Could the Internet really power our economy right through this decade, making the current expansion double the length of any previous expansion? That's an interesting idea. I do believe the Internet is akin to previous economic revolutions such as the railroads, phones, and electricity. And the global marketplace is surely underdeveloped in terms of internet technology.
What worries me is things like our negative savings rate, the amount of money invested in the market on margin, the fact that companies with no earnings gained more than 100% last year (according to Barron's). It would seem there has to be some kind of fall due to all that. Still--the economy is very strong indeed.
OK: EMC--I apologize for that. I'm just so busy (because of our wonderful economy!) that I don't have much time for writing these days. I didn't expect that I wouldn't have time for elaboration on EMC in case anyone was interested. The problem they seem to have is in keeping employees. If you go to their web site and really study (as I did before my interview) you find that they sound almost like a military organization (which I liked), with excellence and efficiency required of each employee. But, examination of other resources shows that they have a higher rate of people leaving their sales force than other similar companies. The department I interviewed for used to have 12 people, now it has 4. Where did they all go? Do they not pay their employees well? Then on my way out I saw limos pulled up in front. So, do the top guys consider themselves royalty?
And the people who talked to me hadn't prepared. No one had read my resume. I think 4 people trying to do the work of 12 had left them quite frantic. And the HR guy asked me why I was looking for a job after having been at my current job only a few months -- entirely forgetting that he had called me in based on a resume I sent out last summer. Then a week later they called me asking if I wanted an interview (having forgotten that I was just there the week before). So -- there is some confusion on the inside that you don't see on their web pages. One amazing fact: in over 100 pages that I read on their web site, I didn't find a single spelling or grammatical error (I'm an English major, as well as Physics). That was incredible. There really is an intense focus on quality there. So, there's my EMC experience, and now you're not left hanging...
Kevin |
