Date:Mon, 08 Oct 2012 13:58:05 -0400 (EDT)
From: [David Siegel]
To: [All employees]
To All My Valued Employees,
As most of you know our company, Westgate Resorts, has continued to succeed in spite of a very dismal economy. There is no question that the economy has changed for the worse and we have not seen any improvement over the past four years. In spite of all of the challenges we have faced, the good news is this: The economy doesn't currently pose a threat to your job. What does threaten your job however, is another 4 years of the same Presidential administration. Of course, as your employer, I can't tell you whom to vote for, and I certainly wouldn't interfere with your right to vote for whomever you choose. In fact, I encourage you to vote for whomever you think will serve your interests the best. [...]
Now, the economy is falling apart and people like me who made all the right decisions and invested in themselves are being forced to bail out all the people who didn't. The people that overspent their paychecks suddenly feel entitled to the same luxuries that I earned and sacrificed 42 years of my life for. Yes, business ownership has its benefits, but the price I've paid is steep and not without wounds. Unfortunately, the costs of running a business have gotten out of control, and let me tell you why: We are being taxed to death and the government thinks we don't pay enough. We pay state taxes, federal taxes, property taxes, sales and use taxes, payroll taxes, workers compensation taxes and unemployment taxes. I even have to hire an entire department to manage all these taxes. The question I have is this: Who is really stimulating the economy? Is it the Government that wants to take money from those who have earned it and give it to those who have not, or is it people like me who built a company out of his garage and directly employs over 7000 people and hosts over 3 million people per year with a great vacation?
Obviously, our present government believes that taking my money is the right economic stimulus for this country. The fact is, if I deducted 50% of your paycheck you'd quit and you wouldn't work here. I mean, why should you? Who wants to get rewarded only 50% of their hard work? Well, that's what happens to me. [...]
Business is at the heart of America and always has been. To restart it, you must stimulate business, not kill it. However, the power brokers in Washington believe redistributing wealth is the essential driver of the American economic engine. Nothing could be further from the truth and this is the type of change they want.
So where am I going with all this? It's quite simple. If any new taxes are levied on me, or my company, as our current President plans, I will have no choice but to reduce the size of this company. Rather than grow this company I will be forced to cut back. This means fewer jobs, less benefits and certainly less opportunity for everyone.
So, when you make your decision to vote, ask yourself, which candidate understands the economics of business ownership and who doesn't? Whose policies will endanger your job? Answer those questions and you should know who might be the one capable of protecting and saving your job. While the media wants to tell you to believe the "1 percenters" are bad, I'm telling you they are not. They create most of the jobs. If you lose your job, it won't be at the hands of the "1%"; it will be at the hands of a political hurricane that swept through this country.
You see, I can no longer support a system that penalizes the productive and gives to the unproductive. My motivation to work and to provide jobs will be destroyed, and with it, so will your opportunities. If that happens, you can find me in the Caribbean sitting on the beach, under a palm tree, retired, and with no employees to worry about.
Signed, your boss,
David Siegel
For those unfamiliar with Siegel, he is the founder and CEO of Westgate Resorts, a real estate and timeshare company.
He and his wife were also the subject of the recent documentary "The Queen of Versailles" about their desire to build the largest home in America.
According to Gawker, they were worth over a billion dollars in 2007, but that could be less now as a result of the real estate bust.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-10-10/ceo-letter-heard-around-world-vote-obama-lose-your-job
Twinsdad comments:
This is an example of a real person telling other real people the truth.
"It's quite simple. If any new taxes are levied on me, or my company, as our current President plans, I will have no choice but to reduce the size of this company."
Those on the left here need to read these words and stop using Big Bird as an election tool.
Oh My God! Wow. What a Fucking First Class Asshole!
ReplyDelete"Those on the left here need to read these words and stop using Big Bird as an election tool."
You are dead on. We should immediately drop big bird and plaster the words of this jagoff on every telephone post in America. Wow! His letter can be summed up thusly, continue to kiss my enormous ass or I will punish you.
A fucking real estate prick, who probably made a billion on the housing fiasco is threatening to leave us behind and retire to a beach somewhere but will selflessly stick around for awhile as long we don't raise taxes. Wow. I could type every profanity I know about this punk and still not feel I adequately covered the topic. In the past year, I have seen people die in horrible ways working in hospice. Even those are better then what this guy deserves.
