This was in our paper on the Civil War,,,,,

[motorman587]

I want to say something,but posting this and getting some responses will get it off my chest.

 

 

http://www.wctv.tv/news/headlines/Proctor_to_hold_Conference_on__119688419.html

[ghaverkamp]

I've lost my 20-foot pole, and I'm just not sure 10 feet is enough...

[EffBee]

Ah, yes. The old "you're getting more favoritism than we are" argument. If this is going to be a discussion about a sociological issue, fine. But that alone starts awfully close to the "no politics" line in the sand, and thus I don't hold out much hope for this thread.

 

Tread lightly, friends.

 

P.S. I've got Thursday at 3PM PST in the Mod's pool.

[tallman]

First, I know him, and this is tame compared to some of his observations.

Second, he continues to get re-elected due to/in spite of/ the type of rhetoric he interjects into our local politics.

 

Best wishes.

[Mike]

Stepping off into the abyss:

 

Being in a line of work that involves, among other things, investigating fraud against various government agencies, my personal perspective is that minority and gender quotas in contracting are little more than an invitation to fraud. Seldom do these laws come anywhere close to accomplishing what they were intended to, but they do a fantastic job of fueling resentment.

 

Not the official view and all that jazz . . . .

[motorman587]

I knew you guys make me feel better, lol........

 

[tallman]

Mike,

Around here, a number of construction related, and other businesses have a female President.

That allows them to participate as a minority bidder.

Sometimes valid, sometimes....

[Mike]

Tim, the second "sometimes" tends to happen with some degree of regularity. It's a shame, not only because it's dishonest, but also because it casts a shadow over other legitimate efforts to help folks who may be genuinely disadvantaged. That's probably as far as I should go....

[Pilgrim]

Mike,

Around here, a number of construction related, and other businesses have a female President.

That allows them to participate as a minority bidder.

Sometimes valid, sometimes....

 

It's unalterable human nature to game any system where there is money, sex, or power are to be had by winning. Any laws passed hoping otherwise are doomed to be abused and ultimately seen to be what they are: feckless.

 

Pilgrim

[Matts_12GS]

Mike,

Around here, a number of construction related, and other businesses have a female President.

That allows them to participate as a minority bidder.

Sometimes valid, sometimes....

 

I have worked for 8A companies, one in particular owned by a gent who was exactly 1/8th Cherokee. Seems that 12% of your heritage was the magic number for federal qualification in the middle 90s.

The city of Jacksonville has a huge "set aside" program which is essentially a quota of city work reserved for minority/women owned businesses. These seem to either fail before completion or else the work is so shoddy that's it's quietly completed by one of the big companies owned by the majority...

 

Pathetic really.

 

There has to be a way to level the field so that both David and Goliath can compete, but the easy ways certain seem to lead to undesirable ends.

[beemerman2k]

One obvious thing to me is that these levels of productivity seem to congregate among people of a common culture. Sometimes, that culture is race bound, but sometimes it isn't. For instance, I don't believe the only reason Mexicans dominate the workforce in this instance is purely because they are cheap (assuming they are in fact, getting paid less than "market" wages), but their work ethic also tends to be higher than what is considered normal for our culture. I see this same, if not greater, high work ethic among Asian Americans as well.

 

As a sort of tie in with the thread on that Dodge Durango catching on fire in the midst of a parade, the work ethic of the entire American culture is actually under fire on the world stage. We are overpaid, coddled, and everyone wants to be the boss in this country. There is no sense of good customer service, and we have little pride in work unless we are the direct beneficiaries of said labor (musician, athlete, sales person, stock broker, etc).

 

This is the cumulative picture that is painted whenever I chat with my foreign friends about these matters. People from Mexico, Brazil, China, India, Africa, Jamaica and other Caribbean Islands.

[moshe_levy]

For us, selling direct to the government or the major prime contractors, the issue can be a nightmare. Here we are, the manufacturer - a small business started by an immigrant 35 years ago which now employs some 130 people, by the way - and inevitably because of the system we are forced to sell to a tiny hole-in-the-wall outfit who then resells to Uncle Sam because they won't buy direct (because we're not "disadvantaged.")

