Business Hostile, Race Relations Edition

Picture this (and I am speaking out of personal experience). You have a team of co-workers. The racial makeup (which is not at all relevant to the performance of the individuals) is 1 black, 1 Hispanic and 5 white. Now of those 7 people the top positions are held by the black and Hispanic who have oversight over the entire branch (not just the team). One of those two people performs in an above-and-beyond manner consistently. The other one shows new standards for sub-standard performance and results on a consistent basis. The union protects the sub-performer and has for over a decade. While this would be another example of why unions suck that is not the concern of this post.

Now imagine what the performance reviews would look like for years upon years. What would the disparity in the merit raises be? What kind of a gap in pay would there be after 5 years? 10 years?

Thanks to the shortsightedness of 1/2 of the country this year Obama will now get the chance to create another business hostile policy.

President Obama intends to close "persistent gaps" between whites and minorities in everything from credit scores and homeownership to test scores and graduation rates.

His remedy — short of new affirmative-action legislation — is to sue financial companies, schools and employers based on "disparate impact" complaints — a stealthy way to achieve racial preferences, opposed 2 to 1 by Americans.

Under this broad interpretation of civil-rights law, virtually any organization can be held liable for race bias if it maintains a policy that negatively impacts one racial group more than another — even if it has no racist motive and applies the policy evenly across all groups.

This means that even race-neutral rules for mortgage underwriting and consumer credit scoring potentially can be deemed racist if prosecutors can produce statistics showing they tend to result in adverse outcomes for blacks or Latinos.

What this means is that in the above real life example when the chronically under-performing employee complains about the salaries between her and the other person in a top position there could now be a case for the Obama Administration to pursue it.

Disparate outcomes are a part of a free society. In fact, to try to get rid of disparate outcomes (when opportunities are equal) is the absolute antithesis of a free society.

Let's extend the example now. Because of either threat of lawsuits or fear of lawsuits the employer decides to match the salaries. What is the motivation of the super performer to not only continue to super perform but to even meet minimum standards when sub-standard is going to get the same pay?

The take away from this story (and the example) is two-fold.

First, Obama's administration and his supporters are hostile to business. This was known by a few before the 2008 election but it was en vogue to vote based on race (and fear of being called racist by dishonest intolerant people likely effected quite a few people as well). This was known very well by 2012 and yet people still supported him. The rational conclusion is that the business hostility was a trait that Obama 2012 supporters wanted (and why they accepted the idea that their votes were "Revenge" as Obama stated).

Second, Obama's leanings are not capitalist but more towards a Chinese or Soviet communist/Marxist beliefs. Everyone must be equal and if everyone is not then beat down the ones who are performing too well. Fits very nicely into the union mentality as well.