David G. Eigen, Ph.D. ™

We are all suffering from the effects of the “credit crunch.” We saw the same thing in the mid-eighties, but with prohibitive interest rates. Thank God that is not happening now. But clearly we have not really learned a thing from the past, so we are doomed to repeat it as the saying goes.

Here is the scenario that’s playing out:
Bank officers want huge unearned salaries (greed). They think they earned them and will take “bailout” money without conscience and put it in their pockets. After all, the deserve it. They create products to sell that make no sense, like loans to those that can’t afford them (stupidity), but they succeed in writing this business and selling them off. This makes their institutions bottom-line look good temporarily, but creates huge liabilities that they conveniently ignore. The greed-mongers use these products to justify obscene bonus for themselves. And they are the ones that vote for their raises and bonuses.

Then the liabilities raise their ugly heads and bite everyone in the butt, but the officers have already run off with their loot (criminal, but rarely prosecuted). The stockholders and the public then pay to save the failed institution (more stupidity). We’ve seen this time and time again and there is a solution besides the guillotine, which is not a bad idea. Simply, a law that restricts combined salaries, benefits, and bonuses to a maximum of five or ten million dollars, unless approved by vote by all the stockholders. Fifty percent of stockholders would be needed for added compensation up to one hundred percent of base salary and bonuses. A seventy five percent approval would be needed for more then one hundred percent. This should be all it takes to prevent the debacle from reoccurring. You want a hundred million dollar bonus, great, get your stockholders to agree with that level of gluttony being justified. If not you’ll just have to panhandle with your barely above poverty level multimillion-dollar salary. Does that sound like I lack compassion for the plight of the execs? As their heads roll-off the block I just might feel something.

Ultimate greed, thy name is banker:
Now that the excrement has hit the fan, what do the banks do, return to common sense lending? No, they move to the opposite extreme, closing down the credit markets. Now, no one has credit, viable businesses shut down, and the economy comes to a rapid halt. BRILLIANT! Forget the extremist Muslims, and anyone else that wants to destroy this country. All they can do is exacerbate the situation. We will destroy ourselves! The gambit called unbridled capitalism is shown as the gluttonous stupidity it is. We cannot allow “free market capitalism” free rein. We cannot allow corporate execs to steer their companies in ruinous actions, while allowing them to rape their companies, grabbing large payouts. Gone are the days of loyalty to the longevity of the company. All that is left is unbridled shortsighted greed.

While this is going on we must beware of who buys our politicians, and who therefore influences rulemaking. Why it is the very corporations, directed by their execs that got the government to turn a blind eye to the unbridled debauchery that has destroyed our country. We must wake up, we’ve allowed all this through our complacency; it will not go away.

In conclusion the credit market must reopen immediately. Not as it was, a free-for-all, but not strangling everyone either. No doc mortgages with excellent credit, why not have them, but make sure there are severe penalties for lying and require accurate appraisals. The subprime market, only part of our economic issues, was nothing more then lending to those who clearly could not repay and did not have the credit worthiness that showed they would. Clearly it was a formula for foreclosure. But why has it affected everyone else. The concept of thesis, moving to antithesis, is supposed to balance out to synthesis, not return to thesis again, only to repeat. Yet, this is what we’ve seen.

Solution: Open up the credit markets again and arrest the thieves who looted their companies! Beheading their attorneys who protect them and showed them how to do this while avoiding prosecution is not a bad idea either.

To start understanding corporate culture and its members, we must look at what corporations and their officers represent to their employees and the world. Simply speaking, corporations are by-and-large patriarchal family units. To their employees, corporate officers represent big daddy and to a lesser extend big mommy. Our parents are the ones that take care of us, guide us, sets the rules, nurture us, and model correct behaviors for us. Daddy teaches morals, integrity, honesty, good citizenship, and caring, which are seen as forms of love. He makes long-term plans and teaches goal setting. Mommy supports, cares for, and nurtures us. She teaches us to sense, feel, be compassionate and intuit.

Companies, specifically their officers, have similar parental responsibility as do parents. What they do reflects “normal” behaviors to their charges. Kids copy parents. And just like in the home, when the parents are too busy, disinterested, or uncaring of their charge’s welfare, darkness and anarchy results.

If one’s charges feel ignored, a burden to their parent’s lifestyles, an unimportant easily replaceable cog in the machine, the long-term outcome will be disastrous. Now, let’s apply this to the culture of the corporate officer and for that matter the government, the biggest corporation/parent.

Remembering back to the 1960’s, it was a goal to work for a corporation. The corporation was trusted to be a good citizen, a role model that took “care of its own.” During retirement you would be cared for and medical insurance assured. Companies were viewed as working for the inclusive greater whole, at least for their whole. The country was seen mostly as a cohesive unit, not perfect, but good and getting better. The officials set long-term goals that were concerned with the long-term viability of the company of which all were a part. They where there not just to fill their own pockets.

