Monday Morning Ramblings

I wonder if executive pay will cut at those banks that have been caught making fundamental management errors. Many banks are paid very large sums every year to service mortgage loans. Yet they have been exposed to have lied and filed false statements in foreclosures. Their internal management systems have been geared to cost cutting and minimal "service", contrary to their legal obligations. Some bank management has lied about its procedures when first asked [e. g. Bank of America].

When management fails in its duties, its pay should be cut. Or they should be fired. Obviously high level management is at fault - trying to wring out excessive profits, they have caused the organization to fail in its duties. Top management at all those banks should see serious cuts in bonuses; perhaps even pay cuts. Running the company properly is their jobs. When they fail, why give them a bonus at all?

Social Revolution

I wonder if worldwide social revolution will get a spark? Certainly the pile of tinder, kindling and dry fuel grows daily. The ruling classes of the rich and powerful and their overpaid, cossetted public employee bureaucracies seem to be getting serious pushback as they try to impose the costs of financial and governmental restructuring on the common man & woman. This is not simply a US issue.

Billionaires the worldwide are using looted wealth to obtain more power and status. Here's a quote from a column in the weekend FT: "On the opening day of Frieze [the Pavilion of Art and Design covering Berkeley Square in London], when I could only spare an hour to scout, I spotted a couple of Russian oligarchs, three North American billionaires, Tom Ford, a sprinkling of other celebrities and a lot of runners, all circling the big-hitters. The money is guarded fiercely by a wall of advisers-as-human-shields, while the amount of hot air that ricochets around the art scene is staggering. It is everything to do with names and status and nothing to do with love of art, or so it seems. There’s a palpable desire to acquire the latest wunderkinder – although how these wunderkinder are determined is a curious process and seems to have little to do with artistic merit. I wonder whether the oligarchs even care where the “wunders” will be next year? There’s so much money swilling about that while the “clever art” (that which doubles in value) may remain on the wall, the majority can be consigned to a Moscow basement. The increasing global disparity of wealth is disconcerting to witness."

Aristotle and Pericles would spit.

And people wonder why I am well-prepared to civil strife and armageddon.

Word of the Day

"Despond" - verb, intransitive [$10] archaic alt.: dispond [$1000]
Despond means to become discouraged.
Sentence: The middle class private sector desponds under their grossly unfair treatment by the ruling classes and their bureacracies. Without a loyal middle class, modern society can collapse. How far can they be pushed?

TGIF ... and a some thoughts

Attention Billionaires!

Shut up!

Sure, you're rich. And some of you made that money by building up a company. Or by running a hedge fund. Or by investing.

But that does NOT make you either an expert or even knowledgeable about anything beyond your own personal experience and work. You open your mouths with ga-ga eyes to the press, loving their adoration and attention, and bloviate about all sorts of subjects. Barry calls you and asks for advice, as he did Steve Jobs yesterday. He acts like he listens. The press glow - after all, you give them cachet.

But in reality you know zippo, zero, nothing about almost everything you blather about. A first line manager knows more. A ground level worker knows more. A sole proprietor knows more. You've been cossetted for years by a cadre of aides doing your bidding. Do you even write your own checks? Fill out your tax return? Take you car to be serviced? Know a friend having a run of bad luck? Personally know anyone who has suffered in this recession (caused by the Street and hedge funds)?

Nope.

You know nothing. And you make that obvious with your advice that you proffer too readily.

Socrates said, paraphrasing, that if you don't know what you don't know, you are ignorant.

Someone else said, it's better to be quiet than open your mouth and let people know you're a fool.

Billionaires: Shut Up!

We don't care about you're stupid, foolish ideas or beliefs. Go do something and help the poor directly, or hire some people for useful work, or send some kids to college without huge loan debts. Act, don't talk.

Word of the Day

"Disyllable" - noun [$10] also 'dissyllable', Prosody
Disyllable means a word or metrical foot of two syllables.
Sentence: "Shut Up" is a written and spoken disyllable, being written as two one-syllable words, spoken for emphasis with word distinction as "Shut ... up!", or shot out with force as the two syllable utterance - "shuddup"! In all three usages, it applies to all billionaires all the time.