Yes, that asshole always travels first class! The Big Bird comment was mine, not his. In case you're under the delusion that because you work where you work is not leverage enoungh to sway me from the conclusion that you are not in touch with the private sector enough to grasp what they are going through. Like eating at The Olive Garden? Here's a headline for you "To limit health care costs, Olive Garden parent tests keeping more workers on part-time status"
ReplyDeletehttp://www.washingtonpost.com/business/to-limit-health-care-costs-olive-garden-parent-tests-keeping-more-workers-on-part-time-status/2012/10/09/61b9b6be-121a-11e2-9a39-1f5a7f6fe945_story.html
"NEW YORK — The owner of Olive Garden and Red Lobster restaurants is putting more workers on part-time status in a test aimed at limiting costs from President Barack Obama’s health care law."
Go check yourself into the funny farm if you don't grasp or won't grasp the facts of "O" care
"Under the new health care law, companies with 50 or more workers could be hit with fines if they do not provide basic coverage for full-time workers and their dependents. Starting Jan. 1, 2014, those penalties and requirements could significantly boost labor costs for some companies, particularly in low-wage industries such as retail and hospitality, where most jobs don’t come with health benefits."
People that own a business have a responsibility to the business, and if they don't act in the best interest of the business the business closes.
You don't work in a "business" you have no grasp of business economics, not your fault, but it was your choice.
Actually, I don't like eating at OG. Their food is bland at best and I would much rather pay a little more and support a local chef. OG is like like a lot big business in America today, it's a pass through that gives little flavor but tons of hype about how good it is.
DeleteBringing in healthcare to this topic is a straw man, it has nothing to do with the victim rant of the asshole. You want to wail about healthcare, start a different topic. So I don't work in a business? What do you think healthcare is?! It is entirely a business and you should see the customer service shit they are feeding us to ensure that revenue stays up. We don't heal people, we kiss their ass because they are consumers and give them whatever they demand whether it's appropriate or not.
Do you work in a private facility or a public facility?
DeleteAs to the Strawman BS:
"If any new taxes are levied on me, or my company, as our current President plans, I will have no choice but to reduce the size of this company"
Obamacare is a tax on businesses fool!
TD,
DeleteThey will exercise their option of dropping healthcare. Last time I checked, 30% of employers will drop their healthcare benefits due to the cost. They will pay the 3K fine. They probably not compensate the employees with higher pay due to the fine.
Pretty sad commentary, if 30% drop out many more will follow to remain competitive.
"Obamacare is a tax on businesses fool!"
DeleteYou wanna open the door to personal name calling amongst ourselves TD? I work for a not for profit under the same kind of setup that existed at every hospital I worked at previously. Your suggestion here seems to be that because I think this guy is an abrasive asshole, I must not understand his plight. Since I work at a much smaller company, I have personally felt the pinch that happens when you go from working at a large company to working at a small one. I took a 15k paycut (my choice) and my part of the insurance cost went up quite a bit. I've met our CEO and have had very direct discussions with her about our revenue streams and in particular, about how the new medicare changes are going to affect us. In my current job, I am a charge nurse, which makes me a low level manager and subsequently puts me in a position where I need to be conscious of costs literally every shift I work. This may not qualify me in your book as being competent enough to understand what a business owner has to go through, but I'd hardly qualify that as ignorant fool status.
Fool or not that I may be, I get that Romneycare is a tax on business, or at least I get that argument from whining fuckheads like this guy. Another way of looking at it is that the government is forcing everyone to participate in the way we fund healthcare. For those like myself who receive insurance through work, it's untaxed income. The reality of the matter, however, is that it's paid for by customers. If there were no customers, no one in my business would have a job or have health care. The same thing goes for the asshole who wrote the threatening letter.
I'm hard pressed to believe that ANY business in the world wants to provide any benefit for its employees, especially something so expensive as health care. So now Olive Garden is going to follow in the footsteps of Wallmart and keep everyone part time so they don't have to pay benefits? Shocking, oh the humanity of it all. We are simply playing out the final gasp of unwinding as much of the New Deal as possible. Whereas benefits and a decent wage were once accepted costs of business, they have no been successfully portrayed as an anal assault on poor victims who makes thousands of times more then their lowest paid employees.
TD, based on previous posts of bitterness expressed by people like you and gottaloveit, I can see why this makes you vibrate with ecstasy. What most people with class learn when they are very young is that you don't rub someone's face in shit when you have the upper hand. It's one thing for this guy to silently cut jobs if he is fucking bitter about it. But to come out with that same tired asshole rhetoric that portrays him as some fucking patron saint of hard work and everyone else a slacking shitbag is what has become the epitome of America. When you work hard and win, don't feel good to yourself, find someone worse off and tell them how fucking lazy and worthless they are. To be as bitter as he is when he has as much as he does makes it clear when an empty soul he is. He's got the trophy wife with fake boobs, the biggest house in America, and yet, what most pressing to him is threatening to fire employees if Obama is re elected. What a piece of work.
