Catpaw – diary of an angry cat

I haven’t done one of these in a long time. Here’s a cover I’d love to see:

But this first decade of the new millennium has proved that the best and the brightest can be breathtakingly stupid, whatever their supposed area of expertise.
March 23/09 Owen Gray

I read a variety of blogs and newspapers around the world and have bookmarked a couple I go back to on a regular basis. Owen Gray, the author of Northern Reflections, is the writer of one such blog. He has written an interesting article on the collapse of the economy, or more correctly, the growing public anger at the abdication of responsibility and accountability. His column They’ve had enough is worth the look. While you are there nip down a bit to his December post on Bernard Madoff, Lament for a generation.

In both articles, he makes the point that the anger swirling around the economy is less about the bonuses and perks etc, than about the history unmitigated greed and sense of entitlement that fueled the crash. He is correct – the powers that be have shown no sense of contrition or acknowledgement that just perhaps their decisions may have been wrong. On the contrary, only when faced with escalating public anger have any of the corporate executives moved to do the right thing in returning unearned bonuses.

They don’t get it. I used the term narcissistic to describe the corporate world, in a previous post, and on reflection I think that pegs it. To even entertain the notion they deserve bonuses reveals both a lack of ethics and a breathtaking misunderstanding of the public mood. The corporate elite still believe they are entitled to their bonuses. They believe they earned them and that that is the only way they will retain the best and the brightest. I beg to differ. They did not attract the best and brightest, they attracted the venal and amoral to their top ranks. When, as a society, did we begin to think it was acceptable to destroy a company and then leave, unscathed, reputation intact and millions of dollars of compensation for a “job well done”. When did we start rewarding bad management that drives people to unemployment, bankrupts pension plans and destroys lives? Let me tell you, if the average worker or store manager behaved in the same way the corporate bosses do, they would have been FIRED immediatly. So to use an old Doonesbury line from the Nixon days ” Throw the rascal(s) out” with no golden parachutes, no bonuses, no references.

I have a question that has been nagging at me for a little while now. Lately, the topic of polygamists in N.A. have been in the news, the latest here in Bountiful, BC, Canada. A man has been arrested for allegedly having 20 wives.

My question is to all these groups that advocate polygamy: Can a woman have multiple husbands (lord knows why she would want that but hey let’s be fair here)?

These groups push for men to have multiple wives but I never see them pushing for a woman’s right to have multiple husbands. One group goes so far as to say having more than one wife is the only way a man can get into heaven. To my knowledge this belief only extends to men. This is overt sexism at work here folks. If any laws are changed to allow multiple partners, let’s make sure women get equal rights here – as many husbands as their sanity can stand. And while we are at it, make sure the law states that the husbands must help with the clean up and raising of children etc. Ever notice how the men that advocate multiple wives tend to sit on their asses and let the women do all the work around the house, as though God spoke to them personally and said “Oh by the way, I forgot the 11th commandment. Here it is: Women shall work like donkeys cleaning and mending their entire lives while Men shall sit about like petty princes”.

Ah, nice to know religion can still be manipulated by the self-righteous.

I wonder who writes the headers for some of the spam that hits my mailbox. Here’s the latest example:

Take her breath away when you pull your pants down

Make your love locomotive fill her tunnel

Love locomotive? To the writers of spam, please note, NO ADULT talks like this. Or at least not without breaking out into hysterical laughter, thereby killing any chance of getting lucky with Ms Luvvv Tunnel.

If you find this appealing, you should have your credit cards cut up immediatly. You obviously are not mature enough to have them.

Maybe we can take up a collection and send the creators of this type of Harlequin Spam to some kind of a remedial writing class.

So… the figure I quoted on the AIG bonuses was a wee bit off. It was revealed today the figure is about $55 million more than previously reported. Looks like they paid out $218 million in bonuses. The execs at AIG are looking more and more like a bunch of drunken frat boys on spring break with Dad’s credit card.

It shouldn’t surprise anyone that AIG can’t even count up how much they gave out in bonuses – accounting really isn’t their strong suit.

US President Obama instructed the Treasury to look into the massive bonuses being paid to AIG staffers. AIG, which is seeking more huge government bailout funds and helped fuel the current economic meltdown, planned on handing out $165 million in bonuses to the same staffers who helped create the collapse. They say they are “contractually obligated” to pay the bonuses. Who wrote these contracts? Wasn’t there a performance clause written into them that tied bonuses to performance?

