Results of Dilbert's 2003 Weasel Awards
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The second annual exuberantly non-scientific Weasel Poll results
are in. 35,874 people voted. I'll be spending the next few weeks
publicly embarrassing the winners. They are...
Tally Weaseliest Organization
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7950 Recording Industry Association of America
6322 White House
4470 Democratic Party
3989 ACLU
3859 Organized religion
3039 Fox News Corporation
3008 Republican Party
1860 Congress
1323 New York Times
Tally Weaseliest Country
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12739 France
10761 USA
5845 Saudi Arabia
4668 North Korea
801 Iran
509 Canada
219 Germany
Tally Weaseliest Company
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12854 Microsoft
7645 Halliburton
7220 MCI WorldCom
2425 Kmart
1313 Merrill Lynch
1173 HealthSouth
1017 Freddie Mac
970 Salomon Smith Barney
Tally Weaseliest Profession
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10309 Politicians
7854 Lawyers
6234 News media
6059 Tobacco executives
4217 Oil executives
1043 Accountants
Tally Weaseliest Individual
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13959 George W. Bush
5104 Michael Moore
3057 Yasser Arafat
2820 Jacques Chirac
2141 Saddam Hussein
1883 Tom Daschle
1105 Arnold Schwarzenegger
1095 Al Franken
1023 Ariel Sharon
932 Bill O'Reilly
695 Ann Coulter
483 Charles Schumer
400 Sean Penn
383 Jayson Blair
230 Richard Grasso
195 Gerhardt Schroeder
188 Bill Bennett
146 Jack Grubman
Tally Weaseliest Behavior
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18877 Blaming fast food restaurants for making
you fat
5748 Religious extremism
4688 Creating computer worms/viruses because
no one will date you
3997 Driving a Hummer
1487 Using cell phones in restaurants
1077 Using speaker phone in cubicle
72 responses total.
Yesterday at the library some man was yelling loudly for about ten minutes (to himself, as the rest of us tried to ignore him), presumably at someone near him who had been using a cell phone in the library, where you are not expected to be carrying on a conversation (or yelling). I don't see how it would matter in a restaurant. What is a Hummer?
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resp:0 it's interesting how left-wingers and right-wingers, so to speak, are both on there ;>
But not surprising.... I presume those opposites were on the survey, and the electorate is split near 50-50 on many things.
Walmart didn't make the weaseliest company list? How strange.
The weaseliest liberal forum..GREX The weaseliest grexer.........remmers remmers..you are one SLEAZY weasel. I think jaklulantern should give you his billy goat gruff routine You actually resemble an ole goat....with that nasty goatee of yours
#6 is almost totally pointless but it does manage to suggest an idea that intrigues me -- I wonder what remmers is like when angry. As much as I've enjoyed his company on the occasions when we've met, I have at best a casual acquaintance with him. Certainly I'm not the best judge, but I find it almost impossible to imagine him fuming mad. Can anyone else picture that? (One thing I *do* know for sure, though: sabre is going to have to work a lot harder if he ever wants to see it.)
sabre only diminishes himself by his gratuitous and juvenile jabs at various people.
Notice the Democratic party ranked as more weasely than the Republican Party. Finally, Bush's strategy makes sense. But running the Weaseliest White House in history, he draws all the weasely votes off from his party, making it look better than the Democratic party. Scott Adams definitely tilted this survey. Why weren't cartoonists listed among the choices for weaseliest occupations?
I'd say there's plenty to offend everyone in #0. ;>
Re #9: It does look like having both The White House and The Republican Party on the same list split the Republican weasel vote.
Either that or another on-line poll got "Freeped"..
Ah yes, Wal-mart. The store of family values, savings, and cheap migrant labor.
Wal-Mart just got raided over the latter. How embarassing. Couldn't happen to a nicer giant corporation.
Yep...they got busted in several states, including Michigan.
I thought I read it was a contractor to Wal-Mart, not Wal-Mart, who got "busted".
The migrant workers were busted...I think the Wal-mart sotres were the site of the raids...I'll have to re-read the article.
The illegal aliens get busted for being illegal, but won't the company that hired them, the contractor, also be indicted for giving them employment?
I believe so. Wal-mart may also face problems, if it cannot be proven that they had nothing to do--deliberately--with hiring illegals.
Shouldn't that be the other way? "Wal-mart may also face problems, if it can be proven that they knew about the hiring of illegal aliens"? Innocent 'til proven guilty, and all that?
