I was leisurely studying my glass of McClellands’s Private Reserve about an hour ago and the phone rang.  Noise and McClelland’s simply do not go well together.  Anyway, a Contractor in the Southeast was loosing his lunch over a new demand by a National for Social Security Numbers, Driver’s License Numbers, etc. ad nauseum.  Normally, I would chock it up to an audit or a Vendor Manager actually doing their job; however, after I finished reassuring the Contractor that other than the Employee-Independent Contractor relationship status which the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the United States Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division  (WHD) would probably crucify the National over it really wasn’t that big of a deal.  I told him to eat some Advil and it would pass.  I hung the phone up and before it had settled in the cradle I had another ring.  Damn, I thought as I sealed the McClelland’s.

Look, here’s the deal, he said.  They don’t just want my stuff.  They want everything on all of my subs as well!  The demands are that if we don’t pony up the info in five days we’re out on our ass!

Now, this took me back a bit.  As many recall I had put out a demand that Order Mills get some scrutiny based upon the fact that Nationals had been hiring felons at a rate that would make Slick Willy blush by way of comparison to his Pardons.  This was a Regional making the demand.  Odd, I thought and my spine began to tingle.  The Regionals had really been the problem and now they are being sent into the trenches to pull in the information they should have had all along?  Regionals always scare me.  I suppose some of them like Midwest Metro are pretty well established; however, the vast majority of these fly-by-night outfits spinning up WITH NO REGULATION are predatory.  I began to wonder how does one justify sending inordinate amounts of financial data to some schmuck three states away whom has no information security implemented other than Tom, Dick and Jane hitting save in between their YouTube videos?  This was bad news from jump.  What was even more scary was the fact that CoreLogic was not taking no for an answer!  The $64,000 question is how many more?  Word in the cloak rooms up in Georgetown is that they all want on board.  Gotta look good for ’em boss!  Act like we care and are concerned!  Bullshit!  Get the Order Mills to pony their Credentials as that’s where the deep do do started!  It started UNDER YOUR WATCH!

Here’s what I think:  I think that in the same way Russ, Amir and the boys up in Cleveland churned out their “Let’s Get Everyone Trained” dog and pony show, so this new action was the typical knee jerk reaction in an attempt to assuage some two bit actuary counting beans on liability.  Bad move; real B Rate fellows!  Did the Industry really believe that time was going to stand still while inept Contractors were kicking in barn doors which they mistakenly took for a house?  Sans that.

The jack booted thugs just don’t get it.  Here they thought they were doing something good for themselves.  The true irony is that this new regulation, if fully implemented, will force many of the Crackheads back underneath the rocks they climbed up from!  Jesus H. Christ!  I mean this is novel.  Reduce your workforce, face litigation from the US Government — make no mistake Uncle Joe needs Capital for the new programs due to the sequester — and accomplish jack squat!  Man, the Script Writer’s Guild must be in on this!

While shit rolls down hill, liability rolls uphill!  Here’s what I want you to wrap your pinheads around.  You continue hiring these boarding houses of festering corruption you call Order Mills.  You are going to end up with half a dozen PPMS Brandon Lamberts and Jason Mathis whom now have SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBERS!  Have you gone utterly insane?!  That is what the damn EIN/TIN is for!  I can see the Headlines now:  Minority Female With Two Children Whose Husband Dies In War Falls Victim To Identity Fraud.  Guess where the buck stops?  That’s right.  On your desk.  See, if this kind of insanity; if this wholesale madness gets put into high gear, the Docket is going to reflect that the Nationals initiated it.

I want to elaborate just a bit here while the lawyers are sharpening their knives — I mean pencils.  Nationals can require Contractors to run background checks on their subs or employees but the MINUTE they demand their financial information they trespass into the W-2 world.  Make no mistake boys and girls.  Now, the vast majority of Contractors will suck it up and limp home, but you are going to eventually run into someone like me whom will push the issue with WHD and IRS and have a SS-8 shoved so far up you it will require a proctologist to get it out.  I mean a first year pre law acne scared lop could figure this one out.  Look, instead of having all the suits sharpening their pencils to throw at the dart boards on their way to Ruth’s Cris, why don’t you have them Sheppardize some case law.  Damn, have you really lost your collective minds?  Do you think Uncle Joe and remember he is the ARCHITECT of the Misclassification Initiative is going to stand by while they can tap in to literally tens of thousands of workers entitled to collective awards which would fund the entire United States Food Stamp Program?!  I love Uncle Joe; hell, any man whom tells someone to shoot through the door with a shotgun is welcome in Tennessee anytime!  What I am driving at, though, is the banks got their settlements done.  Maxine Waters is just itching to go head-to-head with Robert Klein.  No Portman to the rescue on this one either Cleveland!  Waters is a bad package!  I would be hesitant to take her on!

I think this is how the eulogy is going to read:  Here lies an Industry which sucked the blood and flesh out of the bodies of loyal Contractors whom built their Empires.  So Greedy were they that they snapped the very bones of the dead to pick the flesh of Contractors from their teeth.  Being rich in the United States is no longer En Vogue!  History repeats itself.  There are a tremendous amount of people simmering about the bank’s wholesale robbery and bailouts.  Mark my words, every Bull Market needs a scapegoat!

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