Business school rules

In the latest chapter in the continuing saga of “The Value of Having MBAs Running Industry”, I give you Wednesday’s news:

The board of directors of Hewlett-Packard is weighing whether or not to fire CEO Leo Apotheker, who only took office last November after previous CEO Mark Hurd was sacked over a scandal involving fraudulent expense reports and putting his mistress on the “consulting” payroll.

The board, which has already shown a clear and consistent capacity to hire nothing but cretins (Apotheker will be the third CEO in six years to hit the road, and Hurd was preceded by Carly Fiorina), is considering Meg Whitman as a replacement. Obviously the adoration of the hobgoblin of little minds isn’t limited to little statesmen and philosophers and divines, but pervades the H-P boardroom.

(Also, the phrase “doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results” comes to mind.)

HP used to be the gold standard for PC hardware, the best of the best. After Fiorina, Hurd and Apotheker they’re kind of the jest of the rest. (As we Bruins used to refer to USC.) But whatever happens, you can bet there’ll be more layoffs to demonstrate to shareholders that, by God, they’re taking action. And the board will ensure that compensation for senior management (and themselves) will continue to be “competitive”, because otherwise how could you ever attract high-quality talent out of the best business schools?

Along the same lines, Moody’s has lowered the ratings on Bank of America, Wells Fargo and Citi. This is because the investment services firm believes that in the not-unlikely event that the three banks’ management will continue making boneheaded decisions, the federal government will not try to bail them out again.

(I wonder if the banks are going to try to get back all those campaign donations they made to our elected officials?)

So it’ll be more of a challenge for executives at those institutions to collect their usual bonuses if we-the-people aren’t propping up their financial infrastructure.

The good news, though, is that they could toss their hats into the ring for running H-P.

Bank of Opportunity (not)

I’ve loathed Bank of America since the 70s, so I freely confess to being unsurprised over the past couple of years to find that as it grew its incompetence increased by an order of magnitude. I mean, it’s definitely got that anti-Midas-whatever-it-touches-turns-to dross thing down perfectly.

I was therefore appalled when we-the-people ended up bailing out BofA (which touts itself as the "Bank of Opportunity") to the tune of tens billions of our tax dollars. I can’t think of anyone outside of Wall Street executive offices who thought that was a good idea. The expression my grandmother would have used would have been “money for old rope.”

Even Warren Buffet swallowed a few pitchers of the too-big-to-fail Kool-Aid; a couple of weeks ago he invested $5B in the bank. That’s just good money after bad.

And; here’s how they’ve repaid us: as per the Corporate Manual for Fiscal Responsibility and Shareholder Value that’s used by every major business in every industry these days, BofA has announced it’s cutting 30,000 jobs.

None of them, of course, would be in senior management.

Personally, I consider that BofA has jumped bail. I’m ready to send the bounty hunters into the boardroom to do something about getting our money back.

However, I'm sure that BofA's 'Pub pals in Congress are going to find ways to enlighten us on how this fits into the world where weighting the scales in favor of deregulation & tax breaks for big business is the best opportunity for creating jobs.


I suppose that, in their collective view, 30,000 bank tellers out of work is better for the economy than 30,000 mortgage execs or hedge fund managers.

Pass me the akavit

Word came yesterday that Saab has moved another step closer to being history.

This may not mean much to you, but it really makes me sad. I’ve had Saabs for a little over 12 years, and I love them. Turbos, you understand.

When I moved to the UK I had to pick a company car. (One of the best benefits of working there at the time: almost everyone except secretaries and maybe janitors got company cars, with petrol cards. Meaning: no car payments, no insurance premiums, no $50 at a whack filling up the fuel tank.) Many of my colleagues had BMWs, but I wasn’t that impressed with the BMW I had as a temp car.

Someone suggested a Saab, so I hied me down to the Saab dealer in Newport, Wales, to try one out. Unlike my experience in the US, they let me take one out for a day so I could take it to the Tesco’s and down the pub. But I felt it had no scoot to it.

I mentioned that to the leasing manager and he replied, “I think Madam would prefer a turbo version.”

Well, he was right. All I had to do was rev up the on-ramp to the eastbound M4, feeling my back slam into the seat and I was sold.

On behalf of my employer, of course.

