Author Alasdair White
The UK has proposed a second huge bailout of the banks: this time to underwrite the loans they are supposed to make to SMEs. While not disputing that this is needed in terms of getting the economy started again, I am saddened that the government has not forced the banks to fire the senior management that allowed the banks to get into this mess in the first place. Ultimately, senior management are responsible for what is happening in their business and if they insist on setting targets that demand higher and higher risks being taken so that the targets can be met then, when the collapse happens and risk-taking turns to rout, then those who insisted on the inappropriate high-risk targets should be forced to take the responsibility for their actions and be fired.
The arguments that they are the ones to sort out the problem is unutterable rubbish – they caused the problem, why should anyone in the right mind believe that they have any idea how to fix it. If they actually knew how to fix the problem then the problem wouldn’t have occurred in the first place.
The senior bankers, in particular, should now go!
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Author Alasdair White
When Margaret Thatcher became the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and her soul mate, Ronald Reagan, became President of the United States, it did rather seem that a new era had dawned: one in which collectivism died and individualism became the dominating philosophy. Gone were the restrictive practices of the unions and the limitations on what we, as workers, were allowed to do and in came a new approach to the work relationship (see my essay of 2000 entitled New Realities). No longer a case of master-slave, it became one of willing buyer (the employer) and willing seller (the worker) and a negotiated agreement was reached that, in many cases, left the worker with the right to earn whatever he or she wanted, and the company with a motivated and highly performant workforce. It all seemed like a win-win situation and the world (or, at least, the advanced economic world) was changed forever.
By the Nineties, the new philosophy had spawned its fair share of extremists: there were the Geekoists spouting that fictional character’s mantra “greed is good” and proposing ‘big hairy goals’ to ‘stretch’ the performance of the workers with unlimited bonuses to reward the best results. Then there were those who felt that society was changing unacceptably and Read the rest of this entry »
Author Alasdair White
It seems just possible that US politicians have realised that the solution to the economic crisis in the US should not include bailing out large organisations with a half-century of poor management practices, poor labour practices and high levels of contempt for clients and the environment. Yes, the US Senate has rejected the bailout of the US car industry and, in reality, the big three car makers (Ford, General Motors and Chrysler) should now apply for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection while they break up and start becoming modern businesses. The only regret is that the politicians didn’t feel the same way about the banks. Read the rest of this entry »