Thursday Open Thread

Sorry, boys and girls, just don’t have the “oomph” right now to put up something good for the morning.

Discuss amongst yourselves whom you think will be the next Obama Administration official to quit over taxes, or what have you…

So, President Obama Wants to Regulate Executive Salaries

And, naturally, given that he’s got zero real world business experience, he’s going about it entirely the wrong way.

We all have a strong justification for being angered over business leaders of failing firms getting large salaries and passing out bonuses to themselves. Keeping in mind that the (rather absurd, but there it is) justification for the fabulous salaries and bonuses paid to senior executives is that this is the only way to get them to take a proprietary interest in the firm’s success. With this justification, the logical outcome for executives of firms losing money is that they should be paid little, or nothing. Paid high to make a company a success, paid little or nothing if the company tanks.

Obama’s plan, from what I gather, is that there will be an upward ceiling on executive salary (500k is what I’ve heard) and that any stock options will be in stocks restricted from sale until the firm has paid back the money provided by Uncle Sam. To put a generous spin on this, we’ll say that Obama is just clueless about how slick executives will just work their way right around Obama’s plan by paying themselves vast amounts of stocks and just sitting on it for as long as necessary…they are already rich, so they can wait ten years to cash in…and as the stocks of these firms are low priced right now, such executives stand to reap a massive windfall (ie, pay themselves a hundred thousand dollars worth of stock valued at $10 a share today, sell it when permitted 5 years from now when those ten thousand shares are going for $25 a share). To put a negative spin on it, Obama is giving us populist eyewash, fully aware that he’s not really limiting anyone’s salary…and he’s expecting loyalty in return for this from the executives. I’ll leave it to you, dear reader, to decide which one you like best.

But we do want to fix things up, right? I mean, heck with a bunch of CEO’s who’ve made a hash out of things. The solution? Make executive salary a fixed percentage of the pre-tax profit of the firm. No profit, no salary…high profit, high salary. Who will go for this? Real business leaders who are willing to stake their time and energy for no pay today in hopes of a massive payday down the road when they’ve turned Failing Enterprise X around. We won’t have corporate time-servers who get by on a old-boy (and girl) network where actual decisions are not taken for fear of failure and when things go in the tank its always the hourly employees and the public who have to feel the hardest pinch.

Our fundamental problem here, friends, is moral – for CEOs to promote each other and pay themselves astronomical salaries as if they really earned the money is shortsighted greed at its worst. For Congressional overseers to be willing to allow corrupt practices in return for a junket and a donation or two is, also, shortsighted greed at its worst. If we really want to fix the practices of the firms, we need to change the way things are done so all of the incentives are on courageously doing the right thing. We keep this current system and tack on to it Obama’s asinine plan about executive pay and all we’re doing is making things worse…now it will be a matter of greasing palms in DC in order to get the best executive package in Detroit and there will be an even larger disconnect between CEO salaries and company performance.

Regarding Fascism

In relatively recent years, the left have more or less made a cottage industry out of labelling conservatives “fascists.”

But let’s take a close look at a key component of the definition of fascism of the economic sense, shall we? Specifically, as fascism defined as government and business intertwined so as to make them inseparable, to wit:

Fascists considered the economy to be of little importance, and did not have clear economic views. One significant fascist economic belief was that prosperity would naturally follow once the nation has achieved a cultural and spiritual re-awakening.[16] Often, different members of a fascist party would make completely opposite statements about the economic policies they supported.[17] Once in power, fascists usually adopted whatever economic program they believed to be most suitable for their political goals

Okay, let’s begin to break this down. First,

One significant fascist economic belief was that prosperity would naturally follow once the nation has achieved a cultural and spiritual awakening.

A cultural and spiritual awakening…is this why the agenda media were willing to overlook and/or gave short shrift to many of the Obama scandals, from his friendships with Tony Rezko, Rev. Wright and William Ayers, to the flak over his birth certificate? Is this illustrative of the near messianic esteem in which the masses held their lord and savior, Lord Voldemort Obama?

