Some people, especially in Wall Street, just don

Some people, especially in Wall Street, just don’t get it

Everyone knows and you hear it every day, in elevators social clubs, in companies and in the street. Things are very tough, we are in a recession, we going down the tubes, and we won’t make it and all kinds of pessimistic comments.

You would think that under these conditions, people would work harder, longer hours, sacrifice more and do whatever is needed to make an extra buck. Is it happening?

I don’t think so; at least that has been my experience.

For example, yesterday I went at 2.30pm to a gas station in Loiza Street to get oil and filter change. The guy at the garage said that he couldn’t take more cars because it was Saturday and the employees had to leave.

I went to a tire store close to Pepin’s in Isla Verde and they told me the same thing. “No, we can’t do it today”.
On neither place was there an attempt to get my business or to satisfy my need as a client. They couldn’t care less if I needed the work to be done for whatever reason. As it turns out, I am leaving to Los Angeles tomorrow and I wanted the oil change done on Saturday.

Wouldn’t you expect some sense of urgency from people in the world of business especially when the economy is hurting?

I have a friend that just cancelled her cellular phone because the company she was with never treated her well, over charged her, didn’t want to explain in detail how they went about charging her and simply made no effort to keep the account.

Should we blame the employees, the managers or leaders for this kind of behavior?

Probably all three but the bulk of the responsibility lays in the leaders shoulders. You lead by example and by making clear what the expectations are and if in your outfit things are not getting done, or customers are not well taken care of, you need to find out why and do something about it.

On the national front, I need to make a few points in this article.

First of all, I have never been in favor of government intervention, I am a believer in free markets, global trade, freedom for people to do their thing without constraints.

I have great admiration for Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin. Both of them were not perfect and had some personal flaws like all of us. But if we could reincarnate them into some of our leaders, I think we would be in much better shape.

Let’s take Thomas Jefferson as an example in today’s article.

He said, “The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let’s tie the second down with the chains of the constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first.”

I want all of you my dear readers to think about what he said and apply it to what is happening today.

How about this one: “I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious”.

And the last one: The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not”.

I am concerned that all the money being given away might not be the right prescription for our problems. I am not an economist so I am not the best judge of what is happening but it does concern me for obvious reasons.



I don’t know all the details or the reasons why, but it is upsetting at first glance that a company, a large bank that I don’t need to mention its name, that lost 19 billion dollars in a year could still pay its employees billions in bonuses and believe it or not, some of the employees are upset because they didn’t get a big enough bonus.

Since President Obama took office, more than 500,000 thousand people have lost their jobs. To be fair, he inherited this mess, it is not his fault. This week, US companies announced somewhere around 65,000 people getting fired. Even mighty, creative and successful Microsoft is cutting jobs.
Even those with jobs worry about their futures, their 401(k) plans have been reduced tremendously.
This is why companies that have taken money from the government can’t pay bonuses to their employees, it sends the wrong message.
Doesn’t Wall Street get it? Are they living in another world? Are they dumb or they simply can’t accept reality?

So, even though I don’t know if Thomas Jefferson would have approved, I agree with President Obama’s press conference where he looked at the camera and said to Wall Street referring to the bonuses, “This is the height of irresponsibility. It is shameful”.

After giving so much money to Wall Street after they asked for help, for fear that “the entire system could come down on top of our heads”, he said the government had a right to expect from Wall Street that they would “show some restraint and show some discipline and show some sense of responsibility”.

We are all in this boat together and we must all row in the right direction.
I hope that, although I have not agreed with what the government is doing, it works and I am proven wrong.

If what we are doing now doesn’t work, it will make things much worse and we should expect unemployment to climb to double digits in the US and high teens, maybe worse here in Puerto Rico. When government prints money for the sake of printing it and that money is not based on increased production, we might dig ourselves deeper in the hole.

The debt trap remains a major reason why poor countries remain poor and are unable to get out of poverty. What makes us think that rich countries can’t fall into this same trap and turn themselves into poor countries?

Simon Bolivar the liberator of the Andean Spanish colonies said “I despise debt more than I do the Spanish; it threatens the independence that cost so much in blood”.

On a positive note, people that control their expenses, have a liquid position, look for opportunities and take advantage of them will do well in the coming years. Timing is the name of the game, the right timing of course.