Paris, Maine in December to drop off a package at the Going Postal shipping store. There are more Pitbulls roaming around South Paris, so it edges out Wallachia for danger, I think.

Henryk Szeryng was born in Poland in 1918. He was Jewish. Even a casual reader of European history would immediately see what sort of future a baby born there and then might be in for. A Greek playwright couldn’t come up with a sword big enough to hang over your head in Act I. We can’t blame him for not amounting to much. No, really; we can’t.

He started in on piano when he was five, taught by his mother. Oh, dear; a homeschooler. When he was seven, he took up violin. Piano must have been too hard for him. Well, it’s too hard for everyone else; I don’t see why it would be easy for him. It sounds like he was well-to-do; he eventually studied in Paris and Berlin, and was a notable player before he was twenty. He played with the Warsaw Philharmonic, playing Brahms, when he was only fifteen years old. I don’t know about you, but I was still building model airplanes when I was fifteen. I don’t want to cast aspersions; you may have been building real airplanes when you were fifteen for all I know.

Later on, when things got very unpleasant indeed in Europe, a certain General Sikorski, who was the head of the Polish government in exile, noticed the young fiddle player spoke seven languages besides being able to play Bach. When I was in my early twenties, I could make myself misunderstood in about three languages, if you include English, so there’s that. I also knew the bass line to Jump Into The Fire by Harry Nilsson, so I had the musical waterfront covered as well. You may have been less accomplished than I was. I don’t judge.

In 1941, Sikorski went to Mexico to beg them to let 4000 Polish refugees, ie, Jews, settle there. Szeryng went with him, had an epiphany, and decided to become Mexican himself, and eventually taught at the National University of Mexico. I don’t think he taught animal husbandry.

In the fifties, Arthur Rubinstein dropped by Mexico City, went to see Szeryng, and after hearing him play, convinced him to start playing concerts again. I don’t hear from you as often as I’d like, so I’m unsure how many times Arthur Rubinstein came over to your place and asked you to do things internationally, but the only time I spoke to old Art, he only asked me to paint his fence. I may be misremembering this; it’s a while ago. It may have been a housewife name Agnes Morgenstern that had the fence that needed painting. At any rate, I’m sure Arthur Rubinstein would have had some sort of use for you; you’re likely a lot sweller than I am. Most people are.

So our friend Szeryng made recordings and traveled the world giving concerts, sawing away at a Stradivarius violin when his good violin, a Guarnieri del Gesu, was in the shop having its bolts tightened or something. I don’t think he liked the Stradivarius all that much; he gave it to the State of Israel in the seventies, hoping they’d loan it out to some underachievers like him from time to time to bang away on.

He couldn’t sit still, that guy. I am loath to call him a drifter, but I can’t find out if he moved around a lot over unpaid gas bills or too many parking tickets or what. He lived in Paris, and eventually died in 1988 in Monaco, flying back and forth from both to Mexico on a diplomatic passport because he was Mexico’s official cultural ambassador. I don’t know about you, but I once rode in an AMC Ambassador, which is a comparable thrill, I’m telling you. You may have only ridden in a Pacer, so I won’t mention it again. I don’t want to make you feel like an underachiever.

The Gas Tank Of Damocles

August 21, 2012 10 Comments

Let me wax philosophical about my wife’s gas tank.

We drive old vehicles. I don’t like driving old vehicles. The reliability of your transportation is paramount. Old cars break down. Buying a new car is a form of insurance against risk. But real insurance against risk is unavailable, or illegal, for such as us, with one exception — personal avoidance of risk at all costs.

My wife saw a piece of metal hanging below the car that looked as out of place as an honest man in Congress. One of the two straps that held the gas tank from dragging on the road had rusted clean through and broken. The other strap looked as reliable as cell phone service in a tunnel. Something must be done, and immediately.

