Voodoo In West Africa

When you read The Bonus, you can judge for yourself whether the priestess, Satouma, was a fraud or had some power to which we in America don't relate. Is it possible that the outcome of The Bonus was seriously influenced by the rituals she performed on behalf of Rabunto and Shinto (Chapter 14) or was it just a lot of hokus pokus? After all, nobody believes in voodoo anymore.

Thirty million people in West Africa practicing the ancient religion of Vodun would not agree that no one believes in voodoo anymore. In fact many believe that touching a voodoo dancer while he or she is in a trance could kill you and it has been common practice for thousands of years for African sorcerers called botono to be hired to put a hex on someone's adversaries. You'd think after thousands of years such foolishness would have been abandoned as a fraud.

"But the pull of voodoo is so powerful," says a retired Catholic priest in Togo ,"it seems imbedded in the earth of West Africa." Even to this day it would not be too difficult to find people in Louisiana practicing Vodun as ardently as any of the millions practicing it in West Africa. Could there be something to it?

Evolution From The Beetle

The Bonus describes the fictional Ashanti and Mandingo people as ancient tribes with a reputation for behavior considered abominable by current day European standards. (See opening chapter.) They were known for unimaginable brutality in dealing with their enemies and hated foreigners, whether they were Africans from other countries on the continent or foreigners from other shores.

In "The Bonus" some of the people still live primitive nomadic lives in the forests, although there are not many hunter-gatherer societies in Africa today, save some vestiges of the fabled Bushman of South Africa. They practice customs of witchcraft and charms originated by their progenitors thousands of years earlier. The Ashanti and Mandingo people also adhered to "Totemism," a system that separated people into clans.  Although the beetle was generally considered evil under their animistic beliefs, the Ashanti adopted the beetle as their totemic emblem. In fact, they believed that they evolved from it.

While this seems like a strange notion, Totemism reveals itself in primitive people around the globe, even today in one form or another. It shows up in such diverse places as Africa, the Americas (totem poles), Polynesia, Australia and Asia. Strangely enough, it appears that no yellow or white race is Totemic. In Totemic mythology, these people follow tribal lore that suggests they are evolved from their totem, such as the Ashanti in "The Bonus." And as such, anyone living under the totem of the beetle, for example, was considered family to be defended and protected against enemies at any cost. Hence the notion that the Ashanti treated their enemies with brutality.The identification with a totem, however, apparently had a practical aspect. To prevent in-breeding, Totemic people were required to marry outside their family or clan, that is, to people with a different totem symbol, a practice known as exogamy.

While the practice of unusual religious beliefs, witchcraft and charms may seem foolishly primitive, the reader of "The Bonus" can decide whether these practices by the Ashanti had influence on the outcome of Tom Farley's journey to the financial closing.

Read An eBook Week

 

FREE - In celebration of Read An eBook Week (March 7 - 13, 2010) you can download a copy of "The Bonus" for FREE during the celebration. An annual affair since 2004 Read An eBook Week brings together ebook retailers, publishers, authors, device-makers and untold thousands of readers who join in this international literary event of ebook discovery. Read more at http://ebookweek.com.

Can $435 Million Really Be 35% of An African Country's Entire GDP?

Jason Anthony appears to be the most intelligent of the Thunder Oil corporate finance group, so when he says in The Bonus: "Thunder Oil accounts for something like 35% of the Kanbian economy for God's sake," the first reaction is that can't possibly be right. Thirty-five percent of a country's entire GDP?

Kanbia is, of course, a fictional African country, whose miserable GDP is said to be the result of exploitation by European countries for centuries and now by Thunder Oil. So the immediate question is whether there is any reality to such a country actually existing in Africa today.

It turns out one does not have to look very far. Take Berundi, for example, a country formed five centuries ago and occupied (plundered?) during the Twentieth Century by Germany and Belgium. Berundi today has roughly a GDP of $720 million (that's all of $90 per person annually). And as we know, in The Bonus Thunder Oil's annual revenue was $435 million from Kanbia, more than half of Berundi's total GDP.

Is Berundi an aberration? How about Eritrea a country just north of Ethiopia, the cradle of civilization. It's GDP is about $950 million, still less than Kanbia's apparently. But Eritrea is in the Horn of Africa, not exactly where The Bonus story takes place. Portuguese Guinea, now independent and called Guinea-Bissau, however, is right on the West African coast along an expanse of the Atlantic Ocean (as is Kanbia) and has had plenty of European intrusion over the years (as has Kanbia). The GDP of Guinea-Bissau is $240 million (around $160 per capita), a far cry from the annual revenues of Thunder Oil from exploiting the waters off the Kanbian coast. (For a little contrast, you might check out the GDP of a country like Switzerland, which currently stands at approximately $488 billion - or about $68,000 per capita.)

