Year of the Rat, Indeed

The Chinese have a different animal representing each year of the Chinese Calendar.
2009 will be the year of the Ox…

Not surprisingly, 2008 has been the year of the Rat…and that has proven to be a prescient representative of the events that have taken place this year.

The failure of the banking system…and the subsequent finger pointing makes everyone involved the Rats of 2008… One of the biggest ducks in the puddle (or rats in the nest, to more precisely follow the metaphor) is Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain, on whose watch the company lost $11-billion last year.
Thain is actually pushing for his $10-million bonus for the year.

Wisely, the firm's compensation committee is resisting his request and leaning toward denying the executives bonuses for this year.
Ya think?

Consider this timeline: Merrill's shareholders approved the securities firm's acquisition by Bank of America last Friday, which will create the nation's largest financial services company. Once the merger is done, Thain will be in charge of the combined company's global banking, securities and wealth management businesses, but will not be on the Bank of America's Board of Directors.

Hey, John: Here’s your bonus—how about you get to keep your job for another year? And as an added perk to the job, Merrill will send you to economic sensitivity training in a neighborhood near you, where people have been out of work since June…

The rationale Thain is using in justifying a $10-millino bonus: He was instrumental in averting what could have been a larger crisis at the firm by contacting Bank of America about a tie-up. Coincidentally, he performed that miracle on the same day Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy.

While Merrill's compensation committee agrees the takeover was in shareholders' best interest, there is the gnawing fact that other Wall Street firms, such as Goldman Sachs aren't giving out any bonuses to their top executives.

Maybe John Thain needs to get a clue.
I would fain to let Thain go.
Thain is part of the problem of CEO’s who have become so insulated from reality that they can’t make good rational decisions in the best interest of their company.

If Thain stays, you should take your money out of Merrill in protest.
This guy is an embarrassment.
If you work for Merrill Lynch, I am sorry for you.

John Thain needs to get a grip on reality, and pull his head out of his backside, and smell what’s going on in this country right now. Taking a $10-million bonus from a company that lost $11-billion is just wrong.

Hey, John: How about you forgo the stinking $10-million this year, and let the company show only a $10.9-billion loss?

Maybe the shareholders will keep you around a little longer.

Harry Reid's Olfactory-factor

The new U.S. Capitol Visitors Center, which opened Tuesday morning, came in at triple the original budget at $621-million, and was years behind schedule. Depite the typical government efficiency, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has reportedly discovered a “silver lining” for his brethren and sisteren in Congress: Tourists won't offend them with their B.O. anymore.

Reid was heard to remark yesterday, "My staff tells me not to say this, but I'm going to say it anyway…”
That was his first mistake.

The snooty Senator continued, "In the summer because of the heat and high humidity, you could literally smell the tourists coming into the Capitol. It may be descriptive but it's true."

I’ve been to Washington in the Summer.
I’ve been to Washington in the Spring.
I’ve been to Washington in the Winter, and I’ve never smelled tourists.

I’ve smelled the fragrance of freedom on the mall and at the Capitol Building. It’s the aroma of sweaty kids, frustrated parents, and street vendors selling steaming hot dogs from carts on wheels.

There’s a tang in the air of the poor and desperate, too.
Of uncollected trash stacked in the streets, stale smoke wafting from un-airconditioned apartments in parts of the city you don’t see on the national news breaks, and dried puke and pee under the bridges where the homeless hang out. That’s the smell of freedom, too—the freedom to fail.

In fact the only real stink that consistently permeates the air in D.C. comes from the pristine offices of the members of congress and the halls of the capitol, generally when there’s legislative work being done behind the scenes… or when some career politician proves in a very obvious way that he’s lost his way—and his perspective—on who is to be serving whom on Capitol Hill.

Harry Reid’s staff was correct in advising him to keep his pie hole shut. Harry Reid was way off base in saying now he doesn’t have to smell the tourists coming into the Capitol. Harry Reid needs to be reminded that that is the fragrance of freedom being exercised, the scent of citizenship on parade.

Harry Reid should re-sniff the aroma in the air, because it could carry the winds of change from a constituency that smells a rat in Washington, masquerading as their chosen representative, who can’t tell the difference between a bunch of smelly tourists and the teaming masses just longing for a glimpse of the artifacts of our shared life, liberty and common pursuits of happiness.

Furniture Wars

My daughter is at war with a local furniture store, and in the words of Mr. T—“I pity the fool” that has to tangle with her.

She bought a nice set of furniture in anticipation of getting her own place. The strategy is to get it and pay it all off before she has to start paying rent. She picked out some pretty stuff—dark wooded bed, dresser, armoire, and side tables. Heavy stuff.

Not cheap.

Back when my bride and I were just a couple of flat-bellied kids, we moved around a lot, and got it down to a science: Drain the water bed while everything else was being packed. Break down the slats and sides, and move it all in three car loads. Set up the bed and start to fill while the rest of our stuff was being moved in and put away. The first night’s sleep was always a little chilly until the heater element warmed the water mattress. But that was how we lived and learned to live together.

I can barely lift one of the sideboards to my daughter’s new bed. It took a small squad of flat-bellied Teamsters to move this stuff into the house, and they didn’t even break a sweat.

The problem is—she doesn’t like the stuff she bought.

The problem started when they delivered a damaged piece…and then they mis-delivered another piece…and then they brought out a replacement piece that hadn’t been put together as well… and I think a little touch of buyer’s remorse, tinged with a hint of customer dis-service frustration, set in hard.

Today the honeymoon with the furniture store is officially o-v-e-r, and my charming, demure, exquisitely polite little princess is Tawanda on the Warpath, demanding an audience with no one less than the store General Manager—not the supervisor in customer service or the greeter at the front door. She’s taken careful notes of the whole ordeal, and before this is finished, Dan Parsons at the BBB will have a full report, regardless of the outcome.

Somehow a bean bag chair, a gently sanded record crate from Peaches, and a 14” SONY Trinitron seem like sweet paradise.

Cheap and simple.