House of Eratosthenes

The Obama administration will call for increased oversight of executive pay at all banks, Wall Street firms and possibly other companies as part of a sweeping plan to overhaul financial regulation, government officials said.

The outlines of the plan are expected to be unveiled this week in preparation for President Obama’s first foreign summit meeting in early April.

Increasing oversight of executive pay has been under consideration for some time, but the decision was made in recent days as public fury over bonuses has spilled into the regulatory effort.

The officials said that the administration was still debating the details of its plan, including how broadly it should be applied and how far it could range beyond simple reporting requirements. Depending on the outcome of the discussions, the administration could seek to put the changes into effect through regulations rather than through legislation.

We are victims of that ancient Chinese curse about living in interesting times. We are living in whiplash times.

Remember, just last week? Just a tiny handful of days ago? What was the defense to accusations that the administration was attacking capitalism by removing the profit motive? What was it? How did it go? “Oh, you need to remember, these are taxpayer dollars…AIG has received bailout money…this is only about firms that received bailout money…”

Here we are in the middle of a weekend. The very next weekend. Woopsie, it’s no longer about firms that received bailout money.

These people are on crack. Their solution to the government being out of money, is that it should spend a whole lot more of it, and their solution to the economy’s anemic state, is to remove the incentive some of us might have to possibly earn a profit.

They seem to live out their entire lives, personally and professionally, in defiance of Will Rogers’ famous advice that when you find yourself in a hole the thing to do is stop digging.

Their personal fortunes are rather disconnected from the consequences of such a worldview, so for them, it certainly seems to be working out okay. And it will continue to.

Directive 10-289 point 7
- Larry Sheldon | 03/22/2009 @ 15:57
And His approval rating is still at 60 percent. No matter what His policies are, people will still support Him. Heck, no one even cares when Americans who support the Constitution are considered terrorists. To paraphrase Niemoeller, “They came first for the Ron Paul supporters, and I did not speak up because I was not a Ron Paul supporter…”
- JohnJ | 03/22/2009 @ 17:21
John, you have always impressed me as an intelligent fellow. Now, in your heart of heart & mind of minds, what do you think is going to happen after four solid years of Him implementing His plans, and those plans not working? Or hurting the very things people were under the impression they were supposed to be helping?

I recognize what you’re saying, that the ego can be a powerful motivator to convince people to repeat their bad choices. But if your experience is anywhere close to mine, you must have noticed that goes sailing headlong out the window when people start getting hit in the pocketbook.
- mkfreeberg | 03/22/2009 @ 21:13
I like thjat bumper sticker. I have a long-standing rule against bumper stickers, but that one will cause me to re-think the policy.

And vanity plates! (I wonder what county ten is mhere……
- Larry Sheldon | 03/22/2009 @ 22:19
The incredulity is only valid IF you think that they (The Won & Co.) are doing this to repair broken systems. In actuality they are operating to destroy those same systems.

AND:

“…you need to remember, these are taxpayer dollars…”

This is what we need to remember. That is OUR money they are frakkin’ around with. This bunch works for US and we CAN fire them.

Government creates NOTHING. It is a leech upon the lifeblood of the Republic at best.
- Robohobo | 03/23/2009 @ 00:32
I talk to people. Even here in Alabama, many people believe that the Democrat party is the party of good intentions and the Republican party is the party of evil intentions (granted, most of those many are at the law school). But even when I talk to people in other places, I often hear much of the same meme. For example, people think it’s ridiculous that Obama would ban guns or impose socialism, because Americans wouldn’t stand for something like that. But Republicans are on the verge of completely banning abortion, homosexuality, and criminalizing being black. I’m constantly amazed at the sheer number of people who believe exactly that. Just as Chavez, the mullahs, and Kim Jong Il rule by making their people afraid of bogeymen, Democrats have successfully made Americans afraid of Republicans. Look at the way they talk about right-wing criticism making Obama more likely to be assassinated. After years of openly calling for the assassination of George Bush, now mere dissent is literally treason.

And these people really believe it. And they’re not idiots, really. They’ve just been steeped in the culture of hatred for so long that it’s their reality. These people genuinely believe that the greatest evil in the world is Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, and Rush Limbaugh. I’m not exaggerating. There is no one in the entire world they hate more than those conservatives. Bin Laden? No hate there. They don’t like him, but at least he’s not a conservative. Leaders of communist regimes who engage in mass-murder and oppression? They’re not as bad as conservatives. Radical theocracies that oppress women and actually persecute gays? They’re not as evil as those Christians!

They reserve their real hatred for conservatives. They genuinely hate us more than anything in this world. I don’t think you’re aware of what they’re willing to allow themselves to believe in order to justify their hatred of us. That’s why they bought into excusing Clinton’s felonies as the workings of deranged conservative imaginations. And that’s why they’ll overlook any criticism of Obama, just as they did during the campaign. Any criticism of Obama is just a baseless political attack by right-wing lunatics.

They already believe it. That’s why Obama knows that he can do anything. All this talk about his plunging numbers? Completely baseless. How else to explain how he can do what he’s already done and still have approval ratings in the sixties? Think about it: a trillion dollars funneled to liberal special interests to await future campaigns, political and judicial appointments as payoffs, insulting Republicans at every turn, forcing taxpayers to fund abortions and human embryonic experimentation, paying states to increase their welfare roles, nationalizing banks and threatening to nationalize other institutions, dear God, the list goes on and on. And his approval ratings are in the sixties!

As long as they hate conservatives more than they love their children, there is no hope.
- JohnJ | 03/23/2009 @ 00:41

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Obama to Provide More Oversight on Executive CompensationSunday, March 22nd, 2009

Obama to Provide More Oversight on Executive Compensation
Sunday, March 22nd, 2009