Getting paid for doing...Nothing?

There was an interesting letter to the editor in the Dallas Morning News the other day. The writer, Rob Lofland from Lindale, Texas, addressed the issue of jobs and the way business is managed today. He said, "There has been a colossal shift in the way management, especially management of large, publicly -traded companies, view their responsibilities."

He goes on to say that in the past 20 0r 30 years management has shifted the focus of that responsibility away from the product, from consumers, from workers, to "asset management and creation of wealth for stockholders and management."

Later in his letter he writes, "Much of the effort of those who run the large companies and all the effort of those on Wall Street and related business actually create nothing. They are getting paid exorbitantly to move money around."

Loftland acknowledges that there is nothing inherently wrong or evil in that, but he does wonder about the impact on jobs and consumers.

I wonder, too.

If the focus is always on the bottom line and profits to shareholders, the worker and the consumer get short-changed. And those are the people who are more important to the long-term success of a company than the shareholder. Without the worker to produce the product and the consumer to buy the product, the company would cease to exist. And that would be bad news for the shareholders.

As I mulled this all over deciding whether to blog about it, I couldn't help but see the parallel in the business side of writing. For the past 20 or 30 years the focus has shifted from the books and the writers to profits and marketing. The days when authors were appreciated and rewarded for writing a good book are gone. Now they are appreciated and rewarded for having a platform, for being a good salesperson, and for having a hot new concept.

Maybe I'm just a curmudgeon, but I liked the old days better.

Who Are The Best And The Brightest?

According to Judith Warner who writes the Domestic Disturbances blog for the New York Times, those terms have been used to describe the top dogs on Wall Street. The men and women who study the market, buy and sell, and make tons of money.

In a recent blog, she questioned why those Wall Street honchos are considered the best and the brightest. She wrote that the best and the brightest used to mean the people who were supposed to be the smartest, not who made the most money.

Amen to that.

Before reading her blog, I was not aware that we looked on the folks on Wall Street with such esteem. I certainly did not. My esteem was reserved for educators, doctors, some journalists, nurses, social workers, some members of clergy, and people like my father and grandfather who did not have a lot of formal education, but thought reading the entire set of encyclopedias was a good idea.

Blaming Barack

In a recent editorial letter, a man in Texas wrote that Barack Obama's candidacy for president has contributed mightily to the Wall Street meltdown. He further writes that the market is listening to both candidates and is frightened by the prospect of an Obama victory. A vote for Mr. McCain is a vote on behalf of your 401K.

A while back I decided that I should no longer read the advice columnists in the newspaper so my blood pressure would stay down withing normal ranges. Maybe I should do the same for letters to the editor.

How anyone can truly believe one man has that kind of power over the market is beyond me. Then to play on the fears of people by saying the only way to protect our savings is to vote for McCain is despicable. I don't know if that is worse than the way some people exploited our fears of "the other" back when they were trying to protect society from integration.

Come on, folks. Don't listen to fear mongering.