He thought I was nuts insisting on a sunroof (“Madam, this is the UK!”), but I loved driving that car. Even in France, where I was a left-hand brain driving a right-hand car in a left-hand environment. (I had only one incident where I lost my bearings and swung into the wrong lane, but that was in Bayeux coming off a highway and there wasn’t anyone around to be in danger. Not even a cow.)

When I got back to the US rather precipitously (thanks to a corporation that shut down its ex-pat program because it was suddenly much cheaper to do without us) I had just about a month before I needed to buy a new car. My choices were Celica (which I’d owned before going overseas) and…well, the only other thing I knew was Saab. An American car wasn’t in the picture, primarily because they didn’t make manual transmissions.

But in the three years I’d been abroad the Celica had got much smaller and costlier, so I ended up going with the Saab coupe. Couldn’t get the red one I wanted, but I squeaked by with a silver one, turbo, sunroof. Everything I wanted except the color.

And Selkie has been a great car for the past ten years (less a month). Aside from dying on the ramp between I-495 onto the Reston Toll Road on my way back from the Maryland Renaissance Faire in 2002, regular maintenance, a battery and four tires at one time or another, he’s given me nearly 73K miles of driving pleasure.

(And even at that incident, there was a plus. I got towed into the dealership in Falls Church on a Saturday afternoon, where the fellow behind the desk was talking in French to someone on his mobile phone. When he was done and registering my repair situation, I asked—en Français—where he was from. La Côte d’Ivoire. Dunno whether it was the Français-parler-ing, but he gave me a blue 9-5 convertible as the loaner for the few days it took to get my car repaired.)

But Saab, Saab—poor Saab hasn’t done well under GM and since. The mechanic where I take Selkie now, Swedish Auto Factory, has now added Subaru to their marque. When I pointed out that “Subaru” isn’t really a Viking name, the owner shrugged—they need to plan ahead.

I really hope they find another investor to keep the company afloat. In another five years or so I’ll need a new car.

Jag är så ledsen

Bailed-out British banks

Interesting news out of Mother England: Her Majesty’s Government, which bailed out several very large & very failing banks in the past year, are now instructing those institutions to start breaking up & selling their component parts in the interests of smaller companies & greater competition.

You may recall that the spectacular failures of the Royal Bank of Scotland & HBOS prompted something unheard-of in the corporate world: apologies from their CEOs in Parliament. With a suitable complement of crocodile tears (& no relinquishing of compensation).

So it’s interesting that HMG are playing hardball with the banks—seeing as to how they (on behalf of the British taxpayer) hold major stakes in the companies—wielding their shareholder power to give them what-for.

The deal apparently is: you want state aid? Start trimming the organization.&—get this—beginning with bonuses: no one at RBS or Lloyds earning more than £39K ($65K) in 2009 will be getting a bonus.

& no swapping assets among the Old Boys’ Network: only companies new to the financial industry will be allowed to buy. One of the interested parties is that wild man, Richard Branson. I’d like to see what he does with a bank, because I purely admire how he runs an airline. (If he buys NatWest I’ll have skin in the game, as I still have an account there.)

It’ll be interesting to see if our own Administration & Congress conjure up the cojones to start handing out machetes to Bank of America, Citigroup & Wells Fargo. That would help end the “too big to fail” argument for throwing billions of our money at these fools.

Here come de judge

Word comes that a Federal judge has told the SEC to go back to the drawing board with its paltry $33M slap on Bank of America’s wrist over neglecting to mention to anyone the bonuses they’d agreed to pay Merrill Lynch management when the two firms merged.

This coincides with President Obama’s speech warning the financial sector that they shouldn’t expect to get bailed out & then return to the wild west environment of hot & cold running excess.

My money’s on Jed S. Rakoff’s ruling having more impact than Obama’s injunction. After all, the government’s already shown that it has no spine when it comes to standing up to Wall Street. But Rakoff has a history of demanding actual, you know, justice from perpetrators of corporate malfeasance.

We the suckers...

In case there was any doubt in your mind, a report by the Congressional Oversight Panel has made it official: we-the-people’s involuntary bail-out of GM and Chrysler was basically billions washed down the drain. It’s a “loan” we’ll never see repaid.

You can kiss the initial $23B flung out by the Bush administration goodbye. And even though some chick at Treasury says there’s a “reasonably high probability” that we’ll get some of the nearly $40B back the two failed behemoths cadged from this administration, I don’t see her betting her own McMansion on that probability.

