Monday, October 24, 2011

An Insider's Take on Corporate America's Decline

At least once a year I trek to Blacksburg, Virginia, where I grew up and some family still resides. I make a point of visiting a friend from my parent's church who retired to Blacksburg in the 1990s. He served in WWII, helping perform autopsies for the Army Medical Corp. After the war, he went to college on the GI Bill and became a chemical engineer.
He was a pioneer in computer programming for oil refineries, using emerging technologies to modernize the way refineries produced oil and other petroleum products. He recalled that in the 1940s and 1950s the CEOs of the giant oil companies (he worked for two in his career) were gentlemen who treated their employees with dignity and respect. They also didn't make outrageous salaries or bonuses.
In the 1960s, he remarked that the CEOs started coming from Ivy League business schools (rather than working their way up the ladder in the industry). They were primarily lawyers and accountants.
In his own inimitable style (he's from Texas) he called them a 'bunch of bastards' that didn't know anything about how to run a refinery. They were only interested in making money. By the time he retired in the 1990s, he considered the oil industry hopelessly inept and stupidly managed. He has especially harsh words for BP, a company that had been cutting corners and ignoring the advice of engineers for decades.
The statistics bear out his personal experience.
At the beginning of the 1960s, average CEO pay was 10-11 times that of the average worker. During the Bush administration, 2000-2008, it rose to 319 times. The Bush family oil companies are a good example of competently run businesses in the 40s and 50s ruined by an Ivy Leaguer coming out in the 1960s.
My friend worked directly with vice presidents and CEOs. He had insider's knowledge. I take his perspective seriously. It is more informed and more knowledgeable than what you will find in the media, where bobble-head dolls mouth talking points and play cutesy with each other.
I encourage people to seek out those in this generation (those who started working in the 40s) and ask them what changes they have seen in their lifetimes. It's chilling. What kind of stories will we be telling in 30 years? Will we be proud of this generation of CEOs? Don't think so. They're a 'bunch of bastards.'

Monday, October 10, 2011

Why I Am Not A Protester

I am not a protester. I do not join protests. I do not pick up signs and walk picket lines. I do not chant slogans. Not because I don't agree with some of the positions espoused in picket lines, but because I think protesting primarily is intended to make protesters feel good about themselves.
I do not have a 'Spartacus complex.' I theorize the 'powers that be' encourage protest movements to get those who disagree with them in one place so they can subdue them. And then they crucify them and line the Appian Way with their crosses.
I do not have a 'Martyr complex.' I do not feel a need to be dead like Jesus or Gandhi. People die every day for causes they have been manipulated emotionally into believing are worth dying for.
Throughout human history one percent of the people have controlled everything. It has always been thus and always will be. No amount of chanting slogans, carrying signs and camping out is ever going to change that.
The rich and powerful do not care if you protest. They do not care if you call them names. They can not be shamed, because they have no shame. You cannot appeal to their better natures because they have no better natures. The people who run the world are cold-blooded, ruthless, soulless entities that are far more intelligent than we will ever be.
It is also clear that these powerful people rule through puppets (our elected officials) who are brain-dead stupid but do what they are told. The president of the U.S. or the Prime Minister of Britain is far more worried about what their masters will do to them if they don't obey than they are whether some peasants are carrying pitchforks.
Let's look at American history. This country was founded by spoiled rich kids who had no future in Europe because of certain hereditary laws (mainly primogenitor) and wanted to make a fortune overseas. Don't take my word for this. Do some research on the land grants given to these wealthy families in the colonies.
For example, a young George Washington got paid to survey the immense lands in Virginia granted to Lord Fairfax.
Because these spoiled rich kids didn't get their hands dirty, they needed cheap labor to accompany them to the colonies. Do you see where this is going? What started with indentured servants was bound to end in a system of slavery because the people in charge were primarily interested in cheap labor (think immigration policy today).
The Constitution, or Scripture for Rich People, institutionalized the money making machine for these spoiled rich kids (glamorized today as Founding Fathers, most of them were horse's arses). Which is why to this day, the toadies for the wealthy genuflect before the constitution and get all weepy.
To keep the peasants from storming the castles, a variety of methods have been employed. 'Divide and Conquer' works very well. So does 'Deflect and Distract.' When those methods fail, the legal system is used to snuff out discontent or rebellion.
The 'Occupy Wall Street' movement will not suceed. It will fail. Those who have power will not give up power. Those who have wealth will not share it. If leaders emerge form the movement, they will be co-opted. If they can not be bought, they will be eliminated.
The only change is going to come from those who have power. What makes FDR so astonishing and remarkable is that he came from the privileged class. He did not obey his masters. I do not know why. Maybe because of his experience with polio. For reasons we may never know, FDR promoted policies that showed concern for the welfare of those who were not descendents of the rich families who founded this country. Ever since FDR, the spoiled rich kids have been trying to overturn FDR's New Deal.
Another anamoly is LBJ's Great Society. LBJ was put in power by those who thought it necessary to nip JFK's policies in the bud. (what is it with these initials?) LBJ backfired on them. He gave the 'Masters of War' (Bob Dylan's words) the war profits they wanted, but his social policies were too-FDR like. LBJ had to go.
In comes Nixon, setting the stage for the genial puppet of the wealthy, B-movie actor Ronald Winston Reagan (or 6-6-6 as Bill Hicks pointed out). Like fellow actor Roddy McDowell, Reagan was most known for a movie that had a chimp in it. And with the genial 'aw-shucks' Ronny as lead puppet (check out the British puppet show Spitting Image), the assault on FDR's policies began in earnest. The attacks continued through the Bush/Clinton/Bush years.
My liberal friends who thought Obama would be another FDR or JFK have been profoundly disappointed. It matters not who the president is, any more than it mattered who the prime minister was in the Harry Potter books. The muggles are not in charge. Never have been, never will be.