 

For Uncle, this is just another layer to deal with, and to pay. For us, the nightmare is sending hardware out the door worth 5 or 6 figures to a company with little or no credit history. So we force them to pay up front in many cases where credit can't be established, which means they need to take a loan to do so. This too is factored into an even higher markup that Uncle has to pay.

 

I learned my lesson years ago on this, when this situation happened and we gave such a company credit without checking closely enough. The hardware was delivered to Uncle, and never paid for by the third party. A lawsuit would have cost more than the profit on the unit, so it was basically a total loss for us. A few months later, Uncle had a problem that required warranty support (turned out to be user error) and called us direct. I told Uncle we didn't get paid, so we weren't supporting the product. Uncle protested, so I told him to go to the vendor he bought it from for support. This naturally leveraged the situation such that Uncle forced them to pay us, right quick. But, lesson learned.

 

You grow up and follow political life enough, and you realize that even the best intentions - not specifically talking about this issue, but best intentions in general and especially in legislation - ALWAYS have unintended circumstances which result in exactly the opposite of the original intention, and also complicate the hell out of everything that law touches, usually without much benefit in return.

 

-MKL

[Alan D]

For us, selling direct to the government or the major prime contractors, the issue can be a nightmare. Here we are, the manufacturer - a small business started by an immigrant 35 years ago which now employs some 130 people, by the way - and inevitably because of the system we are forced to sell to a tiny hole-in-the-wall outfit who then resells to Uncle Sam because they won't buy direct (because we're not "disadvantaged.")

 

For Uncle, this is just another layer to deal with, and to pay. For us, the nightmare is sending hardware out the door worth 5 or 6 figures to a company with little or no credit history. So we force them to pay up front in many cases where credit can't be established, which means they need to take a loan to do so. This too is factored into an even higher markup that Uncle has to pay.

 

I learned my lesson years ago on this, when this situation happened and we gave such a company credit without checking closely enough. The hardware was delivered to Uncle, and never paid for by the third party. A lawsuit would have cost more than the profit on the unit, so it was basically a total loss for us. A few months later, Uncle had a problem that required warranty support (turned out to be user error) and called us direct. I told Uncle we didn't get paid, so we weren't supporting the product. Uncle protested, so I told him to go to the vendor he bought it from for support. This naturally leveraged the situation such that Uncle forced them to pay us, right quick. But, lesson learned.

 

You grow up and follow political life enough, and you realize that even the best intentions - not specifically talking about this issue, but best intentions in general and especially in legislation - ALWAYS have unintended circumstances which result in exactly the opposite of the original intention, and also complicate the hell out of everything that law touches, usually without much benefit in return.

 

-MKL

You are right, and I have observed it for 30 years. One government employee even told me, "we"ll buy it from somebody that will probably buy it from you and sell it to us for more money"

The guy that makes his wife the president of the company so it can be a minority company so he can compete for contracts is just another scam.

I am a veteran but it looks like the veteran owned business initiative just creates veteran brokers, not creating new business as intended. I think these programs rarely perform as intended, unless getting reelected was the real intention.

[Glenn Reed]

I absolutely understand the perspectives above, and currently work for a company that has to sometimes go through sham processes to have our work appear as if it is complying with the set aside process.

 

OTOH, I have also worked for two companies (one woman owned, one veteran owned) that were very successful on their own, and from time to time would get business through set asides, but not often. Quality organizations, well run, and proper product delivered to all customers, public or private.

[beemerman2k]

OTOH, I have also worked for two companies (one woman owned, one veteran owned) that were very successful on their own, and from time to time would get business through set asides, but not often. Quality organizations, well run, and proper product delivered to all customers, public or private.

 

 

Yes, I am quite familiar with an instance of this in the black community. My uncle, Archie Williams, was a Boston based attorney and entrepreneur. He established several businesses over his lifetime, the latest of which is Roxbury Technology. The company initially relied on minority set aside type opportunities from big corporations that supported this type of thing. My uncle passed away on Thanksgiving day, 2002, and his daughter, Beth Williams, took over the company.

