What we should be asking leaders of financial institutions

For those of us who don’t benefit much from bank bonuses, it is easy to show revulsion against them, especially when they are estimated by the Wall Street Journal to be US$145 billion in 2009, or by my calculation as much as 50% to 100% of profit.

 

Bonuses are not harmful by nature.  They are harmful only when the objectives they are designed to achieve, and by corollary the behaviour they encourage, are not in the public interest.

 

In his article in the New York Times, Paul Krugman quotes Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan Chase as saying that a financial crisis is something that “happens every five to seven years. We shouldn’t be surprised.”  Krugman also quotes Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman Sachs’ chief, as saying that the financial crisis was “a hurricane nobody could have predicted”.

 

In light of their remarks, Messrs Dimon and Blankfein have probably not designed the bonus system in their institutions to maintain financial stability and preserve the value of their customers’ life savings.

 

Bank leaders commonly justify bonus payments in spite of the financial meltdown on grounds of remaining competitive.  Those that reward behaviour other than pursuit of profit for shareholders are bound to lose talent.  Worse still, they cannot give the institutions they lead meaning to their contribution other than profit.

 

People often join organizations for money, but they leave mostly for other reasons.  To retain talent, bank leaders need to provide a clear vision on how to prevent the next financial meltdown.  They need to give more meaning than just monetary reward to their followers.  They should show moral character in taking more responsibility for the crisis.  Above all they need to understand fully what behaviour the bonuses they pay promote, and make adjustments accordingly.  Unless they do so, we can be sure that the next crisis is just around the corner.

Posted via email from alanayu's posterous

True artistry that reflects the deepest of human emotions and values

In the mail yesterday I received the following message:

 

This video shows the winner of "Ukraine’s Got Talent", Kseniya Simonova, 24, drawing a series of pictures on an illuminated sand table showing how ordinary people were affected by the German invasion during World War II.  Her talent, which admittedly is a strange one, is mesmeric to watch.
 
The images, projected onto a large screen, moved many in the audience to tears and she won the top prize of about $130,000.00 
  
She begins by creating a scene showing a couple sitting holding hands on a bench under a starry sky, but then warplanes appear and the happy scene is obliterated. 
  
It is replaced by a woman’s face crying, but then a baby arrives and the woman smiles again. Once again war returns and Miss Simonova throws the sand into chaos from which a young woman’s face appears. 
  
She quickly becomes an old widow, her face wrinkled and sad, before the image turns into a monument to an Unknown Soldier. 
  
This outdoor scene becomes framed by a window as if the viewer is looking out on the monument from within a house. 
  
In the final scene, a mother and child appear inside and a man standing outside, with his hands pressed against the glass, saying goodbye. 
  
The Great Patriotic War, as it is called in Ukraine, resulted in one in four of the population being killed with eight to 11 million deaths out of a population of 42 million.

 

Kseniya Simonova says: "I find it difficult enough to create art using paper and pencils or paintbrushes, but using sand and fingers is beyond me. The art, especially when the war is used as the subject matter, even brings some audience members to tears. And there’s surely no bigger compliment."

 

Please take time out to see this amazing piece of art.

 

 

Very moving artistry that brings out deep emotions and the core values of humanity.

Posted via email from alanayu's posterous