Saturday, April 18, 2009

Bankrupt banks, chapter...I can't even remember how many we've had

A story in the Washington Post caught my eye: apparently the big banks that were ecstatic to sweep in bailout billions from the TARP funds from the Treasury Department have decided they don’t want our taxpayer money if there are (shock, horror) strings attached.

Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan Chase went so far as to refer to the $25B in money from the Treasure Department as “a scarlet letter”. He’s promised quick repayment and abstaining from taking any more. Others are quietly following suit.

Well, you might say, good riddance to bad rubbish. But you’d be wrong.

Because they’re not gone. They’re still holding out their goodie bags for filling from Federal funds that don’t come with restrictions on things like executive pay and bonuses, and a requirement for transparency in processes. They can and will continue to “borrow” from the Fed and take advantage of FDIC guarantees of any crack-brained loans they decide to issue. Those sources don’t impose any standards for prudent operations as conditions of getting the largesse.

Soooo. Let me get this straight: these billion-dollar bums don’t need the money if, in exchange, they have to promise to show any modicum of restraint? But they do need it if there are no conditions?

Uh, did our government just fall off a turnip truck?

Friday, April 17, 2009

Bankruptcy bonuses

It has come to my attention that Nortel, the telecoms giant that filed for bankruptcy in January after losing $7B since 2005 and having former execs charged with fraud by both Canada and the US, have just paid out $23M in bonuses to 92 employees.

More than $7M of that is going to eight “key executives”. And there’s another $22M headed out to “other employees”.

At the same time they’re shelling out these millions, thousands of laid-off or retired Nortel employees have been refused any sort of severance packages or had their pensions stopped.

This isn’t a terrible surprise in the US, where companies aren’t required to make any provision under any circumstances for the employee-victims of their corporate stupidity. But in both Canada and Britain, there are labor laws that are meant to protect workers who’ve been laid off. I don’t know what it is in Canada, but in the UK they by law must pay out one month for every year you’ve worked for that company.

Nortel are able to stiff their staff because under bankruptcy law severance and pension payments are considered “unsecured claims.” There have been attempts in both Canada and the UK to stop the bonuses, but so far without success.

Now, these aren’t your common or garden variety bonuses, no, no. They’re the infamous “retention bonuses”. Naturally, when I heard this I had a couple of questions:

1) Why would you think the very idiots who got you into this mess have any hope of getting you out of it? And therefore, why would you want to retain them instead of firing their asses?

2) Why would you be so worried about these morons leaving that you feel you have to pay baksheesh to keep them? Where, exactly, are they going to go in this economy? Cisco? If Cisco's smart enough to not be tanking these days, why would they hire people who obviously are not good managers or executives? Alcatel-Lucent? Their stock as of this week is hovering around $2.37. (When I worked for pre-Lucent Alcatel in 2001, stock was in double digits to the left of the decimal point.) Plus they have their own problems with cooking the books; they don’t need to import outside talent to help with that.

Who else is left? They're certainly not going to start-ups, not after working in a behemoth like Nortel for a number of years. The culture, security and rewards are too different. And start-ups sure as hell won't want people who aren't willing to actually, you know, work for their compensation. Which mostly comes in the form of equity.

So, basically Nortel is (like so many other companies with their corporate heads up their butts) paying money for old rope. And we can expect there to be no change in the company’s outcome, business-wise.

And the workers, as always, continue to get the fuzzy end of the lollipop stick.


Thursday, April 16, 2009

Functional illiteracy

This came to me via one of my distribution lists. I shan’t name either the list or the originator, for reasons that will become apparent as early as the subject line:

SEEKING: Guide for writing online content (not writing articles!)

Hi wrls,
I've recently been put in charge of the org I work for's website. It's not reader friendly, it is far to long and wordy for web, and aside from that.Length aside, when we ran a test it came out as being for people on a PhD level!

I'm not a writer so I need a dummies guide for writing online to give to my coworkers, I will be asking them to pair down their content and rewrite their bios (which often go over 400 words!). Ironically, I know they won't read anything lengthy (*rolls eyes*) so need to give them something *short and sweet* -- along the veins of how they *should* be writing.

Maybe I'm not searching the right keywords, but so far everything I've come across is really lengthy (so do they really know what they're talking about?) or about writing articles for online. Any guidance is appreciated!

Thanks,
XX
P.S. am I long-winded or what? ;-)


This is the sort of thing that’s eaten my lunch my entire career as a writer. Business people simply do not value writing—their fervently-held belief is that anyone can write, so why should they pay someone to do what they can get any twit who’s good with smiley-faces to do as a sideline to their real job?

