Indy Telecom & Industrial Media

“We’re certainly in the midst of a once-in-a-lifetime set of economic conditions. The perspective I would bring is not one of recession, but the economy is resetting to a lower level of business and consumer spending based largely on reduced leverage in the economy. Our model is things go down and they reset. The economy shrinks and then it doesn’t rebound. It builds from a lower base effectively.”

–Steve Ballmer

Good old Skippy – just a tad smaller, while you pay the same.

Recently, the United Nations ruled that tasers are a form of torture. According to the UN’s Committee Against Torture, “The use of these weapons causes acute pain, constituting a form of torture.” And given the increasing number of taser disasters and deaths in the US and Canada, it was long due that someone took attention of this.

Now let’s think about this for a second. The moment you give a non-lethal weapon in the hands of someone, they are more likely to use it than a lethal weapon simply because it is non-lethal. And with everything else, you run the risk of abuse — when something is non-lethal, the abuse is likely to be more frequent.

For instance, a cop is less likely to shoot someone who is abusing him or her but a lot more likely to tase someone because he or she knows that the weapon is non-lethal and therefore, can be used a lot more frequently without (deadly) consequence. As a result, we have a lot of people who would otherwise not have used a gun use a taser.

So what does this mean for TASER International? I remember seeing a recent Wallstrip where they talked about how TASER International is trying to get into the regular consumer products industry.

One of the two points that they brought up was the potential for lawsuits when tasers start replacing the pepper-spray. It’s one thing for cops to use them — but it’s quite another when everybody and their brother starts using them. Imagine that frat party, with tasers thrown in for fun. Or imagine kids getting hold of them from their Mom’s handbag.

The other point was of course the NRA — they are perhaps one of the most powerful lobbies in this country, and having tasers replace guns in the home-protection market is probably not in the NRA’s best interests.

A quick look at TASR’s stocks tells us that they are a long way off from their 2004 high of $31.65, trading currently at $13.04. So, this UN ruling is probably not going to help them, either. After all, imagine a consumer product that’s deemed a torture device by the UN.

Of course, for all we know, it may have no bearing whatsoever on how the stock ends — everyone knows that cigarettes cause cancer, but that certainly hasn’t put a serious dent in tobacco sales around the world. Right?

Today, just about everything is being outsourced to external agencies. So why not outsource giving people the pink slip, right?

Apparently, that’s exactly what some people do. In an article titled Meet Rebecca. She’s Here to Fire You, Inc.com talks about the business of firing people.

These people can supposedly handle the paperwork to even performing the actual unpleasant act of talking to an employee. It’s an interesting, albeit dark, read.

I wonder what the statistics are on anti-depressant medications in this profession.