All in all, we’d have been better off investing in amusement parks or chinchilla farms.

Madoff update

In case you were wondering, it seems the SEC inspectors—who investigated Bernie Madoff no fewer than six times (in response to complaints) over the course of 16 years—weren't on the take; they were merely extraordinarily incompetent.

That’s according to a report by the SEC’s inspector general released yesterday. It sounds like these investigators were not only dullards of incredible density, but they weren’t capable of following a lead if it was playing Sousa & displaying eight-by-ten color glossy photos with circles & arrows & a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one is.

& Madoff managed to turn this ineptitude to his advantage by essentially assuring investors that his operations had been cleared multiple times by the Feds, so of course their money was safe…

Frankly, I don’t know which is worse—having oversight people who are smart but on the take, or just plain too stupid to detect their way out of a paper bag. Either way, we get screwed.

The GM MBA course

Poor old General Motors—even the “new” GM can’t seem to manage its way out of a paper bag. And it can’t seem to sell off its own toxic assets, which is a key part of it rising from the dead.

The Associated Press reports that the company is squabbling with Germany over dumping its Opel/Vauxhall unit. GM’s scrapped the proposed sale to a group headed by Canadian auto parts manufacturer Magna, even though the deal was backed by €4.5B ($6 B) from the German government.

This despite the fact that Opel is a money pit for GM.

The company seems stuck in the same time warp as some Seattle home sellers—thinking they should be able to get 25% over what they paid for the property two years ago. Hello? That horse is long out of the barn.

Actually, what GM is after is to escape any liability for Opel defaulting on any of its debts in the future.

Well—this corporate weaseling out of responsibility has worked for GM so far. Witness my tax dollars supporting their special welfare system.

On a side “we’re-not-accountable” note, GM has also announced that it’s removing its “Mark of Excellence” logo from whatever it makes going forward. Not that it ever meant much anyhow.

And it’s probably a cost-cutting measure—save on materials and labor—rather than any admission that their products have earned them an ever-diminishing market share over the past few decades.

Really—these clowns would make any B-school proud.

Summer in the Citi

I don’t know how I missed this, but it seems Citigroup, which has proved itself again & again on both a micro and a macro level to be incapable of managing its way out of a paper bag, is at it again.

Restricted in the ability to hand out obscene bonuses to employees accustomed to receiving them—restricted because they took massive amounts of TARP money to bail their bespoke-clad asses out of collapse—they’ve announced that, well, they’ll just raise base salaries to these exceedingly valuable employees…by up to 50%.

It’s the same old wheeze—have to do something to retain the best and the brightest if we want to survive, blah, blah, blah.

What I just don’t get is: if these are the best and the brightest you’ve got, and they’re the very ones who maneuvered you into collapse, isn’t it time to bring in the JVs, who might actually still be capable of grasping the concept that you’re supposed to be doing something to add actual, you know, value to something besides your own bank accounts? Like, here’s a thought, your customers and your shareholders?

What this just proves is that the obvious and immutable goal of these organizations is to perpetuate their own existence and their own greed. Everything else is a massive joke they’re playing on the rest of the world, whom they (apparently rightly) regard as nothing but suckers.

Motor City's burning

As has been expected for the last 60 days, GM filed for bankruptcy this morning. It was an electronic procedure, almost automated. & the American taxpayers just as automatically forked over another $30B to tide the behemoth over through the expected 60- to 90-day Chapter 11 period.

That’s in addition to the $20B we’ve already flushed down this particular sewer line.

Chrysler, the other automotive welfare mother, has been authorized by its own bankruptcy judge to sell its assets to Fiat. That deal doesn’t involve any real cash, just a promise by Fiat to build cars people will actually buy.

Quelle idée.

People have been watching the Chrysler process to predict what type of bankruptcy we can expect from GM. But the Fiat deal was already circling the body in the water before Chrysler filed, and there’s no one in sight except the US taxpaying chumps for infusing billions into a company that’s shown again and; again that it can’t or won’t reorganize its way out of a paper bag.

So it’s going to be a long, hot summer.

D minus four

The clock is ticking for GM—it’s got until Sunday to come up with a restructuring plan that will keep it out of bankruptcy. Word on the street (okay, various broadsheet papers) is that you and I, my fellow tax-chumps, are about to become majority stockholders in the tanking automaker—to the tune of 70%.

