Generational Greed

One thing that I think is striking about our current financial crisis and the collapse of many of the institutions that we’re familiar with is the dominance of the 60’s “flower power” generation in positions at the top of troubled organizations.

This cohort, now in their 50’s and 60’s, went from an ethos of “peace, love and harmony” to one of “grab all that I can for me” with amazing velocity. The generation before – the people in their late 60’s and 70’s – are somewhat shocked, and those like me, a few years behind, feel like there’s nothing left for us.

It is this generation, the children of the late 40’s and early 50’s, that have sucked our economy, our ecology and our ethical compass completely dry. It is this generation that learned to take without giving. It is this generation that will leave us bankrupt.

Flower power, my ass.

The Meaning of Money – And a Solution – SuperScrip

Having had the fortune, on occasion, to be close to the top executives in a couple of companies, I have always wondered what about them demanded and sought compensation that was many multiples of my own (10 to 20 times as much). It wasn’t that I was poorly paid – I was compensated fairly, maybe more than fairly, for my labor.

Instead, I wondered what it was about the senior executive marketplace that drove these mere mortals, none particularly smarter than I, to levels of compensation that, to mainstream Americans, is both ridiculous and offensive.

A couple of weeks ago, it hit me. At the senior executive level (and at the law firm partner or sports star level ), compensation isn’t based upon the value of the money as a means to purchase goods or services. That is what money means to me (and to most of us).

No, to this group of people, money has a secondary meaning. It is a measure of their relative worth among their peers. Thus, the law firm partner who moves from a practice with a profit-per-partner of $800,000 to one of $1.1 million isn’t so much looking for an extra $300k in the bank (although that may be useful). Instead, he is looking for the extra meta-value that such number brings to him.

This fact is repeated in sports and industry, where compensation packages seem breathtaking to the general public – those of us who are more interested in putting food on their table and a roof over their family’s head. It causes outrage amongst us. But we stand seemingly powerless.

I do have a solution. I call it SuperScrip. Let’s just say that compensation at a firm was paid in both dollars – convertible at the grocery store and your local Ford dealer – and SuperScrip – useful in high end country clubs, Bentley dealerships, and Tiffany’s.

Most of us who drive a Ford, eat food from a Kroger’s and pay a normal mortgage in a normal area, would have no use for SuperScrip. The elite, desiring these luxuries, would have a use for it – and would demand it. They could have all of it, from my perspective!

Interestingly, this approach did seem to be the case in the former Eastern Bloc (and perhaps still in some repressive regimes) where dollars and euros were the “SuperScrip,” while the local schmenge was for ordinary folk. However, this has not been tried in a free economy, where people would have the choice to aim for SuperScrip or not.