Tax the bastards or not?

I’m still in Brooklyn, but it’s not snowing. Just cold. So that’s my twittering out of the way.

(Do you think twittering is a good idea? I’m not sure I really want to know the deeply dull minutiae of other people’s lives; and unless you’re very, very clever indeed it’s hard to say anything interesting very briefly.)

As a matter of fact it’s hard to say anything interesting at any length – and I am often surprised at what you gentle readers will react to. Which brings me to the comments on my last outburst.

Bertrand Russell remarked that “what men seek is not knowledge, but certainty.” Among my many faults is a love of the sweeping (sometimes unkind) generalisation which I later regret.

“Tax the bastards” is one that I do not regret for a minute.

I agree: retrospective legislation is bad as a rule; Gordon Brown aka The Great Bloated Toad stole half my pension and pissed it up against the wall by legislating retrospectively.

However, when something is clearly wrong I think such legislation is justified. Someone said that it is hard to define beauty, but we recognise it when we see it. In the same way, we recognise patent injustice when we see it. It is unjust that the reptiles at AIG or the Royal Bank of Scotland should walk away with millions while those they failed suffer.

In fact when I studied law there was a concept called equity, which could be celled fairness. We can see that what has happened is not fair. In just the same way – referring to pensions – I do not think it is fair that people like me who create wealth or knowledge or employment should have our pensions diluted by inflation whilst the Toad, his Toadies and the army of public servants we fund should not.

If there is one thing I would recommend to Mr. Cameron and his friends, and for that matter to the Republicans who are actually more responsible than anyone else for the current mess – it was created on their watch, under their President – it is, promise to sweep away what is clearly unfair in society.

Michel Fortin referred me to a very good piece by Perry Marshall, who is much cleverer than I am. He says you have to pay people a lot of money to get the best. Well, as my old boss Martin Sorrell was wont to say, “It’s a point of view.”

Sir Martin certainly is highly motivated by money. David Ogilvy was. Many of us are. But there are other things more important. W. S. Churchill was broke all his life. Gandhi was not motivated by money. if my memory serves me right(I am very old) G. Washington left office poorer than when he entered it.

Lee Iacocca, whom Perry quotes, is not – to me anyhow – a great exemplar. He did not save Chrysler. He gave it a breathing space. He did not cure them of the besetting sin that has ruined the U.S. auto industry, which is heavy reliance on discounts allied to appalling advertising.

Incidentally that is the same mistake that Dell are making with such lamentable enthusiasm.

But that is another subject.

About the Author

In 2003, the Chartered Institute of Marketing named Drayton one of 50 living individuals who have shaped today’s marketing.

He has worked in 55 countries with many of the world’s greatest brands. These include American Express, Audi, Bentley, British Airways, Cisco, Columbia Business School, Deutsche Post, Ford, IBM, McKinsey, Mercedes, Microsoft, Nestle, Philips, Procter & Gamble, Toyota, Unilever, Visa and Volkswagen.

Drayton has helped sell everything from Airbus planes to Peppa Pig. His book, Commonsense Direct and Digital Marketing, out in 17 languages, has been the UK’s best seller on the subject every year since 1982. He has also run his own businesses in the U.K., Portugal and Malaysia.

He was a main board member of the Ogilvy Group, a founding member of the Superbrands Organisation, one of the first eight Honorary Fellows of the Institute of Direct Marketing and one of the first three people named to the Hall of Fame of the Direct Marketing Association of India. He has also been given Lifetime Achievement Awards by the Caples Organisation in New York and Early To Rise in Florida.

6 Comments

  1. Excellent response, Drayton. As always.

    As far as Twitter is concerned, for me it is a branding tool, no more. I don’t envisage it to be a marketing money-maker by any stretch.

    However, in keeping with posting links to others who may have better insights, I refer you to American copywriter Randy Gage who posted a very well-written manifesto on the use — and benefits — of Twitter:

    http://www.randygage.com/blog/tweet-this-a-twitter-manifesto

  2. Drayton,

    I welcome you disagreeing with me.