The UAW, which appears to be a better negotiator, will come out with 17.5% of the stock, although that’s less than the autoworkers had hoped for. (They're also accepting stock as funding for retiree benefits. Now there's a longshot for you.)

As in the case of Chrysler, GM’s bondholders have tossed their $700 hand-stitched sabots into the machinery, refusing to accept the offer of $0.41 on the dollar for their debts, which (as with Chrysler) is an invitation to bankruptcy.

You know someone’s out of whack when the UAW seem more reasonable.

Especially when you figure that the bondholders are likely to get much less than this offer under bankruptcy.

Comment dit-on en anglais?…schmucks.

Well, whatever. In a few days most of Detroit will be one big garage sale.

Vox populi

A couple of weeks ago Citigroup held its annual meeting. Last year their security people banned shareholders from bringing in fruit for fear they’d chuck it at execs and; board members. This April—forget the customary metal detector, the ban extended to all food and water bottles.

So stockholders were limited to slinging words, which they did vigorously and at length.

Well—Citi’s stock value has dropped 85%, and stockholders have had a good seven years of experience vilifying corporate boards since Enron paved the way for excess, chicanery and arrogance.

Citi’s board members were so shamed or fearful that they refused to identify themselves to the people they allegedly represent within the corporation. Jellyweases™ in $6K suits. (A Jellywease is someone with the ethics of a weasel on the spine of a jellyfish.)

The four departing board members were ushered out to the roar of, “Thank God they’re gone!” Shareholders did approve the four Citi-nominated replacements as well as re-electing the rest of the directors.

There’s a proposal afoot that would require the company to nominate two candidates for each director’s slot since, as one shareholder pointed out, “It’s a non-election, basically. We know who’s going to win.”

This same person pointed out that it’s ludicrous that a board full of CEOs past and present determine the corporation’s executive compensation, while the stockholders don’t.

And there’s the rub: that whole incestuous inbreeding of the same stock again and again, all serving on each other’s boards and approving whatever executive management proposes. This has gone on for decades and resulted in our current morass.

Citi’s CEO, Vikram Pandit (one of the highest-paid CEOs in America--$38.2M in 2008, while the company reported a $32.1B loss), assured the assembly that the corporation plans on paying back federal bailout funds.

Well, yeah—those funds come with restrictions on executive pay. Can’t have that, now, can we?

It remains to be seen whether this public rage venting will become a trend, but we can hope.

I’m still behind my proposal to revive public stoning for corporate executives and their political panderers. Saves fruit, releases fury, clears out the corporate gene pool. Totally win-win.

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?

Recession update

The recession is reaching into high places, which would bring ein bisschen schadenfreude except for the fact that the working stiffs who keep those places exalted are taking the hit.

A story in the WSJ reports that the clubbable set are finding that finances (or financial straits) are trumping exclusivity. Country clubs & yacht clubs are closing either before or after foreclosure. The august institutions that have positively defined the term snootiness for scores of years are being reduced to admitting new members without waiting decades because they need the influx of cash.

They’re even offering current members referral fees for bringing in fresh ones whose money is new but whose checks don’t bounce, & relaxing the dress codes.

So clearly civilization is in the early to mid stages of collapsing entirely.

It’s also interesting to note that corporations have finally taken on board the examples of the outrage caused by Wells Fargo, Merrill Lynch & Northern Trust—accepting federal bailout bucks & then heading off for corporate jollies or redecorating the executive offices.

They’re conspicuous by their absence at the Masters Tournament in Augusta. The big wine-&-dine write-off parties are cancelled & if any companies are showing up, they’re not blaring their logos on rented stretch limos or in the yards of houses they rented for $50K a pop to house employees & clients.

Even the scalpers are having a hard time unloading tickets. Four-day passes that brought in up to $3500 last year have gone for $1350 this year.

I’d shed a few CrockTears™ about this, but the people who really get hurt are the waitstaff, limo drivers, caterers, housekeepers & others who keep the clubs & the tournaments running smoothly.

So the ones who are the last to have the wealth trickle down to them again are the first to suffer when the stream dries up.

Nihil novum sub solis.

Helping hands from Detroit

It’s been widely reported that Ford & GM have announced variants on the “if you lose your job, we’ll make your car payments—so please come buy a car; possibly two” schtick.

