Throw the rascals out

Posted on | March 25, 2009 | 3 Comments

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.

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Category: Catpaw's Mad, Corporate Greed, Economy, Rants
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Comments

3 Responses to “Throw the rascals out”

  1. RaiulBaztepo
    March 29th, 2009 @ 9:32 am

    Hello!
    Very Interesting post! Thank you for such interesting resource!
    PS: Sorry for my bad english, I’v just started to learn this language ;)
    See you!
    Your, Raiul Baztepo

  2. PiterKokoniz
    April 8th, 2009 @ 1:26 am

    Hello !! ^_^
    I am Piter Kokoniz. oOnly want to tell, that your blog is really cool
    And want to ask you: what was the reasson for you to start this blog?
    Sorry for my bad english:)
    Thank you:)
    Your Piter Kokoniz, from Latvia

  3. catpaw
    April 14th, 2009 @ 9:52 pm

    Neither of you should apologise for your English! It’s really quite good. Pleased to have both of you drop by.