    I have mixed feelings about this question myself, because the early American fathers saw governing as an act of service rather than as a career. At the same time, the comment on my blog by Rachit Dayal was also interesting:

    “I’ve made Singapore my home for about 8 years now, and one thing that strikes me – is how proud and well equipped public servants are. The salaries of the government executives are based on the current pay scale of the Fortune 500 companies.

    “Hence the Prime Minister of Singapore makes 2.4 million a year (I think he might have taken a voluntary pay cut bcoz of the recession). Other cabinet officers also get paid at least in the 500k+.

    “There’s actually a sensible financial argument for a young person to work in public service and not worry about getting cheated out of money.”

    I do not think that paying politicians more will make them more honest.

    I do think that paying them more *might* attract more fundamentally competent people to those jobs.

    Jesus said the two great commandments are: Love God; and love your neighbor as yourself.

    Most laws exist for the purpose of correcting the problems that are caused by ignoring #1 and #2. If you love your neighbor as yourself, you won’t knowingly screw people out of their retirement money and thus you won’t need miles of government red tape in order to simply have a retirement fund.

    The belief that laws #1 and #2 are unnecessary, and that legislation can eventually cure the ills of the human heart, is folly. Eventually we just end up with so many laws that pretty much everyone unwittingly commits at least six crimes by 9am every day.

    Iaccoca did not solve the root problems, but he did give Chrysler 10 more good years. More than what the current management will accomplish. And he really did stand up and lead. I don’t see anyone doing that now.

    My friend Tom Hoobyar says, “Never vote for an incumbent.” In the spirit of 80/20 – where being right most of the time is plenty good enough – that’s a pretty good rule to live by. I think career politicians are a core part of the problem.

    I am involved in many endeavors that pay me nothing, and I put my heart in them. Paying people money does not make them honest.

    Actually I think Americans get politicians who are exactly as honest as they want their politicians to be. If people prefer lies to the truth, that is exactly what they will get.

    Perry Marshall

  3. Being a politician is not about amassing money. It is about becoming powerful. The money eventually comes and the power attracts money without question.

    My-point-of-view: All the AIG executives should fired.

    Send them all to the unemployment line.

    Twitter- I still don’t get it. But then again it took me a while to see the value in blogging too.

  4. Sam

    I think you are are a marketing genius not a politician.

    You refer to this mess happening on the Republican president’s watch. I think you need to look up the “Community Reinvestment Act” enacted under Jimmy Carter and given new life by Bill Clinton. There are videos on YouTube on the subject.

    I am not saying the Republicans did not contribute to this mess, they did, but the legislation enacted by Mr. Carter was the start of Fannie and Freddie’s problem.

    Also, Barney Frank and Chris Dodd not only protected the expansion of Fannie and Freddie but also took sweetheart loans from Andrew Mozilla (CountryWide). So, I think the Democrats helped a great deal in this mess.

    Things like this usually come about when people are given the wrong incentives such as helping people who have no business owning a home, own one because it is politically correct. Or by paying Frannie and Freddie executives bonuses based on the volume of loans done not the quality. These were long time policies of both parties.

    All in all, I think the politicians of both parties are trying very hard to divert attention from their own culpability in these matters by their indignation. Charlie Rangel earlier in the week was cautioning against taxing the bounses and then he led the charge. Why the change of heart?

  5. Perry Marshall said:
    “Actually I think Americans get politicians who are exactly as honest as they want their politicians to be. If people prefer lies to the truth, that is exactly what they will get.”

    In Islam it is said the people will get the leaders they deserve.

    Hence, if a people are corrupt, in whatever way, they will get a leader over them who will treat them the same way they treat others.

    Unfortunately, looking around in just the business world, I see plenty of evidence to support that.

    And it’s not only on a national level…

    If you look at what happened in Iraq, Saddam was oppressing his people, so he had someone oppressing him, i.e. the US and others.

    What comes around, goes around.

    Or is it the other way around? I can never remember

    Maybe we are living in times where we are getting leaders who will treat us as their pay cheque.

    And, the worst part is, we are voting them in, despite knowing what they’re like.

    Take Dubya being voted in for a second term, for instance.

  6. I just realised my last comment seems to tar everyone with the same brush: That wasn’t my intention.

    Like fire consumes everything in its path, the innocents also get caught up in this type of thing.

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