Thursday, October 6, 2011

Time To Grow Up, America

The level of political discourse in America has become increasingly juvenile. As our problems escalate, as people lose their benefits, their jobs, and their homes we call each other names and yell at each other. How is this working out?
New Jersey Star-Ledger columnist Paul Mulshine, a conservative and libertarian, wrote recently about what he would do if he were in charge. He would make sure that  "anyone who tries to be witty by using terms like "Dimmocraps" or "Repuglicans" or by calling the New York Times "The New York Slimes" or calling current president "Obummer" or "Nobama" or some variant thereof" would be publicly humiliated.
Those who make the following statements would also be publicly ridiculed:
  • Any invocation of children. "We must do this for the sake of the children.The children are our future."
  • Any promise to balance a budget by targeting "waste, fraud and abuse."
  • A double-dunking for anyone who compares a political opponent to Hitler.
Let's be real for a few moments, if you would be so kind. Let's talk about pensions. When my dad retired as a university professor he was making a six-figure salary. His retirement income exceeds 50K a year. After attending seminary, if I had decided to work as a minister, I would have earned 25K.
Put aside that would be around one-fourth of the income my dad made. Think instead about the 50K pension. Who is going to pay for it? If I'm earning 25K, I'm probably not paying much in taxes.
When you add up the taxes all my brothers and sisters are paying, we're still not close to 50K. Again, who is going to pay for my dad's retirement?
Extrapolate this throughout the country where a lot of people who made decent bank during the 60s and 70s and are now retired are drawing decent pensions. Who is paying for this when their children aren't even making half of what their parents did? When tax rates have plummeted since the 1970s?

Putting aside political rhetoric, if you could see your way clear to, let's discuss possible solutions. One, we could cut pensions. Two, we could raise taxes. These are not the only options, however.
But given how juvenile our political discussion has become, this is all you hear in the media. Raising wages without raising taxes would bring in more revenue as people climb into higher tax brackets. Creating more jobs, lowering unemployment in conjunction with this would create even more revenue.
When the housing crisis hit, I wondered why the banks were the ones who were bailed out. It made more sense to me to bail out homeowners.
I thought owning a home was part of the American dream. Isn't it the government's job to help Americans achieve the American dream?
If the billions of dollars handed out to the banks were instead given to homeowners as mortgage subsidies, people could have made their payments and kept their homes. And guess what? The banks would have continued to receive mortgage payments. They wouldn't have failed and people could have kept their homes.
That this option wasn't even discussed by Democrats and Republicans confirmed that they don't care about working America or average Americans. They don't care at all. THEY DON'T CARE AT ALL!
The growing protest in Manhattan called 'Occupy Wall Street' is based upon this growing realization that neither political party cares about average Americans.
But turn on the telly and what do you hear? Political pundits calling the protesters names. It didn't take long for some commentators to bring out the Hitler and Nazi metaphors. Grow up, already. We are all adults here. Let's start acting like adults.