My family never goes anywhere much now. We cannot hope to weather much bad luck with our own meager resources, and we cannot rely on others, so we keep our heads down. We were lucky that we discovered the problem in our driveway, instead of on the highway. You might think us daft for being grateful for a broken gas tank strap in our driveway, but we were. We were doubly grateful that it wasn’t February, as well. So we offered our hosannahs. Now what to do?

In a fiscal landscape that made any sense, I’d pay a mechanic to repair the car. There’s a fellow down the street –walking distance, what a luxury for us —and he’s honest and could use the money. He’s my neighbor. But I poked around and found out that the repair would cost maybe $750 at a dealer. The mechanic down the street might only command half that, but it’s still too much. I’d have to fix it myself.

I do not enjoy fixing my car. I’ve done it, back when I was young and Gerry Ford and Jimmy Carter were desolating the landscape, but I have no natural ability or affinity for it. But I went to Amazon, and found the correct parts, and ordered them, and crawled under the car and fixed it. My older son is old enough to help now, thank goodness. I am somewhat infirm in certain ways, and to lay vaguely upside-down under a car yanking on rusty bolts nearly overcame me. But after two days of effort interspersed with trips to the fainting couch, we had replaced the parts. The repair will outlast the car.

I did not earn money by fixing my own car, of course –just the opposite. The mechanic did not earn money. The people who rely on the mechanic to earn money will not earn money, and so forth. Ultimately, through a process which must be deduced, because it cannot be observed, this lack of commerce will ultimately filter its way through the entire economy to the point where someone will not buy what I make because I didn’t hire the mechanic. It’s the circle of life, except it’s the circle of the death of commerce.

I am barraged daily with references to Helicopter Ben running the Treasury printing presses day and night, and thereby causing inflation. It’s an insane idea. When the velocity of money sniffs zero, there is no inflation. The Fed makes money and gives it to the government, who lends it to itself, and none of it ever makes it into the wild where a car mechanic and his downstream brethren might get ahold of it. For productive people in today’s American economy, the money might as well not exist. The bill for it will exist plenty in the future, of course. But when the velocity of money is zero, the future must be entirely discounted. It’s a meaningless concept, like watching an unplugged clock.

The term velocity referring to the passage of money through the alimentary canal of commerce is very descriptive, and apt to my circumstances. The economy is in exactly the same shape as my wife’s gas tank — filled with fuel which only makes it sag on its rusty underpinnings further,
making it more difficult to fix, and dangerous to be underneath, but you must bang around under there anyway because there’s no other choice.
Nervous Nellies endlessly warn me that if it was all released at once, it would explode, but that eventuality is remote compared to going hungry because we can’t drive to the supermarket until it’s fixed. And above all, the fuel isn’t taking you anywhere because the whole apparatus is busted, and the process to fix it is busted, and if you want it fixed you better do it yourself because nobody outside a building with a seal on it has any money.

It’s hard to work under the gas tank of Damocles.

A Demonstration Of The Inner Workings Of The International Monetary Fund, Made Out Of Wood

July 31, 2012 3 Comments

Far be it from me to point out that half the world gets its monetary marching orders from an elderly backup singer in a ska band –after a scintillating synchronized swimming career– with a Paul Anka-grade addiction to suntanning. Of course, she took the place of a homunculus who likes to run around in a bath towel with his pud in his hand and show it to any passersby in his hotel room, so things are looking up!

Pers Makanniska Kabinett

Dynamism

July 24, 2012 9 Comments

What is dynamism? Off to the dictionary.

… great energy, force, or power; vigor: the dynamism of the new governor.

No, this won’t do. All the examples in the dictionary mention a politician.

Dynamism is what happens when politicians aren’t paying attention. 

There, that’s my definition. Take that, Sam Johnson.

I don’t know of an example of dynamism that sprung from political action. All politicians try to control everything, and in advance. They generally suck at seeing even ten minutes down the road with any accuracy. Then they glom onto whatever’s worth taking credit for.

