7 New Year's Resolutions for the Bad Guys

Don't think that I am going to list a batch of the usual goody-goody vows for you to follow in 2010. You know the ones I'm talking about: Pledges to spend less than you earn, to save 15% of your income, to pay down your debts and to keep your credit score higher than what you got on your English SAT.

Those are all worthy goals. And if you can keep to them beyond the first 15 days of January, your finances are likely to improve. But, self-discipline will not necessarily determine whether you'll be on Easy Street -- or even Survival Avenue. Exogenous forces over which you have no control may have more impact on your life than all your good intentions. Many Americans are finding their finances in sad shape not because of stupid, venal things they did themselves but because of the stupid, venal things that were done to them by others, namely, credit card companies, banks, employers and so on. They're the ones -- not you -- who should be making resolutions to do better this year. Of course, I realize that they are unlikely to see things my way; so I have taken it upon myself to write their resolutions for them. And here they are:

1. Stop laying off so many people. Yes, you employers can turn an extra buck by reducing your payroll. But mass firings are usually counter-productive. You wind with less to sell and fewer people to sell it. Then, when business improves, you have to pay top dollar to recruit new people who aren't as experienced or knowledgeable as those you fired. That's just plain dumb.
2. Pay a reasonable wage. I'm really tired of hearing business people complain that if they have to pay anything above the minimum wage or provide health insurance, they are going to go under. Business owners, if you can't do at least that much for the people you hire, then you shouldn't be in business at all.
3. Quit exporting jobs to India (or the Ukraine or the Dominican Republic). Sure, people there work for less. But if Americans don't have jobs, how can they buy your products and services?
4. Pay savers a decent interest rate. What can I say about you bankers? You are greedy beyond imagining. You're paying 0.5% annual interest on savings accounts while at the same time raising rates and fees on credit cards. You then put the money in the stock market and pocket the profits instead of rewarding your depositors.
5. Resist screwing credit-card holders. The CARD Act goes into effect February 22, so you won't be able to mess around with your customers quite the way you used to, dear bankers, raising rates to 29% and 39% on people who were a day late paying their electric bills or hitting them with ridiculous fees because their payments arrived an hour late. But I know you're probably planning on other fund-raising schemes: bringing back annual fees, for example, and moving people to variable-rate cards on which you can raise rates whenever you please. Enough already.
6. Don't lend to people who can't afford to repay. Credit-card companies and mortgage lenders defend their high fees and rates with the excuse that many of their customers default. If they charged less, bankers say with tears in their eyes, poor people would not be able to get credit. First of all, when have bankers been so concerned about poor people? Second, banks charge poor people much higher rates -- insuring that they can't repay their loans. The result: millions of foreclosures and bankruptcies this year.
7. Get over yourselves. I don't expect corporate chieftains or bankers to understand that collecting billions in pay and bonuses while 10% of the population is out of work is unfair and wrong. They are immune to the notion of shared sacrifice. But bankers, corporados, look in your mirrors. You are simply not worth $10 million or $20 million a year. Especially since most of you ran your companies into the ground. Recently Robert Benmosche, head of AIG which has so far received $121 billion in aid from taxpayers, vowed to resign if the government pay czar wouldn't allow him and his executives billions in bonuses. I have one word for you, Mr. Benmosche: Goodbye.