Let’s go on, shall we?

The Warren G. Harding Model

If we are to step back in time and gain insights to repair our economy, we don’t have to stop with FDR:

In the first half of last century two presidents inherited recessionary economies from their predecessors. Both campaigned on smaller government, and both blamed the profligate ways of the previous president for their economic problems. One ended the recession in less than three years; the other lengthened it by seven. One responded with laissez-faire capitalism; the other with unprecedented government expansion. Scholars rank one among the worst presidents ever; the other they rank as one of the best. These two men are Warren Harding and Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Warren Harding was elected president in 1920 at the end of World War I, directly following the popular Woodrow Wilson. Harding inherited an economy transitioning away from wartime production as well as decreasing international demand for many American goods that had driven economic growth during the war. American factories were retooling and soldiers were coming home looking for work. The nation’s output, by some measures, fell as much as 24 percent and unemployment more than doubled between 1920 and 1921. Between 1919 and 1921, farm income had dropped by 40 percent. The country was falling deep into recession.

Instead of bailing out failing businesses, expanding government, and redistributing taxpayer money with a “stimulus” plan, Harding responded by cutting spending and removing burdensome regulations and taxes. During his campaign, he argued, “We need vastly more freedom than we do regulation.” In stark contrast with the Bush-Obama response of ever-more government spending and debt, Harding had federal spending cut in half between 1920 and 1922 and ultimately ran a surplus.

As a result, the recession that started in 1920 ended before 1923. Lower taxes and reduced regulation helped America’s economy quickly adjust after the war as entrepreneurs and capital were freed to create jobs and push the economy to recover. Harding’s free market policies lead to the Roaring Twenties, known for technological advances, women’s rights, the explosion of the middle class, and some of the most rapid economic growth in American history.

Harding ran afoul of personal failings and was tainted by the horrific “Teapot Dome” scandal…but given that Obama is already has a taint of scandal to his Administration, lets not get too particular here. What we want right now is a road map out of our economic morass…and cutting spending and taxes is just what the economic doctor ordered. Its really just as simple as the Harding quote makes it – more freedom will result in more prosperity. There are, right now, millions of American champing at the bit for a chance to start their own business, or expand the one they already own…but they are held back not so much by economic uncertainty (even in the best of times starting a small business is the definition of “uncertainty”) but by concerns over taxation and regulation. No one knows what tomorrow will bring in the form of new government imposts and regulatory fiats, and you can’t plan if you are that uncertain about what may happen, government-wise.

If, on the other hand, Obama could assure the American people that he’ll spend less each year he’s in office and that he’ll at the very least keep President Bush’s tax cuts, that would be enough to get the economic ball rolling again. There would be enough certainty about government that people would feel comfortable risking their capital and their sweat equity in new ventures. This isn’t rocket science, boys and girls; its just economics. Allow people to produce and consume and, hey presto!, they will produce and consume…stick a government monkey-wrench in there, and you’ll seize the whole thing up. Will Obama be our new Harding, or our new monkey-wrench?

Romney as "Health Czar"?

Interesting concept:

President Obama could do worse. Romney has a bad reputation among Congressional Democrats, so I can’t imagine they’d cotton to this. In fact, it’s highly unlikely. But what Romney, in a bipartisan fashion, was able to do in Massachusetts — even with caveats — is pretty much the same as what Obama wants to do on a national level. Karen Tumulty notes that Romney is the only American who can claim the provision of universal health care as a resume line. Didn’t help him in the GOP too much, but that’s another discussion. If Obama wanted to bring Romney into the cabinet, he’d have to balance him by appointing a pro-choicer to a top HHS post because there are so many controversial, sexuality-related programs in that department that apportion money. The thinking here is that Romney would be the White House health care czar and that a Democrat — Gov. Kitzhaber of Oregon, maybe — would move over to Health and Human Services.

It is a good fit and Romney could get things done that no Democrat could – and if we are to have some sort of national health system, better to have it with a bit of free market principles as Romney would certainly insert into the mix. It is highly unlikely, but these are strange times, and Obama is proving himself thus far inept at cabinet-building.

