By Fidel "Butch" Montoya
By and large, the nation seems to be teetering on the edge of collapse, both financially and morally. The news stories coming out of Wall Street and the American business community just don't seem to have ability to shock or scandalize us anymore. We seem to still be stunned and now find ourselves in a state of shock from the previous corrupt news stories...you know, the feeling you get when you just witnessed or were part of an terrible accident.
It seems we are still at a loss as to how to handle the big bonus dollars that corporate America always expected - no questions asked...and certainly, no need to even ask for a bonus. It was on automatic business pilot. Even if you did a terrible job managing your company, your department, or group of "top tier employees", a bonus just came out of the thin air...and after all, that is how most executives got that second house up in Vail, Edwards, or in other exclusive real estate areas.
The rest of us dopes...worked hard, gave up time and physical effort to help the company win the ratings and continue to generate more money for the shareholders. I have to admit, I loved my job and ended up working all hours of the day or night .
You see I was a in broadcast journalism. I was even a Vice President/News Director who promoted his way up the ladder of success by working hard and learning new jobs. I never suspected the company would one day stop worrying about one of their top news directors or one of the top news gathering television stations in the country.
When you stop and review how ratings are generated...and how "our station" continued to generate million dollar rating points in the late newscast alone every single night, money was to be made. And that was just the late news, this doesn't even count the other 20 hours, documentaries, or sports specials we produced.
Unfortunately for me, I learned the hard way. The day I became the undisputed news leader in our television station, I never really sat down and "negotiated" my new salary. I believed "the company" would take care of me. The same company that was now giving me a chance to exceed my dreams of news immorality.
Only later did I realize I got the job at about $40,000 to $60,000 less than the guy that just left. He left I suppose because he wanted to "pursue other new opportunities and challenges." Considering bonus money was set in part on your annual salary...well, your figure the math and the amount of bonus money I saved the shareholders.
The real basis of this little diatribe is to just review again that our business model in America is based on corruption and injustice. Yes, I should have been "more smart" and known how the system worked, but when a "minority employee who started out as the copy boy is given a chance to lead the very department where he served thousands of cups of coffee or distributed copies of breaking UPI or AP news briefs to every news writer or news anchor," well, you just don't think that anyone is going to stiff you for a couple thousand dollars in pay.
(Okay, I am showing my age, because I am talking about tele-printers...the constant typing news machines banging out news, weather, sports, and bulletins from every corner of the global).
Besides if you made too much out of a hassle about pay, they could very easily just pass you over and give the job to a more deserving member of the in club. So, with perhaps a little doubt in the back of my mind, I just shook the hand that gave me a chance and said, "Wow, only in America."
The fact is today, my picture does not hang on the wall of honor, or nor do I own the gold watch with the big "9" on it. I don't think I can even enter the building I worked for over twenty four years...or just about half of my life.
Life is full of lessons...learn your lessons well while you can.
But I came across an article about how we can generate new interest in the greedy little pointy headed business executives that think giving away our money to supposedly "deserving and hard working executives of big business companies" that are failing is still okay.
Susan J. Douglas, professor of communications at the University of Michigan wrote an interesting blog on the "In These Times" website on how to get each of us back in front of the tube. (Not on the news in the tube, but watching the bad guys on the tube).
She wrote an article (blog) entitled, "Wanted, A Perp Walk for Plutocrats." "This whole meltdown has been so mystified with jargon, taken for granted as confusing and unfathomable, that we’ve been persuaded we can’t get it. I bet we can. We deserve a big, public tribunal with perp walks, outraged and preening prosecutors, constant media coverage and revenge. This is how you get to “never again.”
What a novel idea...bringing back the prep walk. I am so angry to see that a person in our country can dupe BILLIONS OF DOLLARS from unsuspecting money investors, and still live in his multi-million dollar apartment house in New York City while the people he promised prosperity don't even own a home anymore. Many have had to go back to work at a time in their "advanced age" when they should be enjoying the investments made in good faith.
For the record, Bernie Madoff finally got a new apartment in the up town scale neighborhood at the city jail. This was months after the SEC, the G-Men, and who knows what other federal agency investigating this heist, finally gave in and allowed ole Bernie the downtown perp walk.
There are other examples of greed and unexplainable deeds of corruption. For example, while holding out one hand for your tax money - a bail out - is what I think the government calls it, the other hand is giving away billions in bonus gifts to his own team of executives who helped run the company into financial failure.
At the time the bonus dollars were being flushed down the toilet, this same company is figuring out how it lost an additional $35 BILLION dollars in one quarter. Not just one little miserly billion dollars....but 35 of them. Wow!
Please let us not forget the executive who gave away billions in bonus checks, who was responsible for the company losing $35 BILLION dollars, and actually took the time to spend over $1.2 million in office remodeling needed to rid the office of the stench of corruption and bad business decisions.
But do you know what, the reason our business community slipped on the banana peel and went into an economic free fall, is because the poor guy looking for a loan to purchase his first home is now being called the irresponsible business client who caused the economic free fall.