 

She looked to sell it for her first couple of years in that position, but then something happened. She discovered her potential and began to take her role very seriously. Now both her and her company are getting all sorts of press coverage from the business journals because she has turned the firm around and is quite successful.

So me and the extended family are very proud of her.

 

 

[Joel]

OTOH, I have also worked for two companies (one woman owned, one veteran owned) that were very successful on their own, and from time to time would get business through set asides, but not often. Quality organizations, well run, and proper product delivered to all customers, public or private.

 

 

Yes, I am quite familiar with an instance of this in the black community. My uncle, Archie Williams, was a Boston based attorney and entrepreneur. He established several businesses over his lifetime, the latest of which is Roxbury Technology. The company initially relied on minority set aside type opportunities from big corporations that supported this type of thing. My uncle passed away on Thanksgiving day, 2002, and his daughter, Beth Williams, took over the company.

 

She looked to sell it for her first couple of years in that position, but then something happened. She discovered her potential and began to take her role very seriously. Now both her and her company are getting all sorts of press coverage from the business journals because she has turned the firm around and is quite successful.

So me and the extended family are very proud of her.

 

It would be a better world if there were more of that, and less of the type of story that started this thread.

[beemerman2k]

This is the cumulative picture that is painted whenever I chat with my foreign friends about these matters. People from Mexico, Brazil, China, India, Africa, Jamaica and other Caribbean Islands.

 

Oh, and sadly, but don't get them started on what they think of the typical black American work ethic

 

This problem with the black American work ethic, both perceived and very real, is long overdue for some serious attention. On this subject I give a big tip of the hat to my late uncle. He always established his businesses (grocery stores, small factories of various sorts, etc) in the inner-city, black community. He believed there was "gold in them thar hills" in this respect: you have a largely untapped labor force, they are so glad to have a job and will therefore go the extra mile for you, and if you demand excellence you will get excellence.

 

His view was basically that society teaches black people that they are victims, and therefore they aren't expected to compete with the best. Don't come to my uncle with that nonsense: if you weren't ready to bust your butt, don't even think about applying for a job at his factory. And let me tell you this, it was really nice seeing poor and uneducated adults leave his factory floors at night holding their heads up high with proud hearts because of the days work they just put in. That kind of reward from their labor goes way beyond pay. It is a life transforming experience for people.

 

So that experience firmly entrenched my view that if you want to see the underclass perform like the overclass, all you need do is to demand it of them. You'll see measures of productivity that rival anything coming from our foreign neighbors.

[moshe_levy]

Well said!

 

-MKL

[EffBee]

Well, I guess I lost the Mod pool. Congrats to everyone for having a great sociological discussion and not letting it shift over to a political one. I've seen some very interesting and enlightened comments. And some of your personal experiences have been eye-opening!

 

Carry on.

[blaisew]

I'll touch this one briefly. I have some experience in the construction area and have seen any number of things that were disturbing, and just wrong. I had one contractor (public job) who hired illegals, paid them below the required wage, and just paid the fine at the end of the job, pocketing a nice profit. I've seen cases where a minority sub was hired (required by quota)but he never had to do any work because we knew that he would not be able to perform in a timely manner. There were just no minority subs available who could. He got paid, but never did any work. My street was rebuilt recently, and even though there were a lot of workers involved, not one could speak English! There was just one fellow driving around in a truck who was bilingual, and you had to catch him going by in order to talk about problems with the way my driveway was being replaced. When there are folks who will work cheap, and other folks look the other way on immigration, wages are driven down to the lowest common denominator and we hear from on high that "there are jobs no one here will do".

 

I could go on and on, but I'll stop my rant now!

[Ken H.]

"As a small business that performs specialized work items in the construction industry, Hale Contracting hires and employs the best persons suited for open positions, based on their experience, knowledge, skills and abilities, certainly not by their race or gender.”

Isn’t that all that should really matter?

 

Personally if I’m looking for someone to a job (as I am all the time in software development) I don’t care if you’re white, black, brown, male, female, gay, yellow, transgender, purple or green. If a person is the right person to do the job, what do all the other ‘labels’ matter?

 

I don’t get it (controversies such as the article). Never have, never will I guess.