No matter if said twit has no concept of the difference between possessive and plural, can’t see beyond the end of a sentence, flings punctuation around like birdseed at a wedding and thinks spellcheck will prevent you from looking like an ignoramus.

I see this everywhere—sadly, even on the pages/screens of reputable mainstream periodicals—but especially in the corporate world. At one company where I worked, before they handed over the blog to someone who knew 1)the product/market and 2)how to write, the CEO actually blogged about something that “peaked” his interest.

I’ll just bet it did.

One of my current colleagues continually amazes/amuses me with his PowerPoint decks displaying an utter failure to grasp the basics of English usage. The very few documents I’ve seen him produce (he’s a performance-art kind of guy, not an actual, you know, thinker—nothing’s real for him unless he has an audience) only reinforce that observation.

Of course, as happens all too often in the business ecosystem, no one notices or cares.

Back to our query originator—you’ll notice she wanted something quick and dirty, not anything that would require any actual, you know, effort on her part to understand what makes for good web content. Just gimme somethin’ I can copy and paste and be off to something useful.

I’d so love to see the before and after of that web site.


Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Taxing situation

Today being Tax Day, I hope you’re all timely & accurate in your filing. You don't want to appear in one of those cheesy cable commercials for law firms that bail out chiseling deadbeat taxpayers who brag about owing $350,000 & getting away with paying only $8500, do you?

(Am I the only person who wonders why I'm paying all I owe when these guys not only shortchange everyone around them but brag about it on national TV?)

After all, your country needs every penny you have to hand over to the corporate big boys who have been getting any manner of tax breaks (corporate income taxes? You kidding?) for decades, but still have managed to drive their businesses & our economy seven klicks into the earth’s mantle.

What the hell—may you have enough left over for at least a pint down at your local. If ever there’s a day for drowning your sorrows, this is it.

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

How we got here

I’ve just finished reading A Peace to End All Peace, David Fromkin’s account of how the modern Middle East emerged from the demise of the Ottoman Empire.

I have to say, I don’t know why I read it, because I knew it wasn’t going end well, even if I didn’t know the precise mechanisms. (I felt the same when I read An Honourable Defeat, a history of German resistance to the Nazis. The efforts were indeed honourable, but defeat was definitely the operative term. Likewise when I went to see Glory. I didn’t really know anything about the Massachusetts 54th, the regiment of black volunteers sent to fight in South Carolina. But I did know those coastal forts weren’t taken until the end of the war, and only then from the sea. So I knew the film was going to end badly.)

Really, being a historian is a depressing vocation. Again and again you are faced with the reality that governments, being composed of people with all their venalities and foibles, act not for the common good, but for personal and short-term advancement. And decade after decade, century upon century, we the people end up picking up the tab for these policies.

In the case of the Middle East, our current geo-political pickle was put into brine during and after World War I by France, Germany, Britain and Russia/USSR, all licking their chops at the possibilities of scooping up land and assets once the Ottoman Turks went down the tubes. Regardless of their actual resources (which were being poured into the trenches of Europe like water down a drain), they planned and plotted to absorb great swaths of Ottoman territories, in utter ignorance of Turkish capabilities. The Turks, it seems, were expected to collapse on demand.

Alas, it didn’t go to plan. All the jockeying for land-grabs, putting up puppet kings and emirs to represent interests, intrigues, deals made with no intent to ever honor them—this is what we ended up with. The British pols in particular (including Churchill) thought they were so clever; but this is their legacy.

I’ve now turned to The Annotated Wind in the Willows. I’m hoping it will be less depressing.

Monday, April 13, 2009

It's raining men

The AP reports that the higher cultural value placed on male offspring has resulted in an excess of 32 million males in China. This is attributable to the widespread if unauthorized practice of sex-selective abortions, along with abandonment & infanticide, which has resulted in the birth of 119 males to every 100 females (in contrast to 107 to 100 in industrialized countries).

They’re predicting an uptick of antisocial & criminal behavior when all these men hit adulthood & find they’re in intense competition for women so they can produce an even greater imbalance of males.

I’ve never understood the cultures who place such an inordinate value on males because, without, you know, women, it’s really hard to produce more of either sex. To the extent that females are kept in ignorance & poverty, & made the objects of violence, the entire social structure is impoverished. I have no major degrees in anthropology, political science or sociology, & even I can see that. What’s wrong with these governments?

It’ll be interesting to see how it plays out in the People’s Republic. Let’s hope they don’t turn to the usual escape valve for an excess of frustrated males & start invading other countries.