Richardcyoung.com

The Online Home of Author and Investor, Dick Young

  • Home
  • How We Are Different
  • About Us
    • Foundation Principles
    • Contributors
  • Investing
    • You’ve Read The Last Issue of Intelligence Report, Now What?
  • Your Survival Guy
  • The Great Reset
  • COVID-19
  • My Rifles
  • Dividends and Compounding
  • Your Security
  • The Swiss Way
  • Dick Young
  • Debbie Young
  • Key West
  • Paris
  • Dick’s R&B Top 100
  • Liberty & Freedom Map
  • Your Health
  • Ron Paul
  • Bank Credit & Money
  • Dick Young’s Safe America
  • Your Survival Guy’s Super States
  • Critical Race Theory
  • NNT & Cholesterol
  • Work to Make Money/Invest to Save Money

Make Your Fortune

December 6, 2011 By E.J. Smith - Your Survival Guy

Meet the most dangerous man in the world. He’s apparently an expert on China, who probably ventures beyond ordering by number at Chinese restaurants and may be able to tell you your fortune even before you crack the cookie. Who is this wise man? Why, it’s former SEIU president Andy Stern, who upon return from his recent junket to China penned a nauseating op-ed in The Wall Street Journal called “China’s Superior Economic Model.” He relies liberally on quotes from a controversial BusinessWeek article written by former Intel CEO Andy Grove last year calling for a modified free market. Talk about short-term memory.

In BusinessWeek, Andy Grove seemed to have forgotten that Intel was possibly the single largest beneficiary of the disruptive powers of the free market in the history of the world. He was also darn lucky to have had as his Intel co-founder Gordon Moore, who was also his mentor while Grove was the operations guy.

In 1971 Gordon Moore felt the invention of the microprocessor was “one of the most revolutionary products in the history of mankind.” Grove did not. In a 2006 Wired interview, when asked if he saw the chip’s potential, Grove said without hesitation, “I didn’t, I was running an assembly line designed to build memory chips. I saw the microprocessor as a bloody nuisance.” Later in his career, Grove harnessed the disruptive powers of Moore’s law—which states that the number of transistors incorporated in a chip will approximately double every 24 months—and using his masterful operational and management skills built Intel into the success it was within a market economy, not a planned one.

Stern writes that thanks to the technological innovations of Andy Grove, Steve Jobs, and Bill Gates, the world is flat. And thanks to Stern-style forced unionism, U.S. manufacturing has been flattened. Those jobs are gone, never to be seen again. The only reason SEIU’s hospital union jobs haven’t been shipped to China is that you don’t go to a hospital in China when you’re sick—at least, not yet.

An important distinction needs to be made between private and public unions. I have no problem with private unions as long as leadership provides workers with a choice. SEIU has single-handedly cornered the health-care services market thanks to the lack of right-to-work laws in states such as California. Public-sector unions have abused collective bargaining rights. Now their pension obligations strangle state budgets. Both forced unionism and public-sector collective bargaining need to go.

President Obama has polarized union workers by siding with public-sector unions. He has forgotten the blue-collar workers who can thrive without forced unionism laws. In fact, when polled they prefer not to be forced into a union. There should be jobs in the XL pipeline and further exploration with oil and natural gas in places like Ohio, for example. But instead we hear the polarizing refrains “Oil companies are evil” and “no more drilling.” Yet we want the security of independence from foreign oil. The bridge to get there is right in our backyard. And for the first time in 62 years, the U.S. is set to become a net exporter of gasoline, diesel, and other oil-based fuels in 2011. SEIU Andy is wrong in believing China’s economic model is our salvation. Has he looked at the ghost cities over there?

The good news is there are thriving cities and towns like Austin, Texas, that are creating jobs. A two-year associate’s degree can get your foot in the door, which is all most of us conscientious workers need. That’s all, just a chance. At Babson College I studied how to invest and how to run companies using tools, like just-in-time inventory management, that Andy Grove mastered. And you know where that got me? A job at Fidelity Investments. That was a start, but from there it was up to me to create value. SEIU Andy wants to tell you how to work, and as a result live your life. His greedy hand will be in your pocket looking for his cut in dues. I don’t like what his fortune predicts: “Help, I’m trapped in a Chinese fortune cookie factory.”