Then came the Seventies and corporate “raiders.” These heartless whores would sell their mothers for a dollar. They gobbled-up healthy corporations using the devil’s tool, venture capitol, which is conscienceless profit oriented funding. Their goals were to rape their victims of their virginal pension funds, and sell off any of its organs they could make a profit on; regardless of the cost to corporate health as a whole, and its family members. Remember, the pension funds held contributions from the employee and employer, but were held in the name of the company. The government allowed this theft, which said this type of behavior was OK. It was the equivalent of capturing humans and selling them off for body parts. Don’t think this isn’t happening in the more corrupt “third world” today!

What did this say to the employees who contributed to these pension funds? We don’t give a “rat’s ass” about you; you are less than unimportant! That message was heard loud and clear. And the “family” adjusted to the new models and learned how to be like their new parents, heartless, egocentric whores without integrity, honor or morals.

Detroit, was another example of this “me, me, me” thinking. In the fifties and sixties, the US automobile industry was respected for producing good quality reliable machines. In the Seventies, Detroit’s corporate officers started thinking solely about themselves. They decided not to retool, cheapening everything to squeeze the last drop of blood from their products? They reaped huge bonuses and then unheard of retirements bonuses. The consequence to the corporate body and our economy was buyers bought foreign cars. But these officers didn’t care; they were making big money. Japanese goods were at one time considered inferior, now they’re seen as superior. Detroit set this stage along with the unions, which demanded unreasonable compensation for their members, while protecting decline workplace quality. Neither side cared about their products, or the consumer, or the country. Just me, me, me—and I want it now!

Then came the Eighties and it brought a new version self-involvement, boomer kids, the so-called “ME & X” generations, “it’s all about me.” We completed the shift to ME, myself and I, from family and extended family (communities, corporations, and the country as a whole.) We now have generations of the undisciplined, disenfranchised, egocentric progeny. It was the era of the Savings and Loan fiascos that we didn’t learn from, and that spawned the technology shell game that ended with the “tech bubble” bursting.

All these generations have one thing in common, lack of connection to heart, one another, the world and a higher power. Our government sets this stage by what it allows and models. From the lies of Tricky Dickey to Bush’s innumerable lies we saw what was being modeled as proper, normative—dishonesty rules. Clinton wasn’t honest either. The Bush administration held unfettered businesses would be good for all. Those profiting thought so too. Nobody gave much heed as our Clinton era surplus disappeared into a multi-trillion dollar abyss. No one noticed the rich getting richer, as the lower classes were being enticed into the illusion of riches by easy unrealistic loans. The government allowed the selling off of our assets to foreign interests; “outsourcing” our jobs at the same time as “free trade”. The government did nothing to rein-in Wall Streeters who packaged bad loans into “securities,” that were anything but secured. No one said a word when corporate officers took obscene bonuses, golden parachutes, and retirements. They didn’t own the companies, or create them, but were good at raping them.

The corporate culture of blind, gluttonous greed is at the heart of the matter. Gone are the morals and principles of our founding fathers of a unified Democratic Republic where all men are created equal. It is only lip service now, usurped by greedy lawyers. Right under our noses we allowed a revolution of misers, who now own what’s left of this country that wasn’t sold off. Gone is the wealth and inspiration of the middle class. Soon all will be working for the “company store,” the Walmarts of the world. Only this time the store is government backed. And they know how to manipulate with fear.

It’s clear that our corporate culture is destroying the world. Time to wake up and teach empathy and real accomplishment, not self-worth fomented from egocentric attainments.

Reconnecting Life, Business, and Family

What’s missing in life that nobody seem to be able to understand?  The evidence that something’s amiss, abounds in every aspect of life from: economic disaster, relationship disaster, loneliness, addiction, poverty, greed, and a general state of manic depression that seem pervasive.  What is going on, what’s missing, and most importantly, WHAT DO WE DO ABOUT IT?

I am going to start with the current business model, but it applies to all aspects of life. What’s missing is the human factor. Specifically, the feeling and emoting part that sets us apart from machines. Yet, the role model of the fearless and hence feeling-less warrior is what we look for in leaders. Driven, egocentric terminators bent on increasing the bottom line. You think I jest? You call the bankers that sold-out their stockholders making loans that shouldn’t have been made, while reaping huge bonuses, or the Wall Street pimps of packaged worthless loans as anything but this idea. How about Madoff, who took fifty billion of people’s money without a lick of concern for them? He’s another clear example. So what is missing in the model that would allow these actions?

How about an ancient story? There once was a man would wanted all the wealth of the world (alright, there were many), but this one received a “wish.” Everything he touched turn to platinum, or was it gold? Let’s use gold. He would send his minions to the bazaar and have worthless trinkets brought to him, and he would package them in such a way that they turned to gold. He did that with everything, a true alchemist. His camel became gold, his minions, his home and everything in it. But the gift kept on giving, not a cash cow, a golden cow. His food and drink became gold as it touched his lips. He started to starve in his opulence, as did all in his household. Then, his daughter whom he loved more than anything saw his misery and ran into his arms to comfort him. Yep, she turned to gold too. But he had his gold that he wished for. Now what was he to do, something was amiss from his wish. He left out something. The human factor, which includes: feelings, caring, concern, partnership, relationship. The only relationship he had was with the bottom-line of how much gold he could “win” in this game of life. After all, “he who dies with the most golden toys, wins,” right?