Douglas asks, "How about all the folks at (a big financial company) who, for starters, steered low income and minority borrowers to higher-interest and sub prime loans? As the kings of the sub prime disaster charged with making predatory loans, let’s put these guys on the hot seat."
Anyway, as I try to live the good life I thought I earned from this top tier Fortune 500 company...my miserly pension check does not even stretch to pay my monthly mortgage.
As I live a life of never ending pain partly from handling heavy "news gathering equipment" before I started generating all the paperwork necessary to document ratings points and news awards, I wonder if any of the bigwigs will let me spend a weekend in one of their second homes in the mountains, beach, or millionaire lane just to chill out?
Naw, I should be just be happy I was given a chance to take a top news management job at a copy boy's salary. After all, at least I can say with "pride" that I contributed to the financial well-being of that company....and even though I looked closely every year at the fine print in the big colorful graphic filled company yearly report to see if maybe, just maybe my name was attached to one of those big bonus checks....sorry, no such luck.
So you know what, I think I will just wait for all the business perp walks long over due on the daily newscast. Who knows, if CBS were to cover these daily perp walks..."something like, in today's perp walk....." they could become Number One all over again.
It would be interesting and worth watching to hear someone say...."You're Fired!"
Fidel "Butch" Montoya
H. S. Power & Light Ministries - Latino Faith Initiative
Denver, Colorado 80212
fmon@hotmail.com
"He who has compassion on them will guide them and lead them beside springs of water." Isaiah 49:10
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Republicans in Loyalty Free Fall
By Fidel "Butch" Montoya
It is amazing if it was not so frightening to listen to some people complaining about President Obama’s lack of leadership. For example, it is simply unbelievable to hear the Republicans in Congress criticize the President for not dealing with the economic crisis facing our nation and for that matter, the world.
Many economists agree that the recession we find ourselves facing begin in December of 2007. Yet, it is odd how the press did nothing to expose the dangers of the recession while President Bush ‘lead’ the nation. Nothing was said of the billions in dollars being spent, which in turn generated the largest deficit in our nation’s history.
Least we forget in our anger, fear, and expectations, President Obama has been President only for six weeks. Yet in those six weeks, we hear the unreasonable demands from the Republican leadership on what course of action we must face in order to deal with the economic free fall we find ourselves in.
As our nation faces the worst economic crisis since World War II, with the loss of 4.4 million jobs lost since December of 2007 and half of those jobs lost in the last 4 months, Republicans seem hell bent on seeing our President fail. In February alone, over 651,000 jobs were lost.
The unemployment rate stands at a stark 8.1 percent. And some economists predict that the unemployment rate could reach 10 percent before we start to see the end of this recession, sometime in 2010.
Do you realize the millions more who are receiving severance pay, are not counted as unemployed as long as they are being paid these settlements?
In other words, it is going to get a lot worse before there are even signs of improvement in the economy.
I find it almost ‘un-American’ for the Republican leadership in the Congress to oppose every measure the President presents in order deal with the crisis this country faces.
Bob Herbert, op-ed columnist for The New York Times says it best. “In the midst of the craziness, conservatives are busy trying to blame this epic economic catastrophe — a conflagration of their own making — on the new president.
Forget Ronald Reagan and George Herbert Walker Bush and George Herbert Hoover Bush and the Heritage Foundation and the Club for Growth and Phil Gramm and Newt Gingrich and all the rest. The right-wingers would have you believe this is Obama’s downturn.”
What is unique about the economic crisis is that every one of us knows someone that has been adversely affected by the downturn in the economy. This crisis is not about people we have never met. This crisis is personal and has the potential of affecting many more people we know, including ourselves.
But instead of lending a helping hand to the President, by working with him to counter attack the consequences of the economic free fall, Republicans must think we not aware of the role they played when President Bush was President. Much of the blame for this crisis starts with the economic policies of the Republican Party from the last 8 years.
As Herbert says in his column, “What I know is that the renegade clowns who ruined this economy, the Republican right in alliance with big business and a fair number of feckless Democrats — all working in opposition to the interests of working families — have no credible basis for waging war against serious efforts to get us out of their mess..”
While Rome is burning, the Republicans are thinking up more strategies to oppose any plan or effort by President Obama to deal with the recession that is only getting worse and far more deepening than previously predicted by economic experts.
How can the ‘loyal oppression’ not see the urgency and the need for the Republican Party to work diligently along side the President? With the economy in a tailspin, millions of workers out of a job, what else will it take to wake up these right wingers?
The debate goes on as to whether or not we are in a recession or facing a depression. I can answer this question….. As long as you have lost your job, you’re in situation where you may lose your home in foreclosure, or where you simply cannot pay for food and living expenses…that is a depression.
I have said it before…and I will say it again. Unless we unite in our support of the President’s best efforts to lead this nation out of the economic crisis we are facing, we are doomed to failure.
More importantly, if we – The Church – do not unite in prayer for our President and this nation, we are doomed to the continual attacks of the devil.
Prayer, you scoff or criticize. You say we need more than just prayer right now. Yes, I agree to a point. But instead of fighting the economic policies of a six week old President like the Republicans are doing, the least we can do is pray.
