Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
Flopping Aces reader post, from Donald Bly. Brought to our attention by Washington Rebel. Mr. Bly has cooked up some interesting stuff, like for example this…
3. The number of representative shall be one for every 30,000 citizens.
This is actually the representation ratio as set forth in the Constitution Article 1, Section 2. In todays world of technology it is not necessary that our representatives gather in a single place in order to cast a vote or debate a bill. They could all have a subscription for gotomeeting.com…. More importantly any qualified candidate could quite literally mount a viable campaign without spending a dime. A little shoe leather and some time and a candidate could literally shake the hand of every voter in his/her district. The current ratio is somewhere in the vicinity of 600,000 to one and facilitates the ability of special interests groups to unduly influence policy. This is campaign finance reform at its simplest[.]
Has a few things in common with When I Start Running This Place items — the objective of getting Congress a little bit more representative of the rest of us, is a prominent and well-defined theme permeating both pieces. That’s a bipartisan thing, I suspect.
What’s that got to do with a picture of a cute girl? I dunno. The Rebel had it up, so I swiped it.
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The guy is on the right track and his heart is in the right place, but I think he missed the mark on a few:
2. No elected official may accept a campaign contribution of any kind while in office. (in regards to congress)
The “special interests” would still make contributions beforehand, and then expect the politician to do their bidding after being elected. This idea might water-down lobbying’s effects a bit, but wouldn’t eliminate it entirely. The ultimate campaign finance reform would be to simply force Congress back into compliance with the Constitution and eliminate its ability to conduct favortism in the first place.
8. No business is too big to fail and bailouts of private business entities shall be prohibited.
Fine, except when some corporation is having money problems that are a direct result of government intervention. I remember right after 9/11, Bush grounded all the airlines for a couple of days, and this seemed to be all that it took to put most of them in the red. (I couldn’t believe that they evidently had so little cash reserves.) The federal government proceeded to bail them out, and I don’t recall anyone, right or left, uttering a peep.
A. Executive pay shall not exceed a multiple of 50 of the average compensation of all employees.
No. Corporate compensation is nobody’s damn business. Remember, in publicly-traded corporations, top executives serve at the pleasure of the Board of Directors, who in turn are elected by the shareholders. If said shareholders feel that executive compensation is excessive, they can and will threaten the Board members over the matter. Evidently, Disney’s shareholders felt that Michael Eisner was worth 90 million a year, and they are the ones who own the company. Who are you and I to argue?
If executive compensation is threatening the company’s financial health and passing along excessive costs to its customers, they’ll walk and the company will suffer, at which point the shareholders will act. Have some faith in their common sense.
Private corp’s (pre-IPO’s and others who don’t offer their stock for sale) absolutely are not answerable to anyone other than their customers.
Several of Donald’s commentors echoed my concerns here. Like them, I’ve had it with Obama presuming the right to fire anyone he pleases, including people who don’t work for him. GM should have told the President where to stick it, then filed a lawsuit of some kind. What was Obama going to do, send the Secret Service over to physically remove GM’s CEO from his desk?
B. Executive bonuses/stock options etc. shall be be identical to the workers as a percentage of base compensation.
See above.
If the workers don’t like the deal they’re getting, they can walk. Companies have to compete with one another for talent, and must pay accordingly. Individual employees can negotiate salary and benefits at hire. Again, it’s not anyone else’s business.
- cylarz | 12/13/2009 @ 01:38Well, you had me reading to the end to figure out how the young lady in the picture would be tied in to the post. Heh.
Cylarz is right … compensation is the business of the company, not the government.
Stick to the damn Constitution would be fine in my book. Enumerated powers and bill of rights and all. If we could just do that.
- philmon | 12/13/2009 @ 08:10[…] Laws I’d Like to See Hugh Hefner Is Not Dead. MISS WORLD […]
- Jessica Biel stars in ‘Leave the Markets to Themselves’ | 12/13/2009 @ 10:44Thanks, Phil.
The blogger (I think his name is Donald something) who wrote “Laws I’d like to see,” sad to say, is not only unrepentant when called to task for his position on corporate compensation (several of his respondents did so), but he also seems to have forgotten the definition of hypocrisy.
When told his ideas would never make it through Congress, he responded, “The post is called Laws I’d Like to See, not Legislation I’d Like To See.” This sounded to me like it was more of a wish-list than an actual, realistic legislative agenda.
I told him that none of the bit about ending consecutive Congressional terms (in the name of cleaning up corruption in politics) would be necessary if we simply curtailed Congress’ ability to hand out favors in the first place. The ultimate campaign finance reform, I wrote, would be to simply drive the politicians back inside the boundaries imposed by the Constitution.
Donald then had the temerity to ask me, “How would you do that?”
I thought about telling him off, but I’ve since decided that it wasn’t worth the hassle. He still thinks that one of his posters “makes a pretty good case for limiting executive compensation,” ostensibly on the grounds that corporate finance is complicated by the existence of money-market investments and whatnot. I realized pretty quickly that I’m not going to get through to someone who thinks that complex stock-ownership schemes, somehow means that the government gets to tell privately-owned corporations how much they can pay their employees.
That said, he had a lot of good ideas, though it’s hard for me to get behind the one about repealing the 17th Amendment, either.
- cylarz | 12/15/2009 @ 01:59Sadly, the only way to do “that” (drive them back within the confines of the Constitution) … is to get voters to vote for candidates who will do that.
In other words, we have to work at convincing our families and friends. We have to be PR-miesters.
We could try to get the courts to do their damn job and enforce the Constitution, but too many of them have been appointed by, and are — progressives — and they not only don’t care, but they think they’re doing us all a big favor.
And the only way to change that is via the ballot box. And the only way to do that is for the 10% of us who are pretty hard core this way to convince at least 41% more that we’re at least mostly right and the Constitution isn’t outdated and that going back to it is good for everyone.
To do that, we need to be honest, polite when appropriate — but speak up, keep our facts straight, and advocate.
- philmon | 12/15/2009 @ 08:46