That's what one would think
Wal-Mart CONTRACTED someone to fill positions, which they did using illegals. This was probably solely for plausible deniability.
One NPR report talked about Wal-Mart executives being on tape talking about these illegals. So they may have evidence of knowledge.
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My recollection of the news stories is that the Feds have executed searches at Wal-Mart corporate offices in this case.
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I believe Walmart has replaced General Motors as the biggest employer in America. This is not a particularly good sign for America. GM employees mostly make things. Walmert employees mostly don't. GM employees are largely unionized, and make fairly decent livings. Walmart employees are, I believe, non-union and a substantial fraction of them earn crummy wages with no medical benefits. This allows Walmart to sell for less, putting stores that treat their employees decently out of business. It's not a company that makes one feel good about the social value of capitalist enterprise.
Welcome to China!!
(In his latest book, _Managing in the Next Society_, Peter Drucker points out that relatively few GM employees "make things." Manufacturing productivity, like farming productivity, has outstripped demand.)
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Joe's probably right - GM does a lot more selling than making. But my observation was probably dumb anyway, as "selling" isn't inherently worse than "making". Heck, someone out convincing people to buy recycled paper products is probably doing the world more good than someone making yet another Humvee. The isn't any inherent moral superiority to making things. Personally, I find such work more satisfying, at least when it has a creative component (which is probably fairly rare on an assembly line) but lots of people aren't wired that way. So you can strike that comment.
...and hope the Wal-Mart doesn't drive said grocer out of business first.
(Jan' #31 slipped in. I was responding to Todd's #30.)
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I'm still not sure it says good things about our country that we're trading manufacturing jobs for positions in telemarketing and burger-flipping.
Hard to say. It could be that we're manufacturing just as much but using fewer people to do it.
Maybe we have enough stuff? Nah.
Manufacturing and farming involve turning natural resources into products; the traditional definition of "creating wealth". That's how the economy grows. Services -- sales, marketing, surgery, teaching, management, etc. -- don't produce any wealth. They shift it around. Few of us ever produce anything at all, but we all survive and prosper off what is produced. We all eat, and we all buy cars and clothes and gadgetry. It all gets produced by someone. In the service economy, our function is to serve those producers in some way in order to earn our share of their products.
Most manufacturing jobs in this country have been lost to technology. Which isnt really a bad thing. We are still making just as much stuff, it just takes less folks to make it. Which frees up people to earn livings doing other things. Things like teaching and creating art and entertaining, etc. Can you imagine how our lives would be if *most* people had to either farm or work in factories? This doesnt mean that Walmart isnt a problem though. They pay their workers pretty low wages. I am always surprised that they are even able to find employees.
I dunno - we sure import a lot of stuff from China. But I suppose this question about how much stuff is made in the USA can be answered with numbers.
Re 38 - I don't buy cars, nor does Jim. The two he currently owns were given to him.
resp:40 - I was just listening to some radio economists going on about this very thing. They said that we still make as much stuff as we did 40 years ago. However, there are a lot more people in the country now and we consume WAY more stuff than we used to. So, while we make the same amount of stuff, it is a much lower percentage of the total consumption.
That makes sense - thanks.
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In the 70s and 80s, lots of manufacturing jobs moved out of the US. After that, the US economy has only grown further. No reason it should stop growing bcoz of outsourcing of service industry jobs. Only remains to be seen what will drive growth in the US now. Usually, growth in the US economy provides growth for other economies too which is a good things coz everyone benefits. Can someone point me to a link for statistics on US exports category wise? Arms, cars, steel, farm produce etc etc?
I've always wondered why the economy must "grow" continually in order to have a satisfactory economic structure. Obviously nothing can grow forever - all resources are finite. Many looming problems - from depletion of the oceans of edible fish to global warming - would have been averted by moving to a constrained, steady-state economy, especially for the more advanced economies. Then more effort could be put into an equalization of world economies so noone is left in desperate circumstances.
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re #46: spoken like someone already perched comfortably close to the top of the economic ladder.
Economies can grow even without depletion of resources. Sometimes the growth comes from coming up with ways to use available resources more efficiently. Think about it. What if I could come up with a way to use the energy from the sun such that it could supply all our power needs. Let's just say that I need lots and lots of human labor in order to make that happen. That would be a whole new industry and a lot of growth and I dont think even Rane would suggest the status quo is better than *that*. Whatever the future growth is in the economy, it is likely to be something good.
