Bad News, Bad News Everywhere

The IMF’s Market Update to its semiannual Global Financial Stability Report shot stocks down and gave a boost to bonds yesterday. What was the big fuss? Basically this:

• Subprime-related losses appear to be pretty much known and accounted for, but there are signs that the default problem is seeping into other credit areas.
• What’s worse, the housing market bugbear [which is putting spenders in negative equity], doesn’t look like it’s going to end anytime soon. We do see other economies’ housing markets looking grimmer, though.
• Bank balance sheets are still lame – capital raised is not yet enough to cover writedowns and losses. Meanwhile, lending rates remain elevated as banks deleverage and scramble to raise more capital.
• Tightening credit conditions are slowing credit growth, while inflation is making it harder for policymakers to help support financial market stability. On the brighter side, investment-grade bonds are doing decently, but high-yield and structured products are effectively no-gos.
• Emerging markets (EMs) are holding their own… so far. Inflation is rearing its ugly head, and investors are getting cautious. EM risk premia are marching right back to their… March… levels, and equities have not been doing so hot.
• How now, policy response? So far so good, but we need more focus if we’re going to get though this. Motherhood motherhood motherhood…

In other, beefy and supporting news, ECRI’s WLI annualized growth rate has fallen to a ten-week low. The US FIG and LHPI are still in negative territory too. Since these are LEADING indexes (which signal turning points several months in advance if they’re good ones, and I think they are), we can probably say by these accounts that there is, indeed, no light at the end of the tunnel yet.

Our Corporate Culture: What Da EFF

I was thinking of writing a strongly worded letter to the management of, let’s call it Company X, about the way they manage.

—

Dear Management of Company X,

How DARE you accept rock-bottom prices for jobs so you can cost-cut in all the wrong places, overload and whip your overworked and underpaid staff into finishing something in ## hours (like you promised your clients), and make it look like working double shifts of 14-16 hours a day with no decent working tools with which to… work… (never mind enough experienced manpower) is NORMAL. This is unacceptable.

I am even more enraged at how you take efficient, hard working people who do – and do well, judging by your clients’ feedback – what they have to do within a reasonable amount of time and try to bully them into “working” (slaving) longer hours for no apparent reason other than to see them there at “work” (the work camp). And, yes, to saddle them with more of what you promised your clients without stopping to think whether your “team” (slaves) could handle it in a sane and healthy manner. I am appalled at your behavior towards individuals who know the worth of maintaining a good work-life balance, who know better than to be exploited by their employers.

May you develop a boil the size of a quarter on your left or right posterior soft spot, all # of you.

…

—

Well, I was writing this, but in the middle of my revision, I realised that it wasn’t just the management’s fault.

The subservient employees are also at fault – the ones who allow this to happen, who think and believe that it’s the normal state of things, and (worst of all) who stigmatize the efficient individuals because they actually get their work done quite-nicely-thank-you-very-much and do it efficiently. The ones who stand up for their rights (I’m sure something is against the law here). Fine, let there be workaholics. The ones who love their jobs and throw themselves into it. Fine.

But for the ones who drag, bitterly, more than the weight they signed up for AND try to take other people down with them – may you folks also develop boils in the proportion and areas enumerated above.

Fine, you can throw the whole “at least they are providing jobs for us” argument at me, or “these people need to work longer hours because they want to and they need the money”, fine, do that. DO it, I dare you.

And in an oblique and nebulous response, I ask – what about dignity? Do we all have a price? Are we forever damned into an existence of slavery to a perverse corporate culture? Because the bottom line is this – It’s the culture, stupid. And I’m sure this is a widespread thing, like cancer, in our country and in others like ours.

How do we cure this?

Very carefully. We need better education. We need to start learning to love ourselves.