One of the most creative things that I’ve seen in a very long time didn’t emanate from Madison Avenue, but instead from Wall Street. Talk about innovative design? The way Wall Street and Washington “designed” the culture and landscape that was so “account driven” at all costs, in pursuit of making a sale no matter what.

The bad paper trail is more complicated than an origami festival and the acrimony borders on the surreal. If any more fingering pointing goes on, someone is going to lose an eye. The true creative genius about all of this is how the tax paying public who has contributed the least to the current economic crisis, seem destined to bear the brunt of this fiasco if Wall Street and Washington have their way…

Wall Street and Washington have proven that the most “creative designers” reside there as opposed to Madison Avenue. There is no other way in my mind to describe how in the post-Enron era of Sarbanes-Oxley corporate compliance, seemingly stable institutions can be more fiscally irresponsible than a drunken lottery winner. I’ve always had a belief that when sums of money become surreal in their proportion, the level of lucid and coherent thought process linked to reality ends.

Having read the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, I have to believe that copious amounts of individuals MUST go to jail for incompetence that borders on criminal negligence. When bank CEOs publicly state that their financial status is sound and then the stock plummets to the point of getting de-listed and the bank gets bought out for a song, their “creative” bookkeeping practices are simple and plain fraud.

When CEOs of institutions bring those institutions to their knees and then we find out that they’ve given themselves tens of millions and sometimes hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses for doing a abysmal job. And I used to think that the weatherman had the ideal dream job. I obviously am in the wrong industry!

I have no issue with people making lucrative amounts of money, but it shows an unbelievable amount of “ethical bankruptcy” when these companies hose their investors (retirement fund contributions of the average working person) by taking obscene amounts of undeserved money for horrible job performance and the rest of us do our jobs well or better, get nothing extra for our efforts and then get kicked to the curb because of how this corporate incompetence contributes to castrating the economy and as a result people lose their jobs, savings and homes as a result.

What’s so unconscienceable about this situation is that many CEOs take their golden parachute from the companies they laid waste to, while it devastates hard working, honest people whose investment dollars were the financial backbone of those companies. Besides the betrayal of trust and violating a fiduciary responsibility, worst of all is the fact that millions of people’s retirement funds are now worthless!
I love hearing how these greed mongers rationalize their take on how they helped the economy by creating a “Make A Sale At Any Cost” myopia that went hand-in-hand with predatory lending practices and other tactics that brought out the bottom feeders in droves.

What’s so frightening about all of is that the Enron example of “Creative Design” and the benchmarks that were established in the aftermath, seem to be doing little-to-no-good. The collapse of Enron which at the time seven years ago seemed hard to fathom, now pales by comparison. Once again, the mantra is “Don’t Get Caught”. The corporate greed scandal of the Enron era led many to believe that the perpetrators got off easy and in fact, they deserved to boiled in oil. Now that seems way too lenient for this latest group of criminal insiders and interlopers. If these are the new smartest guys in the room, we’re so screwed…

Then to add an element of tragic “design” Washington seems to think this is a great time to play the blame game. “Let’s solve a situation that requires transparency, greater public accountability and doing what’s best for Main Street America by having more of the same ilk that caused this melt down to be in charge of the situation with less accountability and unfettered access to tax paying money to fix this monumental screw up they aided and abetted”. Once again, the politicians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity!

JOEL KIRSTEIN is a Creative Director and he has been in the Ad Agency trenches for 25 and he believes this is the fourth economic recession in the past quarter century. Be affraid. Be VERY affraid!

Article Tags: "ethical bankruptcy" | "Make A Sale At Any Cost" myopic vision | Creative & Design | Madison Avenue | Main Street American | Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 | The bad paper trail is more complicated than an origami festival | Wall Street | Washington
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