OK, that this is the current business model should be of no surprise. We see people acting like money making machines-and want to hire or be like them. We forget that they come first in the model and maybe the company is second. The machine is not concerned with anything other than its programmed goal. Forget about the cogs in the wheel, the employees, stockholders, customers, and the general public. Politicians and the political parties do the same, so do street gangs. And to some degree, so do most of us. Egocentric thinking is not the exclusive domain of the wealthy, they just exploit it better. And we are all left starving. If this is the “end of days,” God needs do nothing, we do it to ourselves.

Can you imagine an alternative way of being where in the corporate boardrooms the concern for everyone and thing (environment) was always part of the process? Not the only part of the boardroom talk, but a part. Can you imagine boardroom talk about the emotional impact on everyone, even the effects of the economy on their employee’s relationships, and how they could help?

“I have a dream.” That all men and women can come together, communicate their true feelings, care and support each other, while creating a much great level of success then ever dreamed of in every type of relationships. Some will think I am crazy. What do you think?

Now, I am sure you are thinking, what “Divine” notion am I writing of? It is the notion of freedom. We have seen a convenient version of this notion played out in our stock and mortgage markets. Not working too well is it. So what is wrong with the notion of freedom? “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to loose,” so wrote Kris Kristofferson. So how come we have lost so much?

We have mistaken blind egocentric gluttony for freedom. We have been told that a free market will seek equilibrium, just like nature. OK, so much for that illusion. Freedom is a form of love. You can’t love from an egocentric position; you must take into consideration the other party. Not so in our “free” market system. Unbridled capitalism is single-sided gluttony, plain and simple. The bottom line is all that matters. It takes responsibility for nothing and no one. Even the executives attempt to take everything they can from their company and its shareholders. They give themselves going away gifts, called golden parachutes, while everyone else gets golden showers. And this is somehow legal and the role model for corporate executives! Without regulation we will all be working for the company store, in abject poverty. A few fat cats will trickle down pennies to the starving. That’s why there were laws against monopolies. These laws under the guise of “less government” have had their teeth extracted. Lady Justice without teeth gumming the law.

Washington Mutual (WaMu) is a bank that is teetering at the moment. They were successful at offering mortgages with a 1¼ percent “initial” rate (teaser). The actual rate was whatever the going rate was, somewhere in the four to more than five percent range. You can qualify for a much bigger mortgage at the teaser rate then you can at the actual rate, which by the way was adjustable. All you needed to qualify for a refinance was an appraisal and a pulse. As an added bonus, you could choose to pay all your payments at the teaser rate. Of course, that didn’t cover you mortgage payment, so the balance was added to what you owed. This is called negative amortization, though they did not disclose it as such. If you borrowed ninety five percent, you could quickly owe more then the house was worth. This is especially true if the rate adjusts higher, which it did. Now, add to this the fact that houses have dropped substantially in value and you would have a disaster. That’s what we have. And they are wondering why this happened. Blind greed is why.

Why was this allowed, why did WaMu executives even think this was OK? People who can’t qualify, can’t qualify, just as a pig with lipstick is still a pig. Can you imagine a young person who wants to be a pilot being given an F-18 to train in? Of course not, because it is more plane then they can handle. Similarly, if you can only qualify for an illusionary rate of 1¼ percent interest on a home’s value when the non-illusionary rate is 4 times higher, then you have more house then you can handle, dah! Did WaMu executives get huge compensation for what seemed like “successful” loan campaigns, you bet they did. Did they donate to their local organizations (politicians) that oversee, or turned a blind eye to their actions using bank money, yes! Did they lose any of their funds or bonuses for this, no! Did most of us turn a blind eye to this, yes! WaMu is just an example of a free market, without oversight. In an ideal world the oversight would come from within each person. As it stands, we don’t need to consider this possibility at present, do we?

OK, so now what do we do? It is time to recreate our notions of what are correct behaviors. Human reality, it is now clear, will not adjust to our ideal notions. Our thinking it will and did is our arrogance. Can you hear the whistle of the approaching freight train? It is the Humility Express. It is going to take the world for a ride. Clearly, it won’t be pleasurable.

We need to be honest, educate all, tax highly these overpaid executives and other gluttons who reap huge profits at the expense of other. And forfeiture, penalties and jail time is proper for those that created this, manipulated for and profited by our present situations, and there are many. We are all responsible and we must all make it right. The actual dynamics of how we do this will have to be reasoned out.  No question we need the teeth put back in our laws and judicial system that have been removed. But definitely no more lies, no more smoke and mirror illusions. Greed and gluttony must be seen not as admirable, but reprehensible. Who we are being as human being must be a top priority and not seen as irrelevant as long as we’re winning. We need to look clearly at what we have chosen to believe as truth that was self-serving, and the truth will set us free.