Raise the Hammer

No, I don't know anyone who works there.

Just as I don't know any of the 1,000 that BMO is about to lay off after a record-profit year.

Aside from the environmental upheavals we've seen in the past fifty years, I think one of the other elements of 'How Life Has Changed' has been people's apparent inability to deal with the fact that it is no longer the norm to be able to depend on one job throughout your lifetime as your parents or grandparents could have. That's no longer the world we live in. And I'm constantly amazed at how people all over react to plants closing and businesses moving...as if it's somehow 'unfair' that things have worked out this way.

My personal belief is that the issue is not that 'there is no humanity in the business world', but rather how naive we've become as a society, expecting that businesses will conduct themselves (and therefore their employees) with respect and dignity, putting their shareholders' interests beneath those who have toiled in the plants and offices. Come on! Get serious!

Where did this naiveté come from? When did it engrain our belief system? My suspicion is that the 20th Century ushered in not only a broad-based, acquisational, materialistic free-market, capitalistic system...but also this attitude, the expectation that 'things will always turn out right'.

Utter twaddle. This is about business. It's about the bottom-line. And yes, there are 'some' businesses out there who believe in a humane and caring approach to how they do what they do, cognizant of the effects their decisions have on the community, but that's not the norm and it never will be. That's not the world we live in. That's not the world almost all of us vote for each and every time we spend a dollar in a transaction that's not guaranteed to be grounded in a 'kinder, gentler' capitalistic tradition. And for those who strive for that world, I say 'Poppycock. It's too late. We've gone too far and there's no turning back. In for penny, in for a pound.' (Just as this report shows us that environmentally-wise, there's no 'turning back', either: http://www.thestar.com/News/article/1775... )

Bottom-line: there are no guarantees in Life. Accept this and adapt. Whining never got anyone anywhere. Except into the company of more whiners.