What really bugs me about this and Gates at Defense as well as other possible GOP appointments? That we GOPers might end up saving Obama from himself…in order to save the country, we might saddle ourselves with a second Obama term.

Ah, well, patriotism does at times require one to do distasteful things…

House Democrats Rebel Against Queen Nancy I

And her some times loyal minion, Duke Hoyer of JP Morgan ($35,300 in donations in 2008):

A group of more than 50 House Democrats has penned a letter to Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) imploring him to “restore this institution” and see that the House returns to a “regular order” process of legislating.

The letter, signed by a large number of the conservative Blue Dog Coalition and the centrist New Democratic Coalition, has not yet been sent. Members are still gathering signatures in an effort to send the strongest signal possible to all top House Democrats that the caucus is up in arms over the top-down method of legislating employed by Democrats since late last year…

…Since last year, many senior House Democrats — many of them subcommittee chairmen — have grown overly frustrated with how only small and select bands of legislators have been responsible for writing bills, such as the $700 billion Wall Street bailout as well as much of the $819 billion economic stimulus bill.

Democratic leaders have acknowledged that the “regular order” process of methodically developing and writing bills in subcommittees and committees has been abandoned recently. But they have defended the handling of such sensitive and important legislation by only an exclusive group of leadership and senior lawmakers as a necessary tactic during exceptional times.

This is probably the result of just what has turned out to be in that Obama-Pelosi-Ried We’ll-Spend-Your-Money-You-Just-Shut-The-Heck-Up Sink the Ship of State “Stimulus” bill – had these provisions been subjected to committee hearings and votes, a lot of the worst aspects wouldn’t have made it – because with these 50 moderate Democrats coupled with a clearly united GOP minority, nothing would get passed without it being a moderate, bi-partisan bill…unless, that is, Nancy and Co took the House members out of the loop and just presented them with a bill for an up or down vote. With Obama’s seal of approval on it, it was very hard for any Democrats to muster the courage to vote against it – those eleven who did are heroes, but these 50 who are now rebelling are also being heroic.

The linked article does claim that Pelosi is soliciting advice and input from rank and file House Democrats, but I consider that to be BS – she might ask for advice, but she’s certainly not actually doing anything with it. When 20% or so of your caucus goes public with dissent, it means that you’re just giving your side eyewash.

We do have a serious crisis on our hands here. Now, I don’t think that we’ll end up doing the very right thing (think massive cuts in spending), but we can at least do the least-bad thing, and that would be a round of immediate stimulus spending and tax cuts. This would at least restore a measure of confidence and we might be able to crawl out of this morass into 1 or 2% annual GDP growth by 2011. What Obama-Pelosi-Reid propose is that which is tailor made to turn a recession into a depression – its like watching a loved one getting involved a slow motion train wreck. Anyone with any sense at all can see where Obama and Co are headed, and for the most part we sat powerless to do anything to stop it – until the House GOP stood firm, and now these 50 Democrats have also stood up to be counted.

We can work this out, boys and girls, and force through a bill which Obama will have to sign and which will if not cure our ills, at least make them manageable. Three cheers of these House Democrats, and lets hope this attitude starts to spread.

Obama's Wall of Shame

Today brings the total to three Obama nominees who have had to withdraw their names from consideration due to scandals. Today’s newbies to the Wall of Shame are Tom Daschle and Nancy Killefer.

It seems like most (if not all) of Obama’s nominees have been tainted in someway. It certainly destroys Obama’s claim that what he lacks in experience he makes up for in judgment.

So I guess that leaves us with a president who has zero experience and really poor judgment.

Open Thread: Tuesday Afternoon

Which is the title of a really good song by the Moody Blues – but also a good time for an open thread.

First, some poetry:

Let those who are in favour with their stars

Of public honour and proud titles boast,

Whilst I, whom fortune of such triumph bars

Unlook’d for joy in that I honour most.