Related Posts

  • This is Nuts! California's Fortune 500
  • China's Great Leap Forward
  • The Politics of Pension Reform
  • Author
  • Recent Posts
E.J. Smith - Your Survival Guy
E.J. Smith is Founder of YourSurvivalGuy.com, Managing Director at Richard C. Young & Co., Ltd., a Managing Editor of Richardcyoung.com, and Editor-in-Chief of Youngresearch.com. His focus at all times is on preparing clients and readers for “Times Like These.” E.J. graduated from Babson College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, with a B.S. in finance and investments. In 1995, E.J. began his investment career at Fidelity Investments in Boston before joining Richard C. Young & Co., Ltd. in 1998.

E.J. has trained at Sig Sauer Academy in Epping, NH, NH, where he completed course-work in Practical and Defensive Handgun, Conceal Carry Pistol, Shotguns, Precision Scope Rifle and Kidnapping Prevention.

E.J. plays a Yamaha Recording Custom drum set with Zilldjian cymbals. His first drum set was a 5-piece Slingerland with Zilldjians. He grew-up worshiping Neil Peart (RIP) of the band Rush, and loves the song Tom Sawyer—the name of his family’s boat, a Grady-White Canyon 306. He grew up in Mattapoisett, MA, an idyllic small town on the water near Cape Cod. He spends time in Newport, RI and Bartlett, NH—both as far away from Wall Street as one could mentally get. The Newport office is on a quiet, tree lined street not far from the harbor and the log cabin in Bartlett, NH, the “Live Free or Die” state, sits on the edge of the White Mountain National Forest. He enjoys spending time in Key West and Paris.

Please get in touch with E.J. at ejsmith@yoursurvivalguy.com
Latest posts by E.J. Smith - Your Survival Guy (see all)
  • Your Survival Guy: Clearing the Decks, Buying a Boat, Seeing the World and More - June 24, 2022
  • BREAKING: Supreme Court DISMANTLES New York’s Unconstitutional Gun Laws - June 23, 2022
  • PARIS Survival Guy INTELLIGENCE: The Job Market’s Case of Long Covid - June 22, 2022

Dick Young’s Must Reads

  • Your Sheriff Can Thwart Federal Gun Control Efforts
  • CONSTITUTIONAL CARRY: Alabama Becomes 22nd Permitless Carry State
  • Marry Compound Interest, Divorce Market Timing
  • Work to Make Money/Invest to Save Money
  • Ron Paul: “Freedom and Central Banking Are Not Compatible”
  • “The Great Object Is that Every Man Be Armed”
  • Yes! Money Can Bring You Happiness
  • Tucker Carlson Interviews My Favorite Florida Farmer
  • FARM AMERICA: New York City’s Finest Cheesemongers
  • The Four Most Important Words in Investing

Our Most Popular Posts

  • Paris: How Hotel Lutetia Can Challenge Le Bristol Hotel?
  • Biden Running Out of People to Blame for High Gas Prices
  • RECESSION? Dow 25,000, $8 Gas, Rising Interest Rates, Spell Mid-term Crack Up
  • Here's Why the Fed Won't Raise Rates Enough
  • GOP Voters Want Republicans Who Will Actually Fight for Their Values
  • MONEY TALKS: The Best Service in Paris
  • Are Democrats Ditching President Biden?
  • The Lives of Others
  • One Surprising Thing You Should Know About Private Jets
  • 1st Time Elon Musk Votes Republican

Disclosure

RSS Youngresearch.com

  • Your Survival Guy: Clearing the Decks, Buying a Boat, Seeing the World and More
  • Is the Great Job Boom Over?
  • Here’s Why You Need a 15-Year Retirement Investment Plan
  • Will ESG Do to Steel Prices What It Did to Gas Prices?
  • Kellogg Cuts Loose with Split Plan
  • Apple Shares Resilient in the Face of Recession
  • MONEY TALKS: The Best Service in Paris
  • Predictions of MEGA-SPENDING on Metaverse
  • RECESSION? Dow 25,000, $8 Gas, Rising Interest Rates, Spell Mid-term Crack Up
  • Investing During a Recession

Greetings From Paris & Le Bristol Hotel

The Most Controversial Restaurant in Paris?

Your Survival Guy: Clearing the Decks, Buying a Boat, Seeing the World and More

Russia’s “Unsubtle” Artillery Attacks Not Necessarily “Archaic”

FLORIDA DODGED A BULLET: Elected Superb DeSantis Over Unstable Gillum

Biden, a Job Killing Machine

Copyright © 2022 | Terms & Conditions | About Us | Dick Young | Archives