Of course, Kanbia is not Guinea-Bissau, and was not even modeled after her in any way. The point is, though, that there are countries today in Africa whose GDP does not even remotely approach the annual revenues of individual foreign companies who continue to do business in those regions. Is it far-fetched to think that a world class oil company like the fictional Thunder Oil might be taking some advantage there?
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Russian Anti-plague Facilities

One of the fascinating things in "The Bonus" is the Department of Homeland Security's concern for terrorists' potential use of the pathogens harbored in the old Russian anti-plague facilities. These are scientific facilities that the Russians established initially as defensive measures against diseases that might enter Russia (or the Soviet Union in general) but later became offensive in nature stockpiling smallpox, bubonic plague and many other deadly diseases for use in biological warfare.

The truly scary thing about these facilities is that most of the controls over them vanished with the break-up of the Soviet Union so that they now are run by local governments. It is generally recognized that these facilities and their dangerous contents are not well managed or controlled and are a potential source for a worldwide catastrophe if better management is not instituted by the international community.  This is not science fiction. See, for example, this excellent NTI article for more information. And read in "The Bonus" the chilling concern the Department of Homeland Security has with regard to these facilities and their volatile pathogens.

What is the truth about Wall Street bonuses?

There is, of course, this tremendous outcry now about AIG paying huge bonuses again after the U.S. taxpayer had to provide it with billions of dollars to keep it from going belly up last year. Too big to fail. Are these bonuses being paid out of taxpayers money to the same guys who took all the outrageous risks and brought down the world wide economy as a result? Probably yes, I would guess, since money is fungible, as they say, and no one, apparently, had the presence of mind to require that the taxpayers' money be used for something other than bonuses or require that the funds be tracked in any way.

How could AIG management have the unmitigated gaul to declare such huge bonuses once again with this background?  Are they so insensitive to the public outcry that they would basically spit in the eye of the populace, the public be damned. Well, there may be some of that because anything is believable from some of these guys. But it probably isn't quite that callous because, as I understand it, current compensation schemes at the bulge bracket banks and humongous insurance companies (e.g., AIG) are the subject of enforcible contracts.  I hear lawyers generally feel that these contracts are valid and enforcible and the banks and/or insurance companies may be out a lot more after settling the ensuing myriad lawsuits for breach of contract than if they owned up to the contractual bonus commitments.

Now you may argue that contracting up-front to pay these huge bonuses to people is crazy. Well maybe so, but as I have said in previous posts on bonuses, this is standard practice at risk oriented institutions like investment banks and has been for many years. This is the so-called asynchronous compensation system which pays such bankers relatively low base salaries and then large bonuses to those who hit home runs during the year with smaller bonuses to the single, double and triple hitters.  The fact is that someone in this system for a while who has done well often has created a standard of living for him or herself that makes achieving these bonuses a must. As Gardner Bannion tells Farley in The Bonus: "You know this business. You and I live on bonuses. We'd starve on our salaries." And so you may argue with the system (and I do), but the large bonuses are paid to the big hitters for having been "rainmakers," or having closed some huge deals during the year, rather than just dividing up the actual profits for the year among a large group of employees - the common understanding of bonuses. I suppose the question to be asked is whether total compensation paid by AIG or the large investment banks is all that much greater than any other large corporate enterprise with similar revenues and profits? If it isn't, then maybe the singling out of these "bonuses" as though they were paid to people who already earned huge salaries during the year (which we know is not the case, relatively speaking) could be politically motivated. You think?

The bottom line though, it seems to me, is that this system, which pays extraordinary amounts to people who do extraordinary things during the year can lead to the taking of risks, which would never be taken by people being paid under a more conventional compensation regime.  As we have now clearly seen, taking extraordinary risks can lead to extraordinary failures and I would indict the asynchronous compensation schemes as the real culprit.

Press Release - Stonepine Productions, LLC releases "The Bonus"

See press release re: The Bonus issued on January 28, 2010. Stonepine Productions, LLC is offering the electronic version of The Bonus free to the public for a limited time.

Oil Drilling Off The West African Coast

It's no secret that oil companies operating off the African Coast have had a field day generating significant revenues there. The major cost, other than direct cost of drilling, has been the cost to keep the corrupt ruling government officials on-shore fat and happy while the native populations gain little or no benefit from the rape of their natural resources.

It is very difficult to achieve any changes in this deplorable situation because western governments support the corrupt on-shore regimes. In The Bonus, the fictional west African country, Kanbia, tries to break free of this dilemma by voting in a new president in a democratic election process. But the largest oil company operating in its territorial waters devises a plan to undermine the program on which the new president was swept into office.

The question is what will happen to Tim Farley when he has to juggle the forces of corporate oil company power, ruthless middle eastern bankers, desperate hit men and even the powers of animistic African religious beliefs in order to get his deal done.

