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Taking Prostitutes Off the Expense Account
So just how bad is it out there?
Airline companies are dropping like flies. According to one news report, Southwest Airlines is going to replace its jet fleet with shuttle buses:
"The future is now," announced Southwest CEO Gary Kelly, gesturing to a 30-foot bus painted in the company's signature red, yellow, and blue. "With these amazing new buses, traveling from New York to Los Angeles takes as little as three days. That's less than half the time it took passengers to get there on our old planes."
Ok, ok, that report did run in The Onion.
But I repeat: just how bad is it out there?
My friends, the global economy is getting so bad that the giant (78,000 employees) German Deutsche Bank has been forced to tighten up its operations: corporate executives will no longer be able to write off their visits to prostitutes on their expense accounts! And the execs are going to have to dip into their pockets to pay for TV porn in their hotel suites! The horror!
From the official memo from management at the bank:
“Deutsche Bank does not approve of any adult entertainments and such expenditures will not be reimbursed.”
Well damn.
If cutting off these frisky bank executives counts as belt-tightening in the face of the subprime meltdown, how much could this change help the bank's bottom line? (For the mathematically inclined, here's a little word problem: assuming Spitzer rates--$4,000/hour--how many one-hour "visits" would 1,000 Deutsche Bank execs have to make to cost the bank $1 billion?)
I assume the bank memo is not a joke. Der Speigel broke this story, and it’s been picked up by major papers.
Meanwhile, Pennsylvania has come, and gone, and the Democratic primary campaign grinds on, which some may argue is yet another sign of just how bad things are out there.
What do you see when you look around the world? What is your favorite marker (like Deutsche Bank) that people are beginning, in however ridiculous a manner, to deal with our planet’s many mounting problems?
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Things people are giving up:
1. health care (insurance, doctor's visits, dental visits, optometric visits.)
2. food (to pay for gas.)
3. Vacations.
4. homes. (ok. those are being taken away.)
5. nutritious foods
6. Prescription medications--especially if their co-pay has gone up or they have no prescription coverage.
7. giving up their cars.
8. giving up their pets
Those are just off the top of my head.
I see people who can not afford their health insurance deductibles stop getting the health care they really need. I see people, whose businesses are dependent on the real estate market, losing their cars, prized possessions, and their homes. These are not just abstract observations. I really see these things. I see people crying in my office because of how difficult their lives has become.
When people share their situation with me, I make sure to mention how important the tax breaks for big oil are (I am very careful how I bring that up). I also talk about our oil based economy and that now we have a chance to make things better for everybody. In their grief and misery, these people are willing to talk about these things. They are determined that they will do everything they can to prevent a repeat of the last seven years.
Bush's policies are presenting us with more "teachable moments" than anyone would have ever wished for. Talking to people about how we ended up in this pickle, and even more importantly, what we can do to make sure it doesn't happen again, is great. When people encounter this kind of pain, they can be led astray, as Hitler did in Germany.