236 Years On, Lifetech Is In Trouble
By Loren Jewkes
Recently I was given the opportunity to sit down with the CO-CEOs of a respected old company, Lifetech. The current pair is Rarry Heid and Raul Pyan; they don't seem to get along well as they constantly bicker. The only person they seem to be more annoyed with than each other is me. After asking a few baseline questions to get a read on them, I delved into their financial standing. Rarry Heid immediately starts boasting about his company’s spending habits. The company has recently proposed an even bigger and more wasteful budget than in years past. He and Raul Pyan have compromised on a spending budget of $375, 450. After pushing him repeatedly for his business’ income he relents and gives me a figure of $246, 530. The first warning bells start to sound; they are loud and demanding. His company is in the red to the tune of $128,920 every single year. When asked how long the deficit spending has been going on, Rarry gives a snarky and childish response. He says “what are you doing, writing a book? ‘Cause this is a mystery story, leave this chapter out!” He is happy, however, to relay his businesses debt at an astronomical and rapidly increasing $1,537,180. A debt over $1.5 million seems impossible to pay back for any company that doesn’t even bring in $250,000 a year before expenses.
Rarry gives a smug look and relays the terms of his Co-CEO position stating “Our board of directors only requires me to furnish their homes, remodel their kitchens every few years, and take care of their manicured lawns. It’d be a shame to let all of our hard work and money go to waste. We have met their terms for years, and I don’t think we need to change anything in that respect. In light of the recent economic downturn we’ve even made some hard budget cuts too. We’ve had to cut our annual company zoo trip, movie night, and the complimentary employee T-shirts and hats! That zoo trip means the world to Priscilla. She just loves those cute little penguins!” Skeptical, I ask “have your cuts been enough to make you profitable again?” Raul interjects saying “the cuts we’ve made have taken a real hit on employee morale. I don’t think we can cut any more out of the budget. It has been very difficult for us.” “But are you profitable,” I ask once more. “We have made a full $3,850 cut to our proposed budget for next year.” Rarry then replies “no, we have not turned a profit but by the year 2019 we believe with further budget cuts, like the ones we have instated for next year’s budget, our budget will be completely balanced. Our product prices will have to go up of course to help offset our budget cuts. We have the problem under control.”
The problem does not seem to be under control. They cannot possibly pay the utilities, let alone their employees. How the lights are even on during the interview is a perplexing question. After hastily asking the pair where they get the money necessary to pay their bills I receive a nonchalant response. “The money?” Raul shrugs, “We get it from this great Chinese man that we’ve gotten to know. He loans us money whenever we ask for it and all we have to do is trade him stock and IOUs with interest. He doesn’t even make us pay him very much every year! He just visits with these big guys occasionally. Like those bouncers that stand outside of those cool clubs we go to. But he’s not a loan shark. No way, he’s a respectable man who runs a business. We actually buy most of our products from him and sell them to our customers. It’s a very good relationship for us because we’re his biggest customer. No one else will buy his products so you could say we’re too big to fail. He helps us out.” With that, the pair cuts the interview and will not answer any more questions.
The Federal Government employs about 8,885,000 people.
The United States spends $3,754,500 trillion a year.
United States tax revenue is $2,465,300 trillion a year.
The United States national debt is $15,371,800 trillion.
The proposed budget cuts are only $385 billion for next year.