I see you have been "convinced". It would be great if it were simple to harvest for sunlight, but what if that *accelerates* the depletion of other resource? Without something else being done to limit growth, the longer term effects would be to increase population and consumption faster - of other finite resources - unless the brakes could also be placed on growth per-se. I'm not opposed to a better life for all, but why must we always let - or even encourage this to - this increase crowding and environmental destruction?
Oddly, in areas where there has been the most economic growth, there has also been a reduction in birth rate. Economic growth does not equal population growth. Sure, there is a finite amount of natural resources and also environmental costs. If resources get scarce enough, you will see economic growth in areas of conservation.
Re #39: If they can't find enough low-wage workers, they just import more.
Its not economic growth but education that reduces the birth rate, although with our present systems education usually waits for a better economic situation (that does not have to be *growth*).
Our culture has a lower birth rate because it is not economically beneficial to have children. Well, that is one theory anyway. Just as good as a theory about education reducing birth rate.
re resp:41: Collectively we buy cars, though, which is what I meant. Sindi, if everyone lived as you do, your life would change as much as anyone else's. You would have to compete more for the stuff you use to live. We cannot all be scavengers. It would probably be better if more people made that choice, though. re resp:46: As long as the population increases, there will need to be more resources used to sustain it. We have more mouths to feed, more bodies to house, more minds to educate, more people driving on the highways. Beyond that... it seems harsh to pick a particular generation and say, "Stop! You can't live better than the previous generation, as the previous generation did, and the one before did, and the one before that." It seems really harsh for a generation to say it to their kids.
I dont think anyone doubts that an increasing population is a problem.
(Drucker calls it a 'knowledge economy', not a 'service economy', because the chief product is . . . knowledge.)
Increasing populations is as much a problem as decline in birth rates or contraction in populations. Look at the problem faced by countries where a significant working force will retire in the coming decades, will need old-age care, retirement benefits etc and there aren't enough young people to replace them or pay for the retirement benefits!! http://www.estellejames.com/presentations/europe.ppt http://money.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4688297-110142,00.html
Fortunately, productivity is increasing, and that will mitigate the problem to some extent.
Productivity increases don't decrease resource depletion - they just consume resources faster for a given population. Increasing efficiencies, on the other hand, do preserve some resources - temporarily.
No, but productivity increases *do* improve the ability of a smaller generation to support retirees. Part of the problem, frankly, is an obsolete concept of retirement. Lifespans keep getting longer, but people keep expecting to retire at age 55 and never work again. Sooner or later we have to come to terms with the fact that expecting to take a 30-year vacation is not realistic.
That's an oversimplification. If persons at any age have managed to save enough to live on their investments, whether it is through their private investments or through "social security" investments, shouldn't they be entitled to do that? That can work, of course, because they are paying others to produce goods and services through their investments. Please tell us what is wrong with this concept.
This is an old article but still relevant, I guess. http://www.foreignaffairs.org/19970701faessay3782/martin-feldstein/the- case-for-privatization.html Summary: By 2030, Social Security payroll tax rates will rise to 19 percent - more than 45 percent including Medicare and Medicaid. In Europe, which faces similar challenges, the burden of entitlement expenses is already so great as to slow economic growth. The solution is to phase out Social Security and other pay-as-you-go programs and replace them with a mandate for all to put away savings in a mix of stocks and bonds. Under a privatized system, the same benefits would require contributions equal to just two percent of U.S. payroll. Not only would the elderly be safe from poverty, but for the first time people of low and moderate means would accumulate significant personal savings.
yes
I'm not sure that really solves the problem. If you have a large generation of retirees all withdrawing their savings from the market, and a smaller generation of workers investing, it seems to me that those investments are going to drop in value pretty dramatically.
Mr. gull, Perhaps so - other things being equal. But are other things going to be equal?? Additionally, the private accounts would appear to be primarily for the post-Baby Boom generations. After all, the eldest of the boomers are nearly ready to retire. They would hardly be impacted by such a practice.
Jim is probably the oldest baby boomer and he is only 55, hardly ready to retire.
Another problem with the concept in #61 (that retirement is obsolete) is that people are pushed to retire to make room for new generations. "Old" people have more health problems, have a smaller potential further service life than young workers, generally have higher pay that new employees, may not be up on the latest gadgets, may be harder to retrain on the average, and are, well, just LOOK OLD. Nasty.....
Speak for yourself, Rane! :)
haha. Actually, I think there is a lot of wasted human capital that occurs because of our culture's views on hiring older people.
I am almost 52, I hope to have my MS and start a new career when I hit 55.
whore.
You have several choices: