Someone should make a SHEN (Short Henry) because I’ve been on a run of bad calls recently. Although I don’t have the platform of someone like Jim Cramer, I think anyone with a platform, however small, should own up to their mistakes. If they don’t, they run the risk of becoming Jim Cramer, then people do make things like SJIM.

The most obvious is the UAW strike. I did not think that they would actually go on strike. Obviously, I was incorrect in that assumption. I made that call almost exactly a month ago, and then again three days ago. Since then, they have gone on strike. Despite how cliché it is, and how often the tale of Icarus gets thrown around in pop culture. Despite how downtrodden the meaning of the story has become the lesson is apt for this situation. The union is flying too close to the sun, and they will get burned. To me, it feels like an inevitability. They are reaching too far, the workers have become irrational, and the organization is being led poorly.

To me, this feels pretty classic. The leader, Shawn Fein, has overpromised wildly. He has become the hero in his own story, and now he must clear the bar he has set too high. He has said multiple times that he feels like he’s fighting for the working class as a whole, that he is fighting a class war. Dude, just get these people a pension or something. You are not Marx, you are not Lenin, you are not the hero of the bourgeoisie, you have just lost your mind a little bit. He has filled the heads of the people he represents with dreams and fanciful stories of working four days a week but being paid for five. He has told them that they will get all they could ever dream of and that only he could bring it to them. It is dangerous, it is irresponsible, and it feels a little cruel. He has to know that he can’t deliver, or at least if he comes close it will cost these people their jobs, or their kids these jobs.

Not to say that their rage is not justified. The executives saw their income grow by 40% over the last contract, while workers had to forget about pensions back in ‘08 to save the companies. Auto workers have given up a lot to these companies, and are probably due some more money.

But, the duty of a good leader is to direct those he represents in the right direction, not the direction they necessarily always want to go, but the right direction. If a leader refuses to stand up for the right thing, what’s the point of even having one? At that point, it’s more detrimental to have a yes-man who is too cowardly to stand up, and too weak to keep any semblance of thought in his mind.

I have always talked about good leadership, from when I started this blog thing to now. Without leadership, a country, a company, or a poker night, they all fall apart. Shawn Fein is the most misguided leader the country has witnessed since I don’t even know…Herbert Hoover?