What Can't Continue, Won't

A great many corporate executives seem to think they can keep squeezing labor costs with impunity to impress Wall Street analysts and drive up their companys' share prices. But as with most seemingly unstoppable trends that only really make sense to those with a simplistically myopic focus on cold, hard numbers, the reality in a world where the data reflects the efforts of living, breathing individuals is altogether different. At some point, suggests McClatchy Newspapers in "Employee Stress Affects Companies’ Bottom Lines," the law of diminishing returns -- and of what can't continue, won't -- begins to apply:

MIAMI— Like many workers, Nancy Topolski found herself with more work piled on after her law firm laid off 11 legal secretaries. Topolski soon began stressing over work, losing sleep and making mistakes. One day, the stress erupted into a full-blown panic attack in the office.

Trying to keep your cool in workplaces these days has become more difficult. The recession has brought a new set of issues, driving stress to a new level. Three out of every four American workers are on the brink of a meltdown, according to a Fairleigh Dickinson University report.

“Workers are being pushed and pushed, and they lack the energy to deal with it,” said Joyce Gioia of The Herman Group, whose specialty is employee retention. She believes that high workloads, fear of job loss and 24/7 connectivity are the recipe for the highest levels of stress in history.

Companies could end up paying the cost through more workers calling in sick, more job-related mistakes and higher turnover.

For years, experts have said a little bit of stress is good. But they were referring to the short-term jolt that comes before making a presentation, not the extreme kind prevalent in workplaces today.

“We’re way beyond the level of it being motivating,” said Helen Darling, president of the Washington-based National Business Group on Health. “It will be hard to recover economically if we don’t find better ways to help employees address stress.”

Of course, no small number of businesses may luck out -- for a while, at least. That because, as the following report reveals, some of those who work for them will have found (ultimately self-defeating) ways of coping with the pressure:

"Economy's Silver Lining: A Happy Hour Boom" (CNBC)

The recession has caused significant damage to jobs and the stock market. But there's one silver lining worth toasting: a surge in "happy hour" offerings for early-bird revelers.

"With the economy continuing to put a strain on consumers and people constantly looking for great deals, we are definitely in the midst of a happy hour boom," Jeff Khadavi, co-founder of GoTime Corp., tells CNBC.

Through its website, GoTime.com, and its recently-launched mobile application, Happy Hours, the Seattle-based company provides information on more than 250,000 bars and restaurants across 60 cities. GoTime uses its staff, its media partners in various cities, its users and individual business owners to help it keep an up-to-date database of happy hour offerings --normally between 5 pm to 7 pm-- in the markets it covers.

Khadavi says through this gathering of information, he has seen a noticeable uptick in venues offering happy hour discounts as well as customers seeking out such deals. He points to his company's recently launched Happy Hours app, which lets users search for happy hour deals in their location, already has nearly 500,000 users.

"People are actively looking for this kind of information and businesses are targeting people accordingly," says Khadavi.

It's not just local pubs that are boosting their happy hour offerings. Nationwide restaurant chains PF Chang's China Bistro and The Cheesecake Factory (NASDAQ: cake) have jumped on the happy hour bandwagon this year.

The Cheesecake Factory, which has been serving alcohol since it opened its doors in 1978, launched its first-ever happy hour program at select locations in February with $5 specialty cocktails and $5 full-size appetizers from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m.

"The Cheesecake Factory has never done anything like this in over 32 years, and we felt the time was right given the economic situation, so more guests could enjoy the Cheesecake Factory experience," says Mark Mears, senior vice president and chief marketing officer of The Cheesecake Factory.

Mears adds the restaurant chain has seen an increase in traffic this quarter and is "bouncing back quite nicely" but did not say whether the new happy hour menu affected the improvement.

Comments

[roger]

In a society where labor has absolutely
no protection of any kind and must fight
tooth and nail for any available work to
get a lousy weekly pay check, unity of
purpose and collective foresight are
impossible,alienation and erratic behavior
are the norm, but at some point...there
will be a bottom line,it's called the
breaking point,that is when the masses
discover a unity of purpose. When that
happens,all hell will break loose,and the
greedy corporations will have to worry of
more important things than their bottom line.

[peanuts i've got peanuts]

Talk about being played...is this unreal?

