Here in the real world

Jim Cramer predicted this week that corporate profits would be so huge that companies would be embarrassed not to give raises this year--hell, you won't even have to ask for one, they're going to be giving raises to everybody.

Ha, ha, ha, hee, hee--that Cramer, what a hoot.

Here's how it really works anymore:  once a year, it's raise time.  If the company feels like giving you one, you get one.  If the company doesn't, you don't (this would be most years).  It has absolutely nothing to do with corporate profits, your unit's profits, your job performance, your evaluation scores, or what the company can afford.

And you do not ask for a raise--that would be far too gauche for most executives to have to deal with.

This is not new--I'd venture to guess it's been like this for the last thirty years, excepting that up until about a dozen or so years ago, yearly raises were more likely.

Not particularly surprising that Cramer is completely clueless, though--he does, after all, work for a TV network that specializes in business news but somehow managed to be caught completely unaware when the economy collapsed in September of 2008.

Peace,
emaycee

There's something in the air...

I have no idea whether the Occupy Wall Street protests will turn into an actual movement or will peter out and become a fond memory for those of us view America as empathetic and not pathetic.  But I must admit, the fear running rampant among republicans is about as heartening of a development as I've seen since the Dems opened a can of whoop ass on the republicans in aught-six and aught-eight.

A little cheese with the whine:

• Eric fucking Cantor, wimp extraordinaire, calling the 99%ers a mob and accusing them of dividing America--why is it that republican protests are patriotic and ours are divisive?  I smell...bullshit!
• Rep. Peter King complaining that if we give it legitimacy it will be the 60s all over again (like that's a bad thing?).  Considering that I've heard members of the 99% Movement repeatedly referred to as "dirty hippies" by the right, it will be by their voices that it is so.  Note to the dumb asses of the right:  the sixties called and it wants its fucking lingo back.
• CNBC--you know, the money "experts" who completely missed the collapse of the U.S. economy in 2008, hell-fucking-o!--calling the protesters freaks and their actions bizarre.  Don't know about you, but I'd take being called a freak by Jim Cramer or Larry Kudlow as a fucking compliment.
• The illiterati in the traditional media--Fox, CNN--doing their best to paint the protesters with the sterotypical conservative brush.
• Scott Brown's utterly lame putdown of the high priestess of the movement, Elizabeth Warren (whose speech arguably stoked the flame and makes one proud not just to be a Liberal, but also a human being) and the may be even worse defense of him by republican spin doctors, asking  Sen. Susan Collins and Sen. Kelly Ayotte to walk the plank for a pig.  Anybody want to wager a guess at how badly Warren beats Brown among women in Massachusetts in 2012?  I'll wager 65-35.

Funny thing is, as demonstrated by thereisnospoon, the tea party may have fallen on its own sword by making protests viable again.

I don't think this necessarily helps the Dems in 2012--the movement seems pretty disgusted with both parties (thanks President Obama!)--but anything that further delineates the differences between those of us who think America should help the have nots more than the haves certainly can't hurt.

Peace,
emaycee