Posts Tagged business+ethics
Plunder me again
Posted by redlinedoc in Commentary of the times on April 19, 2010
As I read Paul Krugman’s – “Looters in Loafers”.i felt a bit prescient having blogged Bonuses for Bettors before the current revelations. Perhaps that should be re-evaluations. Slippery as eels these folks, they fall back on ‘caveat emptor
” although the only non-blinded fellows in the room were they. It was the impending release of poor Jeffrey, once the smartest guy in the room, realizing there were more cats to be skinned, er I mean folks to be fleeced. Well Jeff felt he got a raw deal and he, unable to wallow in the spoils.
When first I read of the looting and larceny I thought ‘heads on pikes‘; but I’m not blood thirsty enough for that. Then I watched Lehman implode and the jackals gather at the corpse to pick the sweet meats. Not one of them felt there was any wrong doing. Indeed they were all self righteous. At that time how little we knew.
I’ve generally supported the aims of this administration (nationally), but find myself watching the the internal dealing and the Goldman-Sachs revolving door spinning so fast its really a fan. I once saw a special about how an engineering firm kept their government work on one side of the hall and their civilian contracts on the other, claiming a mehitza of sorts so that the engineers, who otherwise ate in the same mess facilities, used the same parking lots and other than sharing separate entryways, were really not at all co-mingled. Right. When the former chieftans of Goldman Sachs run not only the regulating agencies but are also judge and jury I wonder. Hmmm. Right.
There is not an ‘appearance of wrongdoing’. It is offal on the table, and it would appear to be us, the American public. Perhaps I should revisit my former thoughts. Heads on pikes seem not so bad
At the end of all things.
Posted by redlinedoc in Commentary of the times on March 18, 2010
Sad faces. Sad days. We see the poorest of the poor at my health center. Its a magnet for those who have nowhere else. We will see them. We do see them. We patch them up. We send them back into the fray, the madness that has become our world in the north end of Hartford, Connecticut, only miles from the richest squares of land in the country. The disparity is at once engaging and maddening.
Some days ago a new face appeared in my care. Ragged on the edges, worn but still under the veneer of the street, a once proud person. She tells me she worked all her life, perhaps 40 years or more, receives Social Security, a pittance because she worked at one of the many downtown retail stores, making ends meet, and saving for retirement through a store plan. Prior to mall-ville, Hartford, as did many other cities, house a plethora of stores from upscale department to jewelry and electronic palaces. It was a mecca in its time. These folks and hundreds, nay thousands like them retired to small owned homes in the north end. Clean. Neat. A neighborhood in constant transition but with ties to religious and community organizations. Then came Mr Skilling and his ilk.
Not content to raid the coffers of the gamblers of Wall Street, these folks conspired to use as tokens at the gambling tables the funds-in-trust for retirements. Now gone. Bankrupted. Disappeared.
She tells me that she couldn’t afford the taxes on the house. Predators always scent prey in the winds of fortune. In her case it was a ‘remortgage’ that promised to ‘clear up the debt.’ She lives in her car, however long that will last. She has no relatives in the area but has her ‘church’ and her ‘friends’ who don’t know and she sent me a gimlet stare to let me know that I shouldn’t consider letting them know.
So here we are at the end of all things, accomplishing the American dream, living in our car.
Bonuses for bettors
Posted by redlinedoc in I never saw THAT coming on March 1, 2010
I’ve been quiet again. Probably feeling a deep recession myself, much more moral than fiscal but none the less, staying away from vocalizing what should be said.
I awoke to a story this morning about Jeffrey Skilling. His lawyers want to revisit the case so poor Jeffrey, who ruined the lives not only of stockholders, but his fellow employees by lying and taking their monies would be set free. But I digress.
I work in Hartford, now ranked the third poorest city of its size in the nation. Once it had a thriving downtown and people worked at department stores, in the pre-mall days, with names like G Fox and Company or Brown-Thompson and more. They probably never made much more than minimum wage but worked hard, many of them for 30 years or more and retired with small social security benefits but with a retirement plan that allowed them some leeway to visit grandchildren, keep an apartment or house and generally live a decent retired lifestyle. No high rollers here, just decent hardworking folks.
I spoke to one the other day, now on the verge of losing her house because she can’t make the tax payments. How? Well Jeffrey Skilling’s friends at Morgan Stanley and Lehman Brothers (and many others) took her monies to the racetrack, bet the monies on derrivatives (a fancy name for casino in the stock world). So long as everyone was making 100% returns (you do see where this is going) everyone was happy. Then the day came when someone looked and (((GASP!!!))) the emperor was naked. The whole house of cards fell and with it the retirements and savings of the folks in the North End of Hartford and elsewhere. Oh well. Not to despair. We’re so good (the Skilling-ites replied) that we need bonuses to make sure that we retain all these fine young minds. And so they did. We the people bonused the bettors. If they’d done this at a OTB window they could not have done a better job.