Great princes’ favourites their fair leaves spread

But as the marigold at the sun’s eye,

And in themselves their pride lies buried,

For at a frown they in their glory die.

The painful warrior famoused for fight,

After a thousand victories once foiled,

Is from the book of honour razed quite,

And all the rest forgot for which he toiled:

Then happy I, that love and am beloved,

Where I may not remove nor be removed.

- Wm. Shakespeare

Then a joke:

Why Beer Is Better Than Obama

Beer is better than Obama because soldiers like beer.

Beer is better than Obama because beer doesn’t mind if you cling to your beer.

Beer is better than Obama because sailors like beer.

Beer is better than Obama because beer doesn’t mind if you own an SUV.

Beer is better than Obama because marines like beer.

Beer is better than Obama because beer isn’t a lawyer.

Beer is better than Obama because beer and whine don’t mix.

Now, have at it.

Even the New York Times is Ditching Daschle

From the paper which essentially says Obama can do no wrong:

When President Obama nominated former Senator Tom Daschle to be his secretary of health and human services, it seemed to be a good choice. Mr. Daschle, as the co-author of a book on health care reform, knew a lot about one of the president’s signature issues. As a former Senate majority leader, he also knew a lot about guiding controversial bills through Congress, where he remains liked and respected by former colleagues.

Unfortunately, new facts have come to light — involving his failure to pay substantial taxes that were owed and his sizable income from health-related companies while he worked in the private sector — that call into question his suitability for the job. We believe that Mr. Daschle ought to step aside and let the president choose a less-blemished successor.

Of course, if you read the entire editorial you won’t find the Times condemning Obama for being fool enough to appoint someone like Daschle…to do that would also call into question Obama’s judgement on a bunch of his other nominees with, as they say, “ethical lapses” (what we say is they’re crooks, but such phraseology is banned when describing Democrats). The MSM is still in full-blown worship mode as it relates to Obama, but the plain fact of the matter is that Obama has assembled a which is going to be the major stumbling block to enacting Obama’s plans. A collection of has-beens, crooks and hacks with only one or two adults in the whole mix (hard to believe that we’re relying upon Hillary and Panetta to keep Obama’s Administration more or less up on the rails).

This is what we get when we elect to the Presidency a man who, point blank, is not fitted by knowledge or experience to be President. We can only hope he has the stomach for the job and that he’s a really quick learner.

Meanwhile, Daschle has to go – and Obama should figure out the best way of getting rid of a couple other albatrosses ’round his neck (Holder immediately springs to mind) as soon as he can ease them out without too much of a fuss.

The War President Obama Wanted us to Lose

Has been handsomely won, and while we go forward backing our Commander in Chief in his efforts to win in Afghanistan, settle the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and put a lid on Iran, we must keep in mind that in his first real foray into foreign and military affairs, he goofed up really, really bad:

Iraq held provincial elections in an environment of calm that would have been unimaginable two years ago. That the elections came off in such an orderly, peaceful manner is further testament to the success of the surge and suggests that the change American efforts have achieved in Iraq’s security environment may be sustainable over the long run.

We won’t know the final results of the elections for weeks, but early reports are that Sunni and Shiite secular parties have fared relatively better than their religious counterparts. If this is the case, it will be a step toward empowering Iraqis locked out of the current power structure and making Iraqi politics more truly representative.

You on the left need to take a lesson here – first off, realize how very wrong you were to call for withdrawal timetables; you were also wrong to call the campaign in Iraq lost; you were further wrong when you said that we can’t implant democracy into the Moslem world. A bit of humility is your best medicine right now – that and start learning a bit about war and foreign affairs, and chuck all your books by Noam Chomsky in the garbage, as they aren’t even worth recycling. Right now, it is your guy Obama who has the ball – and you can help him help America, or you can fail him and fail America. The war isn’t over, and there is some hard fighting left to do and we might be called upon to do the very same things President Bush had to do…but this time, it’d be nice if you’d get behind our military and act like patriots, for once.