Huainanzi - Entry 42

Trey Smith

The crafty are good at calculating; the knowing are good at foreseeing.
~ a passage from The Book of Leadership and Strategy by Thomas Cleary ~

As soon as I read this little snippet, I thought of the proverbial cost-benefit analysis (CBA). As a concept, there is nothing inherently wrong with CBA, but, under the guise of American-style capitalism, it has been subverted so that the task is to figure out how to externalize the costs while keeping most or all of the benefits for yourself or your company.

As many reports from the alternative media have shown over the years, major corporations have turned the subverted CBA into an art form!! Time and time again, the public is forced to pick up the tab for corporate sins -- like cleaning up massive pollution or bailing out enterprises that engage in risky behavior -- while the CEOs make out like bandits, often with public money!

We've seen this kind strategy at play very recently. The big banks and financiers who drove the world economy to the brink have gotten off scot-free. When their irresponsible behavior threatened to drown their own companies in red ink, the taxpayers came to their rescue. We kept them from sinking.

How have they paid us back? They aren't hiring. They aren't investing. Most of their/our money just sits. The portion that they do spend goes from massive lobbying efforts and awarding themselves big fat bonus checks.

This was their plan (calculation) all along. Continue to live like kings and queens...and leave the rest of us to hold the bag!

To read the introduction to this ongoing series, go here.