What of my lady in the North End. She, who worked all her life gets to go on assistance. She spoke with me with tears in her eyes. She’d never taken anything from anyone and now she was forced to accept this.
I’m not the blood thirsty sort; however, I have visions of letting Jeffrey or his ilk, loose in a field with some of the folks they fleeced. Heads on pikes. It might slow the cascade of betting other peoples monies. It might bring some cold comfort to those without heat or shelter because they lent trust and were returned fiduciary irresponsibility.
I spoke with a 401K counselor recently about all this stealing. He of course in his snow-cones-salesman’s way assured me that this could never happen to mutual funds? Huh?
Somewhere out there I recall that fiduciary meant fiscally responsible. If we bonus these people perhaps they should pay (directly) some of those millions to those they fleeced. An idea but hardly likely to fly. Nope. Heads on pikes I think.
Turfed too
Posted by redlinedoc in Medicine, Universal HealthCare on August 22, 2009
It amazes me that in the land of the best healthcare we’re more in the business of denying care than providing it.
I get a call the other day that a kid has stepped on a piece of glass. Its off hours but I say “sure, bring him in, I’ll take a look”.
A pale frightened 13y/o arrives at the clinic with parents. Apparently yesterday he jumped up off a picnic table (in the way that 13 year old males do) and sprang directly onto a wine glass lying on the ground. The glass shattered into the bottom of his foot. The parents, correctly, take him to the nearest emergency room. He waits approximately 3 1/2 hours since its “only a bleeding foot”. Xrays show glass in the wound and the physician diagnoses tendon injuries to the tendons of the toes. Ahh, you say, a case for the surgeons.
Not so fast. He has a state option child health insurance. They sew up the foot (with the glass inside) and direct him to a private practice clinic the following day. He continues to bleed, slowly, through the night. Mom and dad pack him off to the local recommended doctor only to find that he (nor most others) do not accept this insurance. They are tempted to return to the emergency room but call me.
He cannot be treated here. He needs advanced care which we cannot offer to him. I make some calls with the assistance of our pediatrician. He’s transferred to a tertiary care facility. By 4PM he’s in an operating room and being cared for.
What went wrong? Why didn’t the emergency room transfer him inter-hospital when they realized they had a severe injury they couldn’t handle? Why did they refer him through out patient when clearly there was no real outpatient option?
Insurance. When the insurance pays so poorly that even the most basic of services are covered but lose money, then the hospitals, left to chose to bleed monies or to restrict services chose the latter. In the land of ‘the best healthcare” we are forced into rationing that healthcare based not on need, not on priorities but on the needs of the stockholders of insurance companies.
Again and again
Posted by redlinedoc in Universal HealthCare on August 13, 2009
Why can’t we pay for health care for everyone? Why is it that is this country we have such a divide? Is it our puritanical upbringing which says work hard and you’ll get your rewards?
Sadly folks, the Puritan’s didn’t have it all that wonderfully. Life was hard but it was short. There were no antibiotics, no x-rays, no casts, no real surgery (with anesthesia). Hospitals were to be avoided as pest houses and physicians themselves at the time knew they did little for their patients. Some cures were probably worse than the diseases.
If we have modernized medicine, why can’t we modernize the way we provide care for our citizens. Why do we in the land of the brave, home of the free, live with a 3rd world medical care system. Sure people come here. The Sultan of Brunei came here and got wonderful care. M. D., a fictional name, in the north end of Hartford got turfed. Hmmm. Would the divide and provision of care have to do with money?
Indeed it does. The wheels grind exceeding slowly for those with limited funding.
All the Michaels are dead…
Posted by redlinedoc in Universal HealthCare on August 13, 2009
How did we allow the discussion to move away from health to how we should save the health insurance industry? How did that conversation move from a public healthy option to saving the profits of some of the most profitable companies in the world?
As there is increasing talk in Washington about the AMA time clicks by. And to whom are the insurance companies responsible? Ahhh shareholders, the same folks who brought us the current bank debacle, to whom we the people pay extravagant sums so that they can support CEO’s in a style to which they’d like to become accustomed. As there is continued agglomeration of insurers, they flock together, eat each other, thereby decreasing real market competition, in the guise of bringing lower cost to the consumer.
In medicine we speak for the patient. In insurance they speak for the money. There’s an inherent split here. When it comes down to it, shall we authorize care OR shall we make 0.02 for the stockholder, the stockholder and CEO options always win out. Duplicity is the name of the game. When Hurricane Andrew roared across the South Florida Pennisula devastating the area. Aetna group was the major insurer holding more than 4 billiion dollars in losses. That past year they golden parachuted their worthy CEO for 987 MILLION dollars (or there abouts) and then cried the blues that they didn’t have monies for claims. Hmmmm
I personally have run into the dealings of insurers. Serveral years ago one of the Connecticut health insurers sent out a note that all billing should henceforth be sent to a POB in Enfield. We all did send claims there and as weeks went by and no claims information was forthcoming, we were told that the claims were lost or that they should be re-submitted. Whoops. Someone bad in the company made an error and there is no POB in Enfield for our claims. We’re really sorry but you’ll have to re-submit them all over again. Hmmmm
I’ve had several friends who’ve suffered death at the hands of insurers, not in any direct sort of way but the usual games playing with existing conditions and difficult to access portals.
