End Lay Offs

the lines of flowers

NN10/31 Why are American and European production capacity doing so badly and why are all these refugees coming here? #Economy #CauseBudgetCuts In 1999, structural road maintenance was cut in America, Europe and Russia. In the rest of the world, it was cut in the 1980s. Good roads are not only needed to supply supermarkets but also to transport raw materials to factories and products to the consumer. In Africa and South America, this is no longer possible. As a result, all these people have become unemployed and are coming here. I advise millionaires/billionaires to invest in road maintenance companies. Thanks to the mistake of accountants (00N15) and the excessive reservation for hours worked (00N17), companies always have to cut back. That means low salaries. That means China. Now that companies are going to increase their added value, they need well-trained employees who can produce a high-quality product. That means America and Europe. Just building up that high-quality production capacity will give the American and European economy a big boost. Doesn't this create additional environmental problems? It doesn't have to. Now that companies no longer have to cut back, they have money to build clean factories.

big city life

This raises a real issue: responsibility gets blurred in systems where refusing orders comes at a cost. But shifting all the blame to executors is just as dangerous as absolving those who give the orders. So where should we really draw the line between obedience and accountability?

Johan Christian Dahl: Frederiksborg Castle

NN9/31 A politician's trick: Why are civil servants personally liable for the mistakes politicians make, while implementing road maintenance? In 1946, judges ruled that "order is order" is not a valid excuse. The person who executes the orders is responsible for the orders they carry out. But soldiers who refuse orders during wartime are shot on the spot. During peacetime, they receive life imprisonment. Civil servants and employees who refuse orders are summarily dismissed. Meanwhile, the person who gave the orders appoints a new person. How can the executor be responsible if the alternative is being shot, imprisoned, or fired, while the order is still being executed? If the person who executes the orders is responsible for the orders they carry out, does that mean the person who orders them is not responsible? Adolf Hitler and the German government ordered the murder of millions of Jews and members of other minorities during WWII. Does this mean they were not responsible? Was Adolf Hitler innocent of the war crimes he ordered? How could the Nuremberg judges have made this mistake? In 1946, it wasn't yet common knowledge that America also had concentration camps for Americans of Japanese descent. But the American government and military leadership certainly knew this. So, to avoid being held accountable, they pushed the responsibility as far down the line as possible. Since 1946, governments have used this trick to blame civil servants for the consequences of budget cuts: In the Netherlands, we had a fraud scandal in the 1990s. While prices rose as a result of the cuts, civil servants were ordered to do whatever was necessary to build expensive buildings that politicians wanted. When it became public knowledge, civil servants were punished for it. As a result, civil servants now protect themselves by treating road maintenance like new construction, which makes it considerably more expensive.

pillar fireplace

Charles Marion Russell: Smoke of a .45

NN8/31 The problem with cutting back on road maintenance Asphalt roads last twenty years. In the following ten years, they develop more and more potholes, which become increasingly larger. Patches on potholes wear out just as quickly as the rest of the road. After thirty years, an asphalt road turns into a gravel road. An asphalt road has a capacity of 2,200 cars per hour per lane at a speed of maximum 180 km/h (top speed in Germany). A gravel road has a capacity of a few hundred cars per hour at a speed of maximum 30 km/h. At higher speeds, cars fly out of every bend.

Still Water (Love) youtu.be/GjwaNA_mPV8?si… via @YouTube

Johann Zoffany: Self-portrait as David with the head of Goliath

birds in a plant animal

Adriaen van Utrecht: Banquet Still Life

NN6/31 The Problems This method has been invented many times over the past 3,000 years. Most recently in America around 1850 for businesses and in the Netherlands in 1983 for government agencies. The method always contains the same errors. The errors arise because organizations assume that administrative staff must always be paid, even when there is no money for them. First mistake Administrative tasks are treated as products that are paid for after they are performed. But with products, the customer decides whether to pay for them, not the company. According to an old Dutch proverb, it is impossible to sell sand to Bedouins (desert dwellers). But the government can stipulate that every task performed by civil servants must be paid for. The government can force Bedouins to buy sand. If funds threaten to run out, the government can increase taxes. Large companies that use this method also stipulate that every administrative task must be paid for. Companies can issue additional shares to raise additional funds. Second mistake With seasonal employment, it's common for companies to lay off their employees during the off-season because they can't work and therefore can't earn enough money to pay their salaries. With this method, the budget that needs to be reserved by December 31st of the following year is calculated in November of this year based on the schedule of next year. This allows for checking whether sufficient budget has been reserved to ensure salaries are always paid. However, if even one civil servant/administrative employee for one hour does something other than a planned task, no budget is reserved for that hour. Consequently, the actual reserve is smaller than the calculated reserve. This is called a budget deficit, and the organization will cut back. Third mistake Organizations using this method have no procedures in place to stop scheduling. So, a schedule is also created for laid-off employees. The budget deficit increases by €$1.9 million per year for each laid-off employee, forever. Even if citizens pay 100% of their salaries to the government as taxes, civil servants can still come up with more tasks for which they should be paid. Even if the rich invest 100% of their wealth in large corporations, administrative staff can still come up with more tasks for which they should be paid. As long as the government and companies use this method, there will be no money and no people for meaningful tasks, such as road maintenance. At the same time, however, as long as companies that perform meaningful tasks regularly go bankrupt, no civil servant/administrative employee will take the risk of working there. I advise the rich to start road maintenance companies that use the methods of NN1 and NN14 (00N16) to become profitable. This is the only way to break the vicious cycle that causes civil servants and administrative staff to increasingly perform meaningless administrative tasks just to earn a salary. Since 1999, road maintenance costs have risen by more than 20,000%. It's clear that prices must come down. Otherwise, no municipality in the world can afford it. No employee is willing to do severe physical work for the same salary as working behind a computer. Traditionally, employees were attracted by raising salaries until the company had enough employees. See NN11 and NN12 (00N6 and 00N7). (Pay salaries by the hour by bank transfer and offer them a free bank account. See NN13. Obviously they will need an app on their phone to check their bank account on the job. You'll experience high employee turnover in the first few months/(years), until they start to trust you.)

steel skull

@Alt_Budget_cuts That bridge's nostalgia could fund a sitcom.

@Alt_Budget_cuts Lilith's allure still haunts the canvas.

@Alt_Budget_cuts Taxing roads: ancient hack that still works.

@Alt_Budget_cuts That’s some next‑gen cloud.

Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein: Goethe in the Roman Campagna