Masters of the Universe category archive

When I worked for the railroad, I was surrounded by safety rules.

There was a rule of the day, there was a Safety Training Department, and there were rule books for every craft and class of employee. Safety was drummed into us day after to day.

The rule book for office employees was over 20 pages long. Among others, it included a rule that, when walking and carrying a hot beverage, the hot beverage should be carried well away from one’s body.

Seems silly, doesn’t it? Except that every safety rule represented an accident, an injury, or a death.

The same goes for government regulations.

Chris O’Brien, at the San Jose Mercury-News, explores a new study that explains that it is, indeed, a myth. A nugget (emphasis added):

According to the study, in the 1970s and 80s, about 15 percent of new CEOs came from outside the company. That jumped to 25 percent in the 90s, and almost 33 percent in the early part of last decade, according to the most recent data available.

Elson explained that too many boards have come to see CEOs like superstar athletes. A great hitter for one team should be a great hitter for another team if they are traded or move through free agency.

Likewise, if you’re a great CEO for company A, you’ll also be a great CEO at company B, even if they’re in completely different markets or industries.

Leadership is leadership is leadership. But Elson and Ferrere say, in fact, that specialized knowledge is absolutely essential.

In fact, the myth of the superstar CEO actually assumes that, if you are a great hitter for a one team, you are ipso facto destined to be a great point guard for another and a fantastic quarterback for a third.

Honestly, you can’t make this stuff up.

Our moneyed elite is truly vile.

Sacrificing the middle class so the suits get to keep their country club memberships:

For years, Mee Lin Youk could calculate her professional worth to the penny: $21 an hour, plus perks like free flights and health insurance to soothe the pain from loading planes for American Airlines at Philadelphia International Airport.

Nothing has changed about the fleet service clerk’s physically taxing job except the pay: An outsourcing firm is now offering just $8.50 an hour with no benefits, if Youk and her coworkers decide to reapply.

Do the math: They are “offering” a 60% pay cut.

Afterthought:

Trickle Tinkle on economics at work.

The National Bank of Canada is attempting to foreclose upon hundreds of American families’ homes in California over old credit card debts, according to a published report.

Bay Citizen reporter Rick Jurgens writes that the bank’s debt collection unit, Credigy Receivables, began filing foreclosure lawsuits recently that take advantage of a loophole in California’s laws that lets them go directly for a debtor’s home even if that property was not offered as collateral for a loan.

Jurgens explained that one of the people targeted by the new legal tactic is 71-year-old Helen Jones, an Oakland resident who lived in her home for 37 years before Credigy sued in 2010 over $1,636 in credit card debt her ex-husband ran up. She claimed the bank offered to settle the debt and drop the foreclosure for $7,000, and that she ultimately paid them $3,800 just to get it all over with.

But they are Canadian, so they are doing it politely.

Sending more jobs overseas. Details at bainport.com.

Steven Pearlstein explores the mysterious world of the Entitled. A nugget:

I am a private-equity fund manager.

(snip)

I am entitled to a healthy and well-educated workforce, a modern and efficient transportation system and protection for my person and property, just as I am entitled to demonize the government workers who provide them.

I am entitled to complain bitterly about taxes that are always too high, even when they are at record lows.

Read the rest. It’s quite a long list.

Just when you think it’s over, another one bites the dust:

First United Bank, Crete, Illinois

But this one’s One-D.

Via Raw Story, which has commentary.

Your friendly local entrepreneurs at work.

More than 3 1/2 million people who used Discover credit cards over the last five years will share about $200 million in restitution for marketing practices that federal regulators say were unfair and deceptive, two federal agencies announced Monday.

The compensation, averaging $57 per cardholder, will go to customers charged for add-on products such as “Payment Protection” or “Wallet Protection.” Regulators said telemarketers for the Delaware bank followed misleading scripts and often sped through fee disclosures, leading customers to believe that the bank was touting benefits that came free with their cards.

Don’t know whether it’s a policy change or I have just been lucky, but I have noticed, the last couple of times I’ve activated an updated credit card, a notable absence of the sales pitches that used be be inflicted on me while in activation hell on activation hold.

StevenD guides you through RomneyWorld. Go along for the ride.

At MarketWatch, John Shinal takes a look at Facebook’s market flop and tries to find some lessons for investors.

The bubble finally popped as shares were sold at new highs to retail investors, who as usual had no one left to sell to when the music stopped playing. This dynamic is at the heart of every investment bubble since the Dutch tulip craze. Savvy insiders buy low and sell high to regular folks who do the opposite.

He goes on to warn readers to beware the myth of the tech superstar. Otherwise, you might be zucked.

Sarah Zacharias.

Read the transcript here.

Via The Booman Tribune.

Beforethought:

The Punditocracy has tended to talk about what Mitt’s the Flip’s remarks about half the country’s population being slugs and loads imply for the campaign.

Consider this: What do they imply about Romney the person?

Ronnie Polaneczky delivers a take-down. A snippet (emphasis added):

I FEEL TERRIBLE for the hardworking 47 percent of Americans whom Mitt Romney considers lazy, entitled and unwilling to take “personal responsibility and care for their lives.”

(snip)

To get kicked in the teeth while you’re crawling is miserable. When the kick comes from a wing-tipped prig of privilege who has never known a moment’s financial terror – that’s despicable.

Meanwhile, Reg Henry riffs:

Look at what I did today: I got up and had cereal, no doubt the result of farm subsidies; had some tomato juice with the government-mandated nutrition information; jumped into my car with all its socialist safety equipment, such as air bags; and took government-maintained bridges and roads (not well-maintained, thank goodness, giving me the chance to die as an independent citizen in a bridge collapse) all the way here to the word factory.

And what did I find? A workplace maintained according to Occupational Safety and Health Administration standards, leaving me with no chance to breathe asbestos. At lunch I had some chicken, also subject to government oversight that deprives me of the fun of contracting a bacterial disease.

Is this the life of a free man? Of course not. It would be much better if I rode a horse to work, perhaps a polo pony from the Romney stable, one that came with one of those dandy mallets ideal for hitting the heads of passing ingrates — you know, the people who think they are entitled to eat and have health care just because America is one of the richest nations on Earth.

Via Down with Tyranny.

Bank no more on these masters of the universe. All gone.

Truman Bank, St. Louis, Missouri

The owners of a modest home near Twentynine Palms lost their cherished possessions after a bank mistakenly foreclosed their residence.

A crew broke into Alvin and Pat Tjosaas’ desert home and took everything after being directed by Wells Fargo to secure the structure.

The couple, however, didn’t have a mortgage on the home.

Via Atrios, who points out that, if you or I did this, we’d be in jail, whereas banksters are different from you and me.