Working in a safety net group we see patients bounced from one provider to another, mostly based on non paying insurances. I think most of us are insulted when the insurers talk about the Medicare program, and how it fails to work. It succeeds with a 5% overhead, a draconian fraud unit, and coverage that most of us envy. Are there faults? Are there fixes to be made? Of course. We can in one swoop, make our system succeed. It needs a government backed program, devoid of usurious profits, not socialism, just good medicine.
We need to recenter the discussion, not about death notes but about how to prevent the needless deaths from an unwieldy bloated system which spends much of its monies not on patient well being but on corporate well being. Straight speak or soon, all the Michaels will be dead
Heads on pikes
Posted by redlinedoc in Commentary of the times on June 22, 2009
It seems its a day of good news bad news. The good news seems to be that the boys at Goldman Sachs are snuffling at the trough and ready to suck up those great well deserved bonuses for having put us in the worst recession since the 30′s perhaps worse than that. I fear that we missed an opportunity for heads on pikes. I’m not ordinarily a gory sort of fellow; however, if a few of those egregious folk had their heads up along the boulevard perhaps fewer of these guys would be snorting at the trough so soon. Its a sign that regularion has lost and that we as a nation have or will loose big time now that the game is a foot and the money is liberally flying around again.
It makes me wonder in some ways what the big call is for CEO’s. I hear one company after another looking for the most expensive CEO guy they can find. I have no problem paying for success. Its the paying for the failures. United Airlines, General Motors, Chrysler, Hewlett Packard — each of those men and women walked away handsomely endowed with bonus and super bonus and stock options. As each of these companies tanked and drew down the economy we threw MORE money at CEO’s. I’ve yet to see cat skeleton’s around full cat food bowls. I believe if we all went to reasonable executive pay and said NO MORE! that indeed CEO’s would be paid proprionately and reasonably. Perhaps we should make the CEO take some of the risk (not with fako securities from the board but with his own monies. Perhaps, as in days of yore, CEO’s should bear a percentage of risk and win-lose with the company.
Danny DeVito, ever a mirror for the times, did it well with ‘Other People’s Money’.
The Harvard business school recently announced that they might teach business ethics to their grads. What a concept! Such things as stealing from old ladies is wrong, wiping out the life savings of people and towns is poor for future business, and the future. My son said that if once in a while if the inchoate mob, those who lost nearly everything, had an opportunity to be in a closed area with the hedgies and mutualaholics who ground their savings from real to immaginary numbers that much of this would be object lesson.
But then, that’s pretty gory.
Heads on pikes. Not a lot. Just a few. Some in Wall Street. Some on K Street. Some along the mall. Sobers the crowd and makes us remember that there really are people who are responsible. Until then, its still “Buddy can you spare a (discounted) dime.”
Let them eat cruisers …
Posted by redlinedoc in I never saw THAT coming on April 21, 2010
The big boys at Chrysler appear to have taken the pipe, 4 BILLION (with a ‘B’ folks) in losses since exiting bankrupty! I doubt that will stop the executive piggies from snorting at the money trough in the name of needing to pay the best and brightest.
We need to remind ourselves that the Mouth of Sauron himself, the Chrysler damage control guy, at meetings this past year said “Oh .. we put a bad engine in that car — but — (pregnant pause and I presume a wolfish smile), we don’t make them anymore.” Not making one of the mechanically lousiest cars on the road is scarcely a strategy designed to win hearts and minds of Americans.
The car had a sluggish start. It was very retro, very cute, very flawed. The power train with an automatic could scarcely get the car out of its own way. Add a turbo and stickshift and it did go. Fixing the cars, it was my mechanic’s nightmare, was another thing. It would appear that the engine had been dropped into the car without regard for access. After all what fool would want to fix this? Access to the engine required removing the right side of the car and all the steering gear there. The engine mounts blocked access to such non critical parts as the timing belt adjustment.
I attended school at UCONN (University of Connecticut) which at the time had one of the finest civil and mechanical engineering departments in the country. I have friends from MIT, CALTECH, CASE to name but a few. They seem pretty competent. Is it possible there’s a large vacuum at Chrysler which sucks the smarts out of the engineering staff, followed closely by the moral vacuum which removes all traces of morality. I have long thought that American ingenuity can solve most problems. The difficulty is that American greed removes the problem solving substituting marketing glitz, full of sound and fury, signifying, nothing.
business+ethics, CEO, Chrysler, ethics, executive+compensation, other+peoples+money, Sauron
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