Vol. 2.4 "Greedy Bastards"

Dylan Radigan, an MSNBC commentator with a finance background, has penned a book by this name.  He believes that American bankers and leaders are just that -- greedy.  They have put themselves before  everyone else.

Almost weekly we read about these same kind of greedy people in our own backyard -- most of them are in leadership positions.  I always thought leadership was about leading by example -- and that is the problem -- their example is not good for anyone who is honest, has ethics, compassion, or morality.

Newspaper articles recently reported that the top administrators of the Sacramento County Retirement System raised their salaries between 13%-22%.  Meanwhile that retirement system remains severely underfunded and workers are asked to make concessions.  Where are the leaders' concessions?

Certain staff in the Assembly and Senate also received pay raises -- maybe some of these were deserved, but when the state budget is so severely underfunded can we really afford these pay raises?

Cal Fire, in negotiations with state government officials, were "forced" to raise the pay of supervising Chiefs.  Seems that no on wanted to be a Chief -- the rank and file made more in overtime than a supervisor could make as a Chief.  I have to wonder if there was not  an alternative such as looking at the overtime compensation for the rank and file and perhaps even adjusting their hours so they do not receive as much overtime?  If government has no money, how can we keep raising salaries?

But my all time favorite greedy guy, at least so far, is the new Sacramento County administrator, Brad Hudson.  First he rolls into town making $258,000 plus benefits, and at the same time he is collecting a pension of $200,000+ from Riverside County.  I thought he had retired -- meaning that he was no longer working , hummm....  Why not leave Riverside after twenty five years and start anew here in Sacramento collecting retirement, another big salary plus benefits, and earning time under another retirement system so he can make yet more money.  So much for the era of austerity.

And then there was that crappy old furniture in his Sacramento office which was not to his liking.  It was so bad he needed to purchase $21,000 worth of new "nicer" stuff so as to make it inviting enough for those that want to walk through his "open door policy" door.  Then comes the shoe shine machine -- really???-- can't he do that at home or at least pay to have that done somewhere else?  It would seem that the shoe shiner belongs to all of us county residents; perhaps that is why we should darken his door -- to shine our shoes.

As if that was not enough, the most recent "need" was a "white noise" privacy system used by the US Air Force, the secretary of the defense and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police that he had installed so no one could hear confidential personnel conversations.  Wow!!  What is going to be discussed in those county personnel offices?  It must be some top secret kind of stuff -- and a lot of it to justify the $15,000 expenditure.  If I worked for the county, I would be very afraid--are heads going to roll?

Normally when there are meetings regarding sensitive and confidential personnel issues, they are in an office with the door closed -- so either there is no insulation in the executive's office, he trusts absolutely no one, or he has an oversized ego.  I am sure it makes him feel real important to be right up there with the secretary of defense -- white noise system equals really big ego food.  I say all of this and I do not even know the man, but one can tell a lot about people just by their actions.  I hope I am wrong, but time will tell if Brad is here because he cares about doing a good job for Sacramento County, or he is just greedy.  I hope it is the former.

It is in this context that I so appreciate the CEO of Morgan Stanley, James Gorman.  Recently he told employees they would be receiving less than last year in total compensation.  And he further stated that if employees complained he would tell them,  "You're naive, read the newspaper, No.1"; No. 2., if you put your compensation in a one-year context to define your overall level of happiness, you have a problem which is much bigger than the job.  And No.3, if you're really unhappy, just leave.  I mean life's too short".

Very well said -- happiness and job satisfaction are not all about how much money you make, how nice an office you have, if you have a shoe shine machine or a "white noise" system in your offices.  It should be about so much more....

To Be Continued --

Vol.2.3 -- I Want to Go Into Organized Crime

These words were used in a political cartoon wherein a son uttered those words to his father.  The father calmly replied, "Are you considering the private or government sector?'  Ouch!!!  This should be a "funny parody" as the friend who sent it to me suggested, but it hits too close to the reality of what is going on in our country.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. recently stated that Americans "are being robbed of their freedom" and that we are now a kleptocracy.  I had to look that one up.  It is a word used to describe corrupt and exploitative governments that steal ruthlessly and relentlessly from the people. It is not a word that anyone would have used to talk about the American form of government until now.  As William Astore, a teacher of history at the Pennsylvania College of Technology, wrote, "It is usually applied to flawed or failed governments in Africa, Latin American" or other areas of the world where governments are"led by autocratic strong men who shower themselves and their cronies with all the fruits of extracted wealth whether stolen from the people or squeezed from their country's natural resources".

Humm...that sounds like the mortgage meltdown, where Wall Street bankers, the government sponsored enterprises (GSEs), i.e., Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and many others received taxpayer "bail out" money to rescue them from their own bad performance.  It is so amazing that one can bankrupt their company yet still pull in a huge salary and expect a fat bonus paid for by taxpayers who now have no jobs.  And people  have no jobs because of others' bad actions.  One would think that the Wall Street people, bankers, lenders, and government officials who acted so irresponsibly and perhaps even criminally, and Congress -- who voted on a myriad of the bills that took away restrictions that allowed all of this to happen, would at least feel contrite, be embarrassed, show remorse, maybe even shame, but no, we have seen none of that.  They act just like organized crime bosses -- they had nothing to do with nothing.  They continue with their opulent lifestyles while the rest of the country is in peril -- and they do not care.

I think that is what bothers me most -- no one cares -- they care only about their own self interest -- and that narcissistic self interest stuff has spread to almost every level in our society.  CEOs in private corporations care about the stockholders making money so they can get their big salaries and bonuses; government workers care about raising their pay as high as possible so they can get the highest level of retirement; hopefully they can retire early enough so they can go to work somewhere else.  Then they can earn another high salary while receiving their retirement, plus working on another retirement.  Is any city, county or other governmental official really worth $400,000+ per year?

As my friend said, "the message that he got from the political cartoon is that crime against society in general is okay and stealing public funds (which we should all hold sacred because it is our tax money) is acceptable."

I think that we have turned into a society of "Greedy Bastards".   More on that next time.