Ford’s plan will cover payments up to $700 for up to a year. GM’s will cover payments up to $500 for up to nine months. Dunno what you have to do to prove job loss, but I’ll bet there are scammers out there figuring that out already.

What I find interesting is this statement about the program from newly-minted GM CEO Fritz Henderson: “It’s bold & unprecedented.”

Well, actually it is precedented: Hyundai announced in January that it would allow buyers to return a new car within a year of purchase if they can’t make payments due to job loss or disability. They then expanded the plan in February to make payments for customers for up to three months.

So, once again, Detroit has demonstrated its bold ability to say, “me, too!”

One down, hundreds to go

Well, I’ll be a Corvair convertible: our new(ish) President has cut off the flow of bailout funds and told GM and Chrysler to go back and cough up real plans for restructuring to save themselves from imploding on their own excess.

And, by way of showing his degree of seriousness, he’s given GM CEO Rick Wagoner the sack.

Without severance payment.

Aw, gee—CrockTears™!

(Yeah, okay—he still gets retirement benefits of $23M from his decades of service leading the company—at various levels—into the tanker. But at least he won’t get that ultimate insult of the buyout to get him to leave the executive office before you have to point a gun at his head.)

And for the first time we’re hearing the term “bankruptcy” applied with a degree of seriousness to the automakers. No longer that “too big to go bankrupt” nonsense holding them back from the consequences of the past few decades of their boneheadedness.

Finally, we’re calling a spade a spade here: Obama terms this “a failure of leadership—from Washington to Detroit.”

Well, duh…

Word on the street is Wagoner will be followed shortly down the road to former glory by members of GM’s board.

On the one hand I’m surprised it’s taken so long for those with the cash to act upon the blindingly obvious idea that you shouldn’t trust those who got us into this mess to be able to get us out of it. Especially since the only talent they seem to have displayed is that for lining their own pockets.

On the other hand, I’m surprised that someone acted upon the blindingly obvious idea that you should not hire the foxes to guard the henhouse—especially when the foxes went to your university.

Perhaps this is a sign of good things to come.

Michigan’s Governor, Jennifer Granholm, seasonally termed Wagoner “a sacrificial lamb”. As you’d expect. But, really—I could once again quote Oliver Cromwell in dismissing the Long Parliament, “You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately…Depart, I say; and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!”

Amen.

AIG redux (again)

Word on the street is that some of the bonus recipients at AIG’s Financial Products group have decided to give back some or all of the cash—to the tune of $50M.

Nowhere close to the $165M they received, but, like the 10,000 lawyers at the bottom of the ocean, I guess it’s a start.

But I’m betting it wasn’t the masters of the universe doing a Spike Lee. It must have had something to do with the bus tour of AIG executives’ homes in Connecticut by activists over the weekend. That's got to give them & their neighbors the jim-jams.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner & Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke are also proposing that the government take a much firmer hand in taking over & winding down non-bank financial institutions that get themselves into AIG-like economic trouble.

For those of you out there shuddering at the thought of Big Brother telling you what you’re going to do with the money you cadge out of the taxpaying public: thank your buddies at AIG, who demonstrated beyond a shred of doubt that the industry can’t organize its way out of a fiscal paper bag.

You know it’s bad when you're willing to take the chance that a federal bureaucracy can do a better job than business itself.

AIG's right thing?

You’ve no doubt heard that Edward Liddy, CEO of AIG, has gone before Congress to perform a—well, not heart-felt; maybe head-felt—nostra culpa over the $165M in bonuses he paid last week to employees of the Financial Products division.

That would be the very unit that cratered the company & caused Congress to lavish $170B in bailout funds because AIG is “too big to fail”. Those “retention bonuses”—meant to ensure that the stellar performers (who evidently have the financial acumen of a plate of yesterday's ravioli) remain with the company to drain the swamp they created—ranged from $1000 to $6.4M.

& many of the recipients have already departed the swamp. (Dunno about you, but any place I’ve ever worked, if you leave a nanosecond before the bonus payout date, you’re out of the money. How is it that these guys not only destroy half the western world’s financial systems but get a performance bonus after they’ve left the swamp?)

Liddy’s appearance has been sparked by Congress waking up belatedly, realizing that the American public is mad as hell & not going to take it any more, & starting the process of passing legislation that will tax said bonuses (above $250K) at a rate of up to 90%. He announced, “We’ve heard the American people loudly & clearly these past few days,” & said the company’s asked recipients of more than $100K to “step up”, “do the right thing” & return at least half of the bonuses they haven’t really, you know, earned.