What about the word bonus does AIG (and the rest of the corporate world) not understand? Let me help them out with a quick definition:

bonus  • noun 1 a sum of money added seasonally to a person’s wages for good performance. 2 Brit. an extra dividend or issue paid to shareholders. 3 an unexpected and welcome event.

— ORIGIN Latin, ‘good’.

compact oxford English dictionary

Please note the bolded sections – good performance and welcome event. Nowhere in the definition are the words entitlement, crashing the world economy, contractual obligations or gutting corporations used. And I can guarantee the performances were neither good nor welcome.

I find it astounding that no terms were put down concerning bonuses. The line given over and over that bonuses must be given because of “contractual obligations” doesn’t make sense. Bonuses are rewards, not payoffs for terrible performance from arrogant and rash people. As well as rewriting basic business common sense (see definitions of golden parachutes, ninja loans and sub-prime loans), the business community has rewritten the definition of rewards and bonuses. Golden parachutes and massive unearned bonuses have become the standard. No punishment for bad performance or criminal behaviour; just rewards galore. A global blind eye was turned as the business world plunged headlong into this modern-day gold rush.

The world is being held hostage by the rule of psychopathic economics. The platinum privileged have run rampant through the corporate world, rewarding themselves and their cronies for blatantly bad business decisions and demanding governments bail them out now that their worlds have come crashing down. The corporate gurus still believe they should have free reign over the business world, despite the fact they have just proven, on the world stage, they are inept, corrupt and incompetent.  AIG is not alone in this. Many companies have behaved badly.

Their rational for handing out bonuses is that it helps them “retain” the best minds. Makes you think doesn’t it? Their best minds have contributed to the looting of the world’s economy, gutting of the banking industry, and arrogantly ignoring the lessons of the Depression. Business does not always know best – that’s why governments have been forced to institute regulations. Simply because you have a corporate title does not make every decision you make the best one or even a good one. History is littered with the corpses of uncontrolled corporate greed.  Anyone remember 1986? Ivan Boesky’s now infamous commencement address,  “Greed is all right, by the way. I want you to know that. I think greed is healthy. You can be greedy and still feel good about yourself”. Deja vu all over again.  The past 3 decades has seen excessive greed and psychopathic behaviour rewarded, praised and allowed to accelerate to a degree that made it virtually impossible to halt the occurrance of this new Depression. We can no longer cloth the disaster in lesser words like recession, downturn, correction, as we have in the past decades, in a vain attempt at shielding ourselves from the realities of unrestricted corporate narcissism. Greed is not good.

An interesting sidebar on this issue is the Canadian Banking industry. Canadian banks were under tremendous pressure to hop on the sub-prime band wagon – Profit at all costs, responsibility nil. Critics here in Canada lambasted the banking/mortgage industry as stodgy and out of touch with modern practices. These were code words for “we are missing out on the rush for unregulated profits”.

Guess what? The same people that criticised Canadian reticence for silly risks are now praising our “stodgy” banks as being the soundest in the world. Don’t misinterpret this as my praising Canadian bankers – if given the opportunity, the majority would have leapt headlong into the sub-prime nightmare in a heartbeat. Canada has indulged in it’s fair share of the Golden Parachute culture. Greed does not recognise borders. We simply got lucky that our government moves in slow and mysterious ways. That plus previous Finance Ministers have refused to be swayed by silver tongued snake oil salesmen. Canadian banks simply look good now that the sub-prime Emperor’s New Clothing has been seen for what it really is – the hollow, morally bankrupt philosophy of greed is good.

I find it wildly amusing that as of March 17/09, 4 of our banks are now in the top 10 in North America. This was achieved through old fashioned business principles – watch the bottom line. Well that and the spectacular collapse of our neighbours to the south. With each collapse and bailout, our boring and regulated banking industry just looks better and better. Bloomberg said it best:

Canadian banks have remained profitable, outperforming their peers, because of tighter government restrictions on lending and capital requirements.

In short, no liar loans, no option ARMS, no piggyback loans, no teaser or stretch loans for Canadians. No Income, No Job, No Assetts, No Loan. Makes good business sense doesn’t it? You don’t have to be an economist to see the wisdom in that.

While we are at it let’s add No Bonuses for bad behaviour. Now is the time to chip away at the culture of corporate entitlement. The world economy will not collapse because unearned bonuses are withheld. That train wreck already happened so there is nothing more to lose by voiding these “contractual obligations”.