Conflicting Information

The latest 30-year U.S. treasury bond auction has concluded, and it was a great success for the government and its insatiable thirst for borrowing. Demand was high, driving down the the yield to 4.268%, well below the expected range of 4.27-4.29%. Additionally, the bid to cover was, at 2.92, the highest since the 30 year was reintroduced in 2006.

All of this seems to conflict with the believed state of the economy. The stock markets are expected to recover, and in fact, have rebounded nicely off the lows and seem to be stabilized with moderate earnings growth forecasts for a limited but growing number of public companies. Gold bugs are betting on higher inflation and have backed those bets by driving the price of Au above $1000 per ounce. Existing home sales, while still a buyer's market, are bouncing back. The $USD is fairing poorly, and there is talk of creating a new global standard of monetization (ie. New Bretton Woods).

So, given all of that data, why were people gobbling up long-term Treasuries at discounted rates? Do they know something we don't, or are they just hedging their bets?

The Least Among Us

A new study has been released, developed in part with help from researchers at the University of Illinois, which documents the real plight of minimum wage workers in America. Titled "Broken Laws, Unprotected Workers," this research paints a grim picture of how the least among us are cheated out of money and time, and deprived of their rights, all illegal activities under federal and state law.

Based on interviews of over 4,000 low-income workers in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, this comprehensive peek into the bottom-rung of the working class shows widespread minimum wage, overtime, meal break, off-the-clock, tipped job, and employer retaliation violations. As an example of the severe impact to income, 60% of workers with minimum wage infractions were underpaid by greater than $1 per hour. Some were paid up to $4/hour less than the minimum wage.

Seriously injured workers were either threatened with firing or were actually dismissed for reporting the accident to their employer or contemplating worker's compensation. Of those sustaining serious injury, only 8% filed claims - the rest were either frightened or intimidated into taking no action.

As a professional businessperson, this information is both shocking and disgusting. If you can't operate a business without cheating and/or menacing the poorest, least advantaged people - people, by the way, who are willing to work for the absolute minimum pay and benefits under the law - then it would be wise for you to pursue your criminal career by first undertaking some advanced training. May I suggest the United States Penitentiary at Marion, Illinois?

We're Not A Gang - We're A Club!

To often, the general public places MBA graduates into the same category as sociopaths like motorcycle gangs, inner-city gangs, and Mexican drug gangs, but with a far greater ability to cause widespread destruction and mayhem. In short, we are the jackals feasting on the maggot-ridden portfolios of humble home-town investors; we are the puppetmasters and everyone else is a sucker on the midway, spending $5.00 to knock down the milk bottles for a $0.50 stuffed animal.

This is a vicious and fallacious misconception, because we are being taught that, in some cases, Art deserves more respect than Shareholder Value, and that winning the admiration of a clique of in-bred aesthetes is more important than making piles of ugly, ugly money.

The case in point concerns one Isaac Mizrahi, a fashion designer who, after failing on the Paris Haute Couture market, was relegated to delivering off-the-rack apparel to Target, a seedy American retailer catering to the unwashed masses across our uncouth country. Our professors have the courage to hold Mr. Mizrahi in disregard for his inability to create stunning, one-of-a-kind unwearable fashions as seen above; to teach that his mass-market appeal is inversely proportional to his artistic value and that his value as an artist is far more important than his skill at crafting a business out of his vision.

As the new generation of MBA students, we hold Mizrahi in contempt for the fact that he generated $1.0 billion in name-branded sales for Target; we snicker at his effeminate yet successful attempts to appear on television (in his own series), in movies, and on radio; we look down at his pathetic transformation as a Broadway costume designer (for which he won a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Costume Design), and we chastise him for being selected as the creative director for Liz Claiborne Brand, a $5 billion apparel and accessories empire.

There is more to success than creating immense shareholder value and there is more to life than turning your name into a multi-billion dollar worldwide brand. We are not jackals - we like pretty things too. Welcome to the future of business schooling...

Welcome to the Zen MBA!