Hewlett Packard. Apple. Google. Disney. Amazon. Mattel. Harley-Davison. What do these companies have in common? They were all started in a garage. In Harley’s case, it was really just a shed. Why do people start the most successful businesses in the world in a shed?

Because everything they’re doing is illegal. No, really. Everyone tries to spin it as frugality, or spontaneity, or whatever — but it’s just a way to dodge all the roadblocks the political class has put in the dynamic person’s way. There are no OSHA inspections of garages. No wheelchair ramps. Hell, there are no demands to hire a state senator’s brother-in-law in a garage.

Pretty much all the examples I gave you turned into raging fans of the government after they were well established. Apple was next to nothing until they did a dirty deal to make their computers the only thing ever used in public schools. Harley got bailed out. Google spends all day using the government as a proxy to keep out competition. They all know there are bright people and garages everywhere, and give campaign donations to politicians that promise garage inspections daily.

Remember that Netflix “internal” PowerPoint cultural statement that made the rounds of the Intertunnel a few years back? Lots of people, deep thinkers, said it sounded like how every business should be run. To me, it sounded like what you’d do if you had a business in your garage.

Well, you don’t have a business in your garage anymore, and garage strategies don’t cut a lot of ice at the SEC or the EEOC or the EIEIO or whatever bureau run by basilisks you’d care to mention. You can’t talk about only having people that have those wonderful x characteristics on your team. Someone from the government wants to know how many of them are brown or have ovaries or roll around in wheelchairs and lots of other things you may or may not care about. Strategies like a devil-may-care attitude towards a dress code sound great in theory, but the first time a presentable woman wears a unitard and gets a somewhat longer longing glance from the fellows in the mail room than she’d like, you’ll figure out why pasties or speedos aren’t allowed at IBM. It will be explained to you in some detail by her lawyer.  Hey, Woz, they don’t let you throw things away in the household trash that smell vaguely like Chernobyl once there’s a logo on the building. And promising people stock options instead of wages will only get you so far out in the exogarage sunshine when the government wonders aloud where their FICA money is.

So everyone wants dynamism, but no one wants to allow it as soon as they don’t need it any more. Politicians never need dynamism. Dynamism can build institutions they can’t control. Institutions that might oppose them. Dynamism gives regular people ideas.

In every case I can think of, dynamism is regular people unleashed. I don’t find the founders of most of those businesses I mentioned earlier to be that dynamic. They’re usually a certain kind of inspired drudge. They barely understand the forces they let loose. But by hook or by crook, they unleash things. Not just among their own employees. In most cases, it’s the customers that get unleashed, and love it. Google sounds like a cushioned gulag to work at. But its customers use it to find things, including finding me, thank goodness. Who cares why?

The industrial revolution in England happened because the landed gentry wasn’t paying attention. They scoffed at the importance of guys with grease under their fingernails right up until the greasy guys’ clout –political, monetary, cultural– eclipsed their own, and there was nothing they could do to put the genie back in the bottle. It was the same in America. When we just paved the roads and didn’t worry too much about what was going on in all the sheds, America ran wild economically. It wasn’t until we fixed everything in advance that it all got broken. You can’t micromanage dynamism. Look at the explosion of commerce that happened in China when they took the communist boot off the average person’s face, and improved it to an autocratic slipper on their neck. Russia may be a gangster state now, but a gangster is better than a commissar.

Until regular people are allowed to swing their elbows again in the US instead of listening to the national intercom’s continual funds for this worthy project are soon to be released message, nothing much is going to happen.

I run a business out of my house and we teach our children at desks in their bedrooms. We make music instead of buying it. We write books. Food comes from recipes, not reservations. We make our own heat and our own fun. You can kill us, but you can’t make us stop trying. Dare I call it dynamism?

Tag: a boot stomping on a human face forever

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sippicancottage

A Man Who Has Nothing In Particular To Recommend Him Discusses All Sorts of Subjects at Random as Though He Knew Everything.

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