Nine States Did Not File Initial Claims Data Due To Labor Day, Hundreds Of Thousands Of Estimates In Data "Beat"
The BLS has announced that as a result of the Labor Day weekend, 9 states (among which the biggest one California) did not report initial claims data to the bean counters, so instead the government had to "estimate" what the data would have been: yep, estimate, what the data was in these nine states. From Bloomberg: "For the latest reporting week, nine states didn’t file claims data to the Labor Department in Washington because of the Labor Day holiday earlier this week, a department official told reporters. California and Virginia estimated their figures and the U.S. government estimated the other seven." Official data is now made up on the fly. This US economic data reporting has just entered the twilight zone. Also, when the data is officially made up, it is not that difficult to get data that is "better than expected."

http://tinyurl.com/2599xlx

[at the expense of many]

Roger its a war....

September 9 (King World News) - We are at War. It may not feel like it, but we are. This is no ordinary war. It is not a military war but it is just as damaging because it has brought about a loss of freedom, poverty and an imbalance in wealth. The War I refer to is a Gold War.

http://tinyurl.com/27obx8q

[MS Student]

Why is gold and silver dropping. I was making so much money!

[at the expense of many]

@MS student....behavioral economics..its a takedown...to distract...

read this guy to learn how the game is played: http://jsmineset.com/2010/09/09/in-the-news-today-645/

[roger]

@at the expense of many .
Gold will solve the monetary problems? U gotta
be kidding! No medium of exchange will solve
human behavior. Government has it's devilish
side, but to accuse it for all the ills in
society is nonsense! First we must look in
the mirror,or to quote a famous saying:
the enemy is us. Whoever owns he most gold
will call the shots.it's as simple as that.

[at the expense of many]

So roger what do you propose?...a universal jonestown?

gold will force resolution of the imbalances..

gold will force allocation of scarce resources..

gold will bring costs in line with average incomes...not this fugazy bs paper pump that flows to certain special interests..is gold infallible ?...no

but its real

[beats the status quo]

From Mike Krieger of Kam LP

Conscious Capitalism

Despite having had considerable support from Congressional Democrats the bill was not passed as Mr. Paul intended and indeed the Fed was given more powers in that laughing stock of a Financial Reform Bill. Many will view this as a setback and in some ways it was; however, it was also a victory in that it served to “awaken” a growing percentage of the citizenry to how things work and to recognize that the Congress does not listen to the will of the people but rather protects the corrupt establishment at all costs. Having the power to create money and credit out of thin air, the Federal Reserve is the ultimate tool of the establishment and the noose around the necks of us serfs.

http://tinyurl.com/23vkoxu

[roger]

@at the expense of many.
I'm to old to be confrontational, so no
please, no Jamestown.If there are unbearable
imbalances ,history tells us that the power of a gun supersedes the power of gold, ditto for
rare resources,on a national scale 350m. Americans don't stand a chance against one and a half billion Chinese.Labor is a commodity like
any other commodity,supply and demand dictates
the price.Gold, gold is a piece of shiny metal,
and it is in limited quantity,it's base value originate in it's labor cost to extract it,any
amount above that is fictitious value and subject to the wild vagaries of the human species. Wish I could agree with you ,but I can't

[at the expense of many]

Does not matter what you or I think...it matters what the Chinese and Indian populations do with their savings ie. the demand

Jim Rickards - Treasury Bills: The New Opium
http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/KWN_DailyWeb/Entries/2010/9/7_Jim_Rickards_-_Treasury_Bills__The_New_Opium.html

[roger]

at the expense of many.
very good article, with lots to think about.
having lived and worked in a colony 60yrs.
ago ,I can sympathize with the people.
And yes it's always the small fry that
suffers,it's all about domination and exploitation.
the medium of exchange is but one tool.
Thanks.

[Ron Melton]

Michael Panzer sees the cup as half empty. Month after month, he lists bad news, but he offers no constructive ideas or solutions. Hence, this Web site is ulitimately useless.

This latest entry vividly shows that he cannot accept good news -- we have avoided a double dip recession.

Micheal, whether you like or not, the economy is improving. You are not intelletually honest. Your latest entry bears this out.

[roger]

The reason I read this blog is because I
find M.Panzner literate,well researched
and free of ideological programing,a very
rare quality. Most humans in "any society"
have been so fashioned and imprinted by their
culture that they are incapable to transcend
the horizon of that culture,witch by the way
makes offering solutions very controversial
and practically impossible.That's why civil
wars and revolutions occure.