No, it’s not the code name of my new project*. It’s what we’re facing here in the United States with the rumors of bailouts for the auto industry (as a follow up to ‘Puter’s post). This is an industry that lost money back in the boom of the late 90s. This is an industry that when a worker is not busy or needed, they pay him $60K+ a year to sit around…and maybe even mow the lawn of the factory. For those not in the know, we’re in a global economy with an ever increasing linkage between countries thanks largely to internet-based business and transactions. To get some education check out this program. There are parts that I don’t fully agree with, but it’s a bipartisian look at the global economy. It’s worth a read (hat tip to my father who pointed it out to me, bought the DVDs and sent them around the family). Let me quote an introduction to part three and I’ll let the reader make their own conclusion:

With communism discredited, more and more nations harness their fortunes to the global free-market. China, Southeast Asia, India, Eastern Europe and Latin America all compete to attract the developed world’s investment capital, and tariff barriers fall. In the United States Republican and Democratic administrations both embrace unfettered globalization over the objections of organized labor. But as new technology and ideas drive profound economic change, unforeseen events unfold.

* – this is a reference to Scott Adam’s Dilbert cartoon about a fictional airline program that was published shortly after I stopped working on a FAA contract.

GorT

GorT is an eight-foot-tall robot from the 51ˢᵗ Century who routinely time-travels to steal expensive technology from the future and return it to the past for retroinvention. The profits from this pay all the Gormogons’ bills, including subsidizing this website. Some of the products he has introduced from the future include oven mitts, the Guinness widget, Oxy-Clean, and Dr. Pepper. Due to his immense cybernetic brain, GorT is able to produce a post in 0.023 seconds and research it in even less time. Only ’Puter spends less time on research. GorT speaks entirely in zeros and ones, but occasionally throws in a ڭ to annoy the Volgi. He is a massive proponent of science, technology, and energy development, and enjoys nothing more than taking the Czar’s more interesting scientific theories, going into the past, publishing them as his own, and then returning to take credit for them. He is the only Gormogon who is capable of doing math. Possessed of incredible strength, he understands the awesome responsibility that follows and only uses it to hurt people.