Unsolicited Punditry #2

Earning Money the Old Fashioned Way

The Sunday morning news shows prattle on about the AIG bonuses today and the proposed 90% redacto tax that congress is looking to file on them. I started thinking about these events going on about the Congress voting, knowingly, deliberately trying to "game" the Constitution and finding a loophole in which to violate it.

Then I had a conversation with someone that started me considering the question of how does one actually "earn" their wages? What entitles someone to the pay they get? I realized quickly that this is not an easily determined question and is highly subject to opinion, conjecture and personal involvement. So how can government, or even individual citizens say, with a straight face that someone has actually "earned" his living? I don't think they should be allowed to continue with these statements unchallenged anymore.

There is a serious flaw in the argument that someone does or does not earn a wage. The best way that I can concieve to illustrate it is to ask them what they do for a living and why they actually DO earn their wage. Most people when confronted with how much pay they are recieving from their employer is that they are underpaid for the amount of work they put in. Almost everyone believes that they are worth more than what they are paid for their time and effort. This is the foundation of the flaw in the argument. Nobody, except for a small few, believe they do not deserve higher pay.

Now, when you look at the situation of someone ELSE'S pay, often the statement is that they are overpaid. This sentiment is usually shared by everyone who is underpaid or a congenial busybody, concerned more with what's going on in other people's lives than their own. They discount, by near reflex, duties of the job as not worthy of pay, when they themselves would count the effort as needing even more pay if they were doing the job. This requires a certain level of intellectual dishonesty and/or a lack of self awareness. Unfortunately, these diseases are totally rampant in today's society as well as highly difficult to cure because the process is painful and often transformative.

So, here we are, stuck between those who believe they deserve more when they are doing it, but everyone else deserves less if they do a job. But the complications do not end there. We must also look at the entrepreneur who's arbiter of pay is not based on what an employer pays based on the negotiating prowess of the employee, what the competition is paying and market pressures. No, the self-made businessman's only arbiter of earnings is his own personal greed and success of business versus what the market is willing to pay for his services. In some regard this is the case for all employees, it is just more evident in the case of an entrepreneur because the market is much more visible.

If a product is overpriced, people will buy it less or not at all, directly affecting the bottom line. The owner may decide to turn down his current profits from the work he does for future, larger gains. Growing his business over growing his own wallet. Where the issue becomes almost a monstrous joke is when a company becomes SO successful, that the profits cannot be helped but be considered extreme due to the relative scale compared to other businesses. Most people cannot relate or even sympathize with a business owner that is suddenly faced with tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars in profit due to it's sudden popularity or success. Now, the money's there, goods and services have been traded fairly on the open market, and his business has EARNED them. Then in come the jealous saying... but does he really DESERVE them? Yet often, if this level of growth occurred over an extended period of time, the question would nary come to the fore. People think that it is only "natural". Sudden change seems to be a major catalyst in this level of jealousy.

But flip the argument and put the person who questions the justification of keeping earnings in the same position, a vast, vast, vast super-duper majority of them would say yes! I made the company, I own it, I deserve it. It's only "fair" after all I should profit from my hard work. Of course, this requires a level of intellectual honesty that is rapidly failing in this society at large. It gets back to the general hypocrisy of "I deserve it but they do not" for the same job; and unless that basic hypocrisy is expunged, you can never win the discussion.

With corporations, this is a much harder path to follow, but a similar one none the less. You have shareholders to consider as well. Hence why, till the Clinton Administration, you could compensate your executives with massive salaries and perks to keep them, and make sure you had the best and brightest running your company. Talent costs. And talent that can run a massive global corporation costs much more than most poeple can concieve. These people make decisions that affect thousands, if not millions of lives. One signature can make or break whole economies. It's the law of scale in action. Yet now, thanks to the perception that large salaries are not deserved, companies must find other ways to compensate fairly for the talent they hire. When wage and price controls were enacted by FDR, we suddenly had the creation of "benefits" like paid, health insurance, vacation time, perks like cars and homes. It was the only way to retain the people who could do and had done so well, even in times of crisis. Today, it's stock options and outright "performance" bonuses.

Unfortunately, we have government interference in executive pay in the form of wage controls that is considered to be ineffective. They were all negotiated and both sides agreed (Board of Directors and potential executive) that they were fair. This is the capitalist system at it's finest. You want how much? This is what we want to pay. You and I negotiate to X amount and find it agreeable. It's only the monday morning quarterbacks, busibodies and the jealous who complain and lobby government to stop others from getting what they deserve or negotiate for. Harming the earnings of others is never a recipe for personal satisfaction (unless you are particularly sociopatic or malicious) or incentive to keep those who have skills others will pay the massive salaries for that you cannot control.

Now, the politicians and society at large are trying to use shame and austerity as the new values to force people, personally (sometimes also through threats of death and violence) refuse taking what they worked so hard to earn. Intimidation is a horrible weapon to aim at common citizens for doing what they can for their family and personal life. Working hard and being rewarded fairly. Now yes, there can be times of unfair compensation, but of what harm is it to the public unless it is a service they are all forced to use, or a product they cannot avoid? It is a company's fault for bad negotiation, or failure to factor in changes that could adversely affect them in the public sector of opinion or to their bottom line.

So, here we sit. Those who can't are not only criticizing, but attempting to insert themselves into the equation to STEAL from those who can, and have, and are contractually owed for their work. The politicians, who many knew well in advance, of AIG bonuses being contractual obligations, are having a tantrum and furor over something they should have no problem with or should have taken into account before public money became involved. Yes, the government now owns 80% of the company, but it is still illegal to go back and take from those people what is owed them and was negotiated out. It is in fact a direct violation of the Constitution for them to do so. The matter that it is also not the Constitutionally mandated business of the government doesn't seem to even enter into their thoughts. I leave that aspect for a future column.

But no, their political dander is up in an effort to redistribute wealth from those who deserve to those who do not. Their clarion call is one of "Fairness" and "Equality" and "Earned Wages". They are so blind to their lust for riches and power, that they cannot see that they are the ones being unequal and unfair, and the people they wish to give the money back to (which they never will to begin with) do not deserve it either. What makes matters worse is that the overall tenor of the government is that it has become one vast charitable organization, backed with guns and law requiring you to participate and be complicit with it's desires. A far cry from the original intent of the Constitution.

These are the words of those who wