Tag Archives: Abuse of Power

A Real Medical Care Solution

Posted on March 3, 2010 | 2 comments

Remember the bad old days?  Back before AT&T was split up?  See, prior to 1984, the government required certain services from AT&T.  In exchange for providing these services, the government allowed AT&T to operate in a near monopoly.  [notice that without the government enacting certain regulations, AT&T would not have been able to construct such a monopoly on it’s own.]  After that divestiture, AT&T was forced to compete and guess what happened?

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Posted in Economics, Health Care, Politics: National, Politics: North Carolina

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When the Government Rations

Posted on March 2, 2010 | Leave a comment

Do you wanna know what happens when the government, through fiat, controls a market?  It rations the service or product.  And what the government sees as a cost, the private sector sees as an investment.  And what do you get?

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Posted in Economics, Health Care

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Capitalism: Millions of People Are Being Yanked Out of Abject Poverty Daily

Posted on March 1, 2010 | 3 comments

It’s a pretty familiar refrain “Everything is made in China, that’s why it’s so cheap!”

This is usually followed up with the typical “slave labor” and “sweat shop” and other oft trotted out horror stories.

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Posted in Economics, Economy, Liberty, Politics: International, Politics: National, Politics: North Carolina

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Earthquake

Posted on February 28, 2010 | Leave a comment

We all know that Haiti experienced a total and complete disaster last month.  People are seriously struggling to find even drinkable water.  In fact, the goal of charities is to distribute 1 million tarps to the folks there on the island.

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Posted in Economics, Liberty, Politics: International, Politics: National

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The Virtue of "No"

Posted on February 23, 2010 | Leave a comment

All too often folks on the Hill who don’t agree with the Liberal agenda are cast as the “Party of No”.  As if all they wanna do is stall legislation and attack for pure political points.  Then we’re told that Washington is broken.

“Washington right now is broken,” Vice President Joe Biden told “Early Show” co-anchor Harry Smith. “I don’t ever recall a time in my career where, to get anything done, you needed a supermajority – 60 out of 100 senators.”

“I’ve never seen it this dysfunctional,” added Biden.

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Posted in Diplomacy, Politics: National

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Awesome

Posted on February 6, 2010 | Leave a comment

Some say Obama is a Socialist.  Some say he is a Communist.  Others even say he is a fascist.  What is harder to dispute is what Karl Marx was.

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Posted in Economics, Education, Energy, Liberty, Politics: International, Politics: National

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Inequality

Posted on February 6, 2010 | Leave a comment

A twofer!

Another in a long line on why I hate unions.

See, where I work, if you do well you get bigger raises, bigger bonuses and if you do well over the long haul, you get promoted.  On the other hand, if you don’t exceed you may not get fired, but you won’t reap the rewards of the high achievers.  Then again, if you continue to produce so marginally that the firm finds itself better off without your services, you will, in fact, eventually be promoted; to customer.  In other words, the company will no longer employ you.

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Posted in Economics, Education, Politics: National, States Behaving Badly

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Where Will They Go When We Become They

Posted on February 3, 2010 | Leave a comment

So, you can usually tell what someone’s priorities are by watching how they spend their “stuff”.  This could be money.  Watch how they spend their money and you’ll see where they put their priority.  It could be time.  Watch how they spend their time and you can tell what they think is important.  Further, it could be “fantasy points”.  Watch how someone allocates resources to win fantasy baseball and you’ll see what they feel is critical.

People tend to “spend” what they have, time or money, on things that they think are best for them.  This should neither be new or controversial.  In fact,, acknowledging this fact can help us to better build or economic models.

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Posted in Health Care, Politics: International, Politics: National

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Riiight….

Posted on January 13, 2010 | Leave a comment

When you make a promise that can’t be tracked, you are then able to claim that you kept your promise:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama’s emergency spending measures last year saved up to 2 million U.S. jobs, the White House said on Wednesday…

…

The White House, using two different approaches to figure out the impact of the stimulus package, estimates that U.S. employment had been raised by between 1-1/2 and 2 million jobs by the end of 2009 as a result of the stimulus measures.

Awesome.  When they made a number up at the beginning of this mess, they did it because:

  1. They needed to sell this turd.
  2. They knew it was made up and couldn’t be tracked.

But serious, did they create jobs?  Let’s look here:

While Massachusetts recipients of federal stimulus money collectively report 12,374 jobs saved or created, a Globe review shows that number is wildly exaggerated. Organizations that received stimulus money miscounted jobs, filed erroneous figures, or claimed jobs for work that has not yet started.

