Party Time is Not Next

Or How to Lose Trust While Eating The Taxpayers Lunch

It is always amazing how tone deaf executives can be while they are pursuing their perks. Writing million dollar checks for entertainment seems to have become just like buying lunch at the local watering hole. What part about restraint while people lining up for food stamps and unemployment checks were they not taught in Kindergarten? Didn't they read the memo? One hand in the public till and the other passing out largess to your top producers and clients is over for the nonce.

Of course when the wine and flowers stop for a little while and real work is being done again by our banks we may relent. We may let them take a bit more bonus money and play a little at their shareholder's expense as they always have before. Good grief the poor florists and purveyors of fine foods do have to live too, don't they?

It is interesting that we are in serious need of a culture change at the top of our business institutions and what we are getting is demands that the party continue. Like a six year old on sugar and A.D.D. the top men in our business suites are a little too reluctant to leave the party and get to work cleaning up their mess. I suppose that is natural. If you went from the Sugar Tit to Harvard and Yale and straight to the top floor corner office you really don't know how the rest of the people live.

Like Marie Antoinette wearing the Hope Diamond and waving the regal hand when told the people have no bread these boys are in for a shock. Let them eat cake may just be a sign of their obliviousness, as it was of hers but the heads will still roll. The backlash for excess by people using other people's money to live the high life in hard times has always been harsh. Of course if you do not really understand history, even if you can quote chapter and verse, you are still doomed to repeat it.