Sometime Christians forget that prayer is a conversation and request that reaches into the Holy of Holies – the very Throne Room of the Most High – the place where our prayers are heard and answered by the Supernatural power of the Holy Spirit.
The Church cannot afford to align itself with naysayers, with dooms day prophets, with fear, trembling, and confusion. We can appeal for power, strength, faith, and the movement of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
We can ask forgiveness for our sins and the sins of a morally corrupt nation. We can repent of our personal and national sins.
The self righteousness of those in the Congress who seek only to see our President fail, I say lookout. A wave of righteous prayer is coming your way. Repent or face the consequences of your disloyalty.
Fidel "Butch" Montoya
H. S. Power & Light Ministries - Latino Faith Initiative
Denver, Colorado 80212
fmon@hotmail.com
It is amazing if it was not so frightening to listen to some people complaining about President Obama’s lack of leadership. For example, it is simply unbelievable to hear the Republicans in Congress criticize the President for not dealing with the economic crisis facing our nation and for that matter, the world.
Many economists agree that the recession we find ourselves facing begin in December of 2007. Yet, it is odd how the press did nothing to expose the dangers of the recession while President Bush ‘lead’ the nation. Nothing was said of the billions in dollars being spent, which in turn generated the largest deficit in our nation’s history.
Least we forget in our anger, fear, and expectations, President Obama has been President only for six weeks. Yet in those six weeks, we hear the unreasonable demands from the Republican leadership on what course of action we must face in order to deal with the economic free fall we find ourselves in.
As our nation faces the worst economic crisis since World War II, with the loss of 4.4 million jobs lost since December of 2007 and half of those jobs lost in the last 4 months, Republicans seem hell bent on seeing our President fail. In February alone, over 651,000 jobs were lost.
The unemployment rate stands at a stark 8.1 percent. And some economists predict that the unemployment rate could reach 10 percent before we start to see the end of this recession, sometime in 2010.
Do you realize the millions more who are receiving severance pay, are not counted as unemployed as long as they are being paid these settlements?
In other words, it is going to get a lot worse before there are even signs of improvement in the economy.
I find it almost ‘un-American’ for the Republican leadership in the Congress to oppose every measure the President presents in order deal with the crisis this country faces.
Bob Herbert, op-ed columnist for The New York Times says it best. “In the midst of the craziness, conservatives are busy trying to blame this epic economic catastrophe — a conflagration of their own making — on the new president.
Forget Ronald Reagan and George Herbert Walker Bush and George Herbert Hoover Bush and the Heritage Foundation and the Club for Growth and Phil Gramm and Newt Gingrich and all the rest. The right-wingers would have you believe this is Obama’s downturn.”
What is unique about the economic crisis is that every one of us knows someone that has been adversely affected by the downturn in the economy. This crisis is not about people we have never met. This crisis is personal and has the potential of affecting many more people we know, including ourselves.
But instead of lending a helping hand to the President, by working with him to counter attack the consequences of the economic free fall, Republicans must think we not aware of the role they played when President Bush was President. Much of the blame for this crisis starts with the economic policies of the Republican Party from the last 8 years.
As Herbert says in his column, “What I know is that the renegade clowns who ruined this economy, the Republican right in alliance with big business and a fair number of feckless Democrats — all working in opposition to the interests of working families — have no credible basis for waging war against serious efforts to get us out of their mess..”
While Rome is burning, the Republicans are thinking up more strategies to oppose any plan or effort by President Obama to deal with the recession that is only getting worse and far more deepening than previously predicted by economic experts.
How can the ‘loyal oppression’ not see the urgency and the need for the Republican Party to work diligently along side the President? With the economy in a tailspin, millions of workers out of a job, what else will it take to wake up these right wingers?
The debate goes on as to whether or not we are in a recession or facing a depression. I can answer this question….. As long as you have lost your job, you’re in situation where you may lose your home in foreclosure, or where you simply cannot pay for food and living expenses…that is a depression.
I have said it before…and I will say it again. Unless we unite in our support of the President’s best efforts to lead this nation out of the economic crisis we are facing, we are doomed to failure.
More importantly, if we – The Church – do not unite in prayer for our President and this nation, we are doomed to the continual attacks of the devil.
Prayer, you scoff or criticize. You say we need more than just prayer right now. Yes, I agree to a point. But instead of fighting the economic policies of a six week old President like the Republicans are doing, the least we can do is pray.
Sometime Christians forget that prayer is a conversation and request that reaches into the Holy of Holies – the very Throne Room of the Most High – the place where our prayers are heard and answered by the Supernatural power of the Holy Spirit.
The Church cannot afford to align itself with naysayers, with dooms day prophets, with fear, trembling, and confusion. We can appeal for power, strength, faith, and the movement of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
We can ask forgiveness for our sins and the sins of a morally corrupt nation. We can repent of our personal and national sins.
The self righteousness of those in the Congress who seek only to see our President fail, I say lookout. A wave of righteous prayer is coming your way. Repent or face the consequences of your disloyalty.
Fidel "Butch" Montoya
H. S. Power & Light Ministries - Latino Faith Initiative
Denver, Colorado 80212
fmon@hotmail.com
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