…

But in interviews with recipients, the Globe found that several openly acknowledged creating far fewer jobs than they have been credited for.

One of the largest reported jobs figures comes from Bridgewater State College, which is listed as using $77,181 in stimulus money for 160 full-time work-study jobs for students. But Bridgewater State spokesman Bryan Baldwin said the college made a mistake and the actual number of new jobs was “almost nothing.’’ Bridgewater has submitted a correction, but it is not yet reflected in the report.

…

In other cases, federal money that recipients already receive annually – subsidies for affordable housing, for example – was reclassified this year as stimulus spending, and the existing jobs already supported by those programs were credited to stimulus spending. Some of these recipients said they did not even know the money they were getting was classified as stimulus funds until September, when federal officials told them they had to file reports.

…several organizations that offer Head Start preschool programs and other services in Georgia reported retaining hundreds of jobs based on raises they gave their employees. In one such case, the Central Savannah River Area Economic Opportunity Authority in Augusta reported saving 317 jobs. But that represents the number of Head Start workers who received 2.3 percent raises from the stimulus funds, said Chris Whitley, the authority’s fiscal officer….

And then, finally, this one, which, by the way, is perhaps the most damaging report I’ve seen out of the MSM.  For one, it’s ABC, for another it’s recent and for another, it’s pretty harsh:

The White House has abandoned its controversial method of counting jobs under President Barack Obama’s economic stimulus, making it impossible to track the number of jobs saved or created with the $787 billion in recovery money.

Despite mounting a vigorous defense of its earlier count of more than 640,000 jobs credited to the stimulus, even after numerous errors were identified, the Obama administration now is making it easier to give the stimulus credit for hiring. It’s no longer about counting a job as saved or created; now it’s a matter of counting jobs funded by the stimulus.

That means that any stimulus money used to cover payroll will be included in the jobs credited to the program, including pay raises for existing employees and pay for people who never were in jeopardy of losing their positions.
“There were no jobs created. It was just shuffling around of the funds,’’ said Susan Kelly, director of property management for Boston Land Co., which reported retaining 26 jobs with $2.7 million in rental subsidies for its affordable housing developments in Waltham.

Take a look at some of those numbers.  The first, in Boston, claims that they created 160 full-time jobs with 7 large.  Did ANYONE check into that?  And then the idea of counting jobs as saved simply because those people got a raise is insane.  How does THAT make sense?  And finally, we get the goods from the White House.  In order to make their made up number, they are going to have to change their made up rules.  And why not?  It’s their rules to begin with.

Remarkable.

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Posted in Economy, Politics: National

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Government Regulation at Work

Posted on January 4, 2010 | 2 comments

As the Obama administration becomes more and more involved in the day-to-day business of more and more businesses, you have to wonder what his real goal is?  If it is to drive the best and brightest from the industry in question, well, then this should be seen as a sign of success:

NEW YORK (Reuters) – A top executive at American International Group Inc has resigned because of pay curbs imposed by the Obama Administration’s pay czar, the insurer said on Wednesday.

Anastasia Kelly, AIG’s vice chairman for legal, human resources, corporate affairs and corporate communications, resigned effective December 30 for “good reason” and is eligible for severance pay under the terms of the company’s executive severance plan, the insurer said.

Kelly stands to be paid about $2.8 million in severance, according to a source familiar with the matter.

Kelly’s resignation comes after Kenneth Feinberg, who is charged with monitoring pay levels at companies that received taxpayer funds, imposed pay caps for AIG’s top executives.

Earlier this month, Feinberg set the compensation structures for the 26th through 100th highest-paid employees at four firms, including AIG, limiting most cash salaries to $500,000.

And she’s not the only one.  Apparently there are other top execs ready to walk:

She was among five executives reported by The Wall Street Journal to have notified the insurer that they were prepared to resign and collect severance benefits if their pay was cut sharply by Feinberg. Chief Executive Robert Benmosche separately also had considered quitting because of the pay constraints, the Journal has reported.

And the impact to the bank:

Cornelius Hurley, director of the Morin Center for Banking and Financial Law at Boston University, said no AIG employee was irreplaceable.

“We have been duped into thinking that these AIG employees have some kind of secret code that no other employee could discover if they were hired to replace them and therefore they are able to basically hold the company ransom,” Hurley said.

Imagine if the government bailed out the Minnesota Vikings.  And then, in order to make them competitive, demanded that the team could only pay their QB $500,000.  Brett Favre walks.  The Vikes finish 3-13.  As it stands today, they are the number 2 seed and a decent bet at playing in their 5th Super Bowl.

Hope for Change.

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Posted in Economics, Economy

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