The company had been defending the payouts a variety of ways—the agreements were put in place a year ago, they were set based on 2007’s success rate & were necessary to retain these valuable staff members. Plus—this was a contractual obligation, you know, & AIG was just unable to do anything other than pay out the dosh.

Well, except for the fact that they did dick around with the arrangements—so they actually did have some wiggle room. When it suited their purposes.

Really—ignore the man behind the curtain.

It’s interesting, then, that only now, after Congress is threatening to take some actual, you know, action & tax the hell out of bonuses (which could affect all their other bailout buddies & sour the single malt down at the yacht club), does it become “the right thing” to return, grudgingly, a portion of the bogus bonuses.

Oh—there’s also the spate of death threats. That might have had something to do with Liddy’s crocodile contrition. (Not sure whether the threateners realize that they’d have to fly to Britain to get their garrotes around the throats of the guilty; this division is headquartered in the backwater of Wiltshire. But I’m sure that if someone went on Craig’s List to take up a collection, they’d get enough for the air fares.)

So we’ll have to see if these masters of an imploding universe know what “the right thing” is—even when someone draws them a picture.

I’m not holding my breath.

Corporate outrages (chapter 27)

A lot of media—traditional & blog—attention is being paid to outrage over corporate excess. You know:

AIG taking billions from you & me (courtesy of our Congress-slime) & then blowing nearly $500K on an “executive retreat”, & now forking out $165M in "performance bonuses" to the very morons who "led" the company into massive failure;

Merrill Lynch pushing through billions in bonuses in the final hours of 2008 so as to relieve new owner Bank of America from the pesky duty of maybe cutting or eliminating them altogether;

That same BofA throwing a five-day $10M Super Bowl bash;

The Gang of Three flying (separate) corporate jets to Washington, D.C., to beg for bailout money in the billions & billions;

Wells Fargo planning a twelve-day “business meeting & recognition event for hard-working team members”—at the Wynn & Encore hotels, for some undisclosed outrageous sum of money.

All of the above (with the exception of Ford) have asked for & accepted billions from us beleaguered taxpayers. They’ve all defended their splash-outs as “not coming from bailout funds”—like you can separate that stuff.

& their lower lips are much extended at them getting spanked for this, because they claim it's necessary for business as usual.

(Clearly, they haven’t got the point that “business as usual” got us all into this mess.)

I particularly love the argument for bonuses & corporate jollies as being necessary to attract & retain the “best talent”; without them the "best talent" would leave in droves. Like that “best talent” isn’t responsible for these companies going into a death-spiral & taking the rest of us with them.

Besides—if this mythical “best talent” does indeed walk—where the hell are they going to go? There are no hedge funds or investment banks left with openings for high-flyers. The masters of those particular universes are clinging to their current paychecks with death grips.

Well, whatever.

What bothers me is that this media fury is probably going to be no more effective than the outrage that permeated the airwaves in the last meltdown: Enron/WorldCom, etc.

In a couple of years everyone will be back to business as usual & the best talent will be back on corporate jets headed to “business meetings.”

Plus ça change…

GM's art of cost cutting

GM has announced that it will cease funding the documentary work of Ken Burns (since they need those few hundreds of thousands of dollars to subsidize their ex-pat programs for senior execs who require $30K worth of private school fees per year, & all. Plus, there are those Byzantine “work 10% fewer hours & get paid 5% less; so you’re going to get 5% of your salary for doing nothing” schemes…).

Okay, they’re not talking about the parenthetical part, but they have cut off the flow to Burns.

I understand—times are hard. But it’s really a great pity. I love Burns’ work.

I think one of my favorites is “Horatio’s Drive: America’s First Road Trip”, about a medical doctor who took it in his head to be the first to drive from California to New York in 1903. He, a driver & a dog named Bud made it across the country—which did not at that time have either a real road network or petrol stations—in a little over two months. There’s something magical about that story.

Toward the end there was a photo of a family—perhaps around 1910—on a trip; males in the front, females in the rear of an open touring car. The expressions on their face were absolutely classic: this was not a family having fun.

I assure you, I’ve been on that trip.

Anyhow—at the moment no telling how Burns will finance future efforts. The final project to be subsidized by GM is on the US National Parks.