Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Once again its time for Lionel Hutz

Beware; I am in a pretty bitter mood for some reason today, so some of the posts have that flavor. Anyway, the sirens are buzzing… and that means its ambulance chasing lawyer time! I really get amazed with our legal system in this country- whether it’s the criminal side or the business side. Logic and proof sometimes don’t have a chance. The latest “chase” was in Tuesday’s USGNN on the lawsuit filed on the energy surcharge. Now I have to say I have issues with the surcharge, but even so I gotta say these actions are just wasteful exercises. This suit is based on the same flimsy evidence that the last one was… both based on something that happened in Europe, that folks (lawyers with dollar sign eyes) assume (and quite frankly hope) must be happening here too. That’s where the lack of logic comes in. Its like these guys just cut and pasted a suit together, found a plaintiff and SHAZAM, they’re in business. Yeesh. Bottom line is as an industry we have much more serious battles ahead, not to mention a shaky economy, so events like this just take resources away and eyes off the real issues that will affect ALL of us for years to come.

Elsewhere…

-- Our condolences go out to Tom Crawford of Donisi Mirror on the passing of his father, Roger. Tom is also a Board member at GANA and very good one at that. Our thoughts are with him and his family at this tough time.

-- Saw an interesting blurb on the IGMA meetings… it seems that Keystone Certifications terminated their agreement with IGMA to provide admin services for the certification process because they want to do their own…. And of course their own will probably be with NFRC (Shocked!)… and the head of Keystone and a huge decision maker inside NFRC are the same person… ah forget it.. not worth the keystrokes….once again it’s the classic self-fulfilling prophecy… or is that profit-cy?

-- Kudos to the gang at Vesuvius for their ad in the latest USGlass Magazine recognizing the efforts of Stan Smith upon his retirement and welcoming Bill Yanek to the fold. Very classy move and one that was probably the brainchild of Ren Bartoe of Vesuvius- one of the best industry guys around.

--This past week I got a call from a loyal reader asking why I don’t delve outside the industry more… I guess he can only handle so much Chinese NFRC debate eh…. Well… here’s some… I am going this weekend with my daughter to see the Hannah Montana Concert movie… she came to Detroit twice for live concerts and I failed twice to get tickets, so the movie will have to suffice. Anyway, I’ll have the extra duty ear plugs in. And I know I am not alone because everyone I speak with who has a daughter between 6-13 all live and die for Hannah Montana. The girl is a dynamo and here’s hoping that she stays good and doesn’t become another Britney.

-- And while on the celebrity stuff… can you believe that magazines pay millions of dollars for semi-celebrity baby pictures? Evidently, as this link will tell you, Nicole Richie is getting a million dollars for new babies pic… my goodness what is wrong with this world?

-- The Super Bowl is this weekend and it’s time to make the call… First off I just want a good game… that would be great. A game where the game is actually better than the commercials would be super. As for the game itself, I just can not see the Patriots losing. They have too many weapons and quite frankly they carry themselves with cool business-like savvy. End of the day Tom Brady will come through… gimpy ankle or not and the Pats will win 31-20.

Last I know I have been lacking for videos but thanks to Dan, I present a great one on the world of outsourcing. It really is a comical must-watch!

((( I had it embedded here but it started right with the blog- probably not best for people at work... so CLICK THIS and you'll be taken to it. Good stuff!)))


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Excellent posting on ambulance chasers trying to sue float manufacturers for anti-trust relative to energy surcharges. On Wednesday of this week I was ranting to somebody about it - then saw your post - great timing!

It's too bad the glass industry has inept business minds like those filing these particular law suits. Enregy costs are obviously on the rise, the surcharges were founded in facts and calculated by objective formulas, it's an oligopic marekt so of course competitors are going to move in like fashion, and best yet ... why in the heck didn't these glass shops leverage the energy surcharges to claw back some of the profits they've likey given up over the years? I could go on & on, but will refrain for now.

PS. I like the Lionel Hutz reference ... wonder if they'll get Jackie Chiles to co-chair with him? What a joke!

Max Perilstein said...

Wow- tremendous take.... and one, that has been said to me several times verbally and via e mail. Obviously there's 2 sides to every story, but you did cover this pretty well.

Thanks for reading and posting!