West African spirit house.

Wall Street Bonus Pool for 2008 "Shameful and the Height of Irresponsibility."

On January 29, 2009, President Obama described the 2008 Wall Street bonus pool as shameful and the height of irresponsibility.  He apparently felt that a year that saw multi-billlion dollar government bailouts, staggering losses in the financial community and the demise of some of the most well known names in the banking community was no cause for celebration, much less payment of $18.4 billion in bonuses for a job well done. But 2008 apparently did not mark the "height of irresponsibility" as far as bonuses are concerned - the 2009 bonus pool increased by $5.5 billion (yes billion) over 2008.

As indicated in my blog of January 17, the culprit is the "all or nothing" concept in compensation arrangements especially in the investment banking community. The concept is so-called "asymmetric compensation," that is, very low base compensation, and potentially huge bonuses for accomplishing targeted goals. Since many investment bankers live well beyond what their meager base compensation could support, not achieving their bonuses is not an option. Accordingly, management can easily influence their behavior by agreeing to pay huge bonuses if what often turn out to outrageous goals are achieved, and then simply set out the ravenous hounds into the jungle to corral a pride of lions.

In The Bonus Tim Farley's formerly comfortable life becomes embroiled in just such a delemma when he takes on a hugh bonus deal for an oil company, but while he is desperate to achieve the bonus that can set him up for life, two powerful international groups threaten his life and his family's lives: one if he goes through with the deal, the other if he doesn't.

The Bonus

People often debate one another as to what are the greatest motivators of man. Put another way, what are the things that can most influence a person's behavior: fear, lust, love? Fear, some say, is the greatest behavior modifier. The most basic impulse of man is the fight or flight instinct. Fear is always with us and motivates us in an intense way even today: fear of failure, fear of war, fear of illness, fear of God, fear of hell, fear of being fired, on and on. There can be little doubt that fear can be used to influence behavior and of course often is.

Employed by most religions over the eons to motivate people to act in ways that meet their purposes is man's propensity for lust for it is a given, we are told, that it will leave one blind, diseased, sterile, insane, or all of these, if not dead, unless yielded to in only the narrowest of circumstances.

Love (hate), not to be confused with lust, although they are often easy to confuse, is a good behavior modifier, but is it as good as fear? Love, not lust, actually has an element of rationality about it because true love presumably is the result of knowing another deeply, acutely aware of his or her faults and virtues, but nevertheless still being drawn inexorably to the other person more by reason of a rational assessment over a protracted period of time rather than raw sexuality. Fear, on the other hand, is perhaps the human trait that has undergone the least amount of change over the millions of years of human evolution and is therefore our most basic and perhaps our strongest animal instinct.

But consider the workplace, especially today. In an effort to achieve unreasonable financial goals, meet wildest corporate objectives, or realize historic profits, which of these aspects of human nature do employers manipulate to influence an employee's behavior to such an extent that the employee would cast his or her morality to the winds, lie to loved ones, take totally irrational risks and generally behave in ways otherwise completely out of character? Will use of fear, lust, or love (hate) influence behavior in such ultra-extreme ways? No, they can be too easily abandoned when the going gets really rough. The strongest motivator of all in this setting, however, which is neither fear, lust, nor love, is well known in the workplace today and routinely used to achieve outlandish corporate goals and influence employees to take patently irrational risks. It is undeniably what has produced the greatest crash of the global economy since the so-called Great Depression. It is very simply unmitigated greed! For it is the love of money that is the root of all kinds of evil, says the good book (Timothy 6:10) and it is a well worn truism that every man has his price (Sir Robert Walpole).

Greed then is the greatest behavior modifier in corporate America today and comes too frequently in the guise of corporate bonus compensation programs. Nowhere is this compensation technique more insidious than in investment banking where bankers are provided a relatively small base salary (generally subsistence level for the lifestyles to which they have become accustomed) and astronomical bonuses (often in the many millions of dollars for a single deal) which, importantly, are only paid if the outrageous goals are achieved. Because of the potential size of these so-called success bonuses, employees, be they CEOs or investment bankers in the trenches, will take unconscionable risks (e.g., shocking hedge fund transactions, unscrupulous packaging of sub-prime mortgages, etc.), abandon all sense of ethics, (e.g., Enron, Global Crossing, etc.), or use whatever cutthroat tactics are required to get the job done. This is what happened on Wall Street to produce the great recession of 2007-2010 that has reverberated around the world.

The Bonus is a novel which tells the story of one struggling investment banker who gets caught up in the dark world of a big corporate financing deal for a world class oil company. The bonus he will receive on the successful closing of the deal will set him up for life, but his harrowing journey to the financial closing provides ample evidence of the devastation that such corporate bonus compensation programs can wreak.