Do you work in a private facility or a public facility?
DeleteSo, you work in a "not for profit" hence your grasp of this situation is moot. From Wiki
"A non-profit hospital, or not-for-profit hospital, is a hospital which is organized as a non-profit corporation. Based on their charitable purpose and most often affiliated with a religious denomination they are a traditional means of delivering medical care in the United States. Non-profit hospitals are distinct from government owned public hospitals and privately owned for-profit hospitals.
In 2003, of the roughly 3,900 nonfederal, short-term, acute care general hospitals in the United States, the majority—about 62 percent—were nonprofit. The rest included government hospitals (20 percent) and for-profit hospitals (18 percent).[1]
Did you know this?
ObamaCare Raises Costs for Non-Profit Hospitals
By Linda Gorman Filed under Hospitals on May 18, 2010 with 6 comments
According to law firm Foster, Swift, Collins & Smith, the ObamaCare law states that the Secretary of the Treasury must review the tax exempt status of every non-profit hospital every three years. Non-profit hospitals shall lose their tax exemptions unless they do four things:
1.Perform a community needs assessment
2.Have and advertise a financial assistance policy
3.Limit charges for people eligible for financial assistance to the lowest amount charged to people who have insurance.
4.Take no “extraordinary collection actions” to make people pay their bills.
Unfortunately, no one knows what any of this means
http://healthblog.ncpa.org/obamacare-raises-costs-for-non-profit-hospitals/
You have no clue how you're job is going to change. Regular businesses do know, that's why this guy wants the truth out there, you just want to be an ostrich and pretend everything will be ok. Have you even asked anyone where you work what is going to happen to your work as a result of O care? If you have tell me what they said.
Courts generally have rejected challenges to the tax-free status of non-profit hospitals by indigent patients who are forced to pay for services on the grounds that the question is a matter for the IRS and that the indigent patients lacking standing."
He'll either close up shop & retire to the Barbados or pass the cost on to the consumer like every other business in America will.
DeleteBut if that memo is real, then he is a giant douche. Just STFU, douche, and vote for Romney.
Sheesh ...
What you know about not for profit TD is what you looked up on wiki. WTF do you think we do? live on donations and give away free care? I have no clue how my job will change but you do because you read endless panic links?! Give me a fucking break. Believe me, I see the changes coming and that is why I am going back to school.
DeleteIn the rarified air that you breath, perhaps unicorns exist and not for profits somehow don't have to worry about trying to turn a profit to stay in business. In the real world, where I actually work, trying to turn a profit does matter. We get donations, but we also wind up giving away about a million a year on uninsured people. We do not remotely live on donations. In light of changes coming, every single nurse in our organization has been made fully away of what it costs to run our business and where we need to cut costs.
As for what you think Obama care will do to tax exempt status, I see nothing there that worries me. As a course of doing business, we HAVE performed a community needs assessment and have ADDED people to address this need and make inroads into underserved communities. As for points 2, 3 and 4, it's pretty simple, we bill for what we can to medicare and insurance, or the VA, and we get stuck with whatever isn't covered. We certainly don't go hounding families of homeless people to give them a bill.
Compared to a large hospital, our situation is a little unique in that we are VERY oriented to a truer NFP model. We care for a lot of uninsured people and they get the exact same care everyone else does. To be fair to your point, some bigger hospitals may have some problems on this front. Now that you have "schooled me" because you are eminently wiser than me in every subject, let me put something out there. What's going to impact us much more then any of this panic shit you listed is the changes that are going to come to the way reimbursement is handled. Medicare is really starting to put the screws to healthcare providers and is simply not going to pay if someone is treated for something and treated again for that condition a short time later.
Medicare is also going to start determining payment based on how patients "felt" about the care they received. If you nail the clinical aspect of treatment but somone didn't like the food, you could be in trouble. Right now, my company and many out there are pounding customer service skills into our heads. Believe it or not TD, there is a lot more happening than just the skail fail shit you read on purely right wing sites
Twins, the next four weeks won't be pretty for the dems. Lame duck session will look like daffy duck on the way out of town.
ReplyDeleteIn the mean time Obama keeps appearing in front of University groups and touting Big Bird. Weird.
1773-2009