Thursday, September 8, 2016

My name is__________ and I'm addicted to the deal making high

Now I've got no quarrel with folks getting paid for what they're worth. But, in my world the people that haul the trash, put out our fires, teach our kids and risk their lives in places with IEDs, RPGs and land mines. After all we got along just fine without "financial planners" and MBAS for centuries.

I believe Trump is prime example. He overstates his worth, scams anyone he can, puts his costs on the backs of his shareholders and somehow manages to get out of four bankruptcies with at least as much money as he went in with. Put his campaign in the Trump Tower and then jacked the rent.

His behavior, and that of CEO's that either give themselves hefty raises or get them from a compliant board of directors look to these tired eyes  lot like the behavior of gamblers or drunks. Or maybe it isn't just the money. maybe there's a "high" that comes from making the deal, getting all you can from a situation and the hell with everybody else while claiming that you are worth it. Especially when patients have to buy your product or become very sick or die.

Haven't noticed the price of Advil going up and if it did there's other medications you can take. If you are a diabetic, a cancer patient or severely allergic you don't have a choice. Sure the gal who runs Mylan made a savvy business decision and captured the auto inject epipen market. But, was that decision worth  jacking her pay from about 2.5 million dollars to a figure in the neighborhood of 18 million dollars? How much is enough. And how many of us have make a choice between dying or bankruptcy so some overpaid tenant of a top floor office with a view?

I know this is a little (more than a little) disjointed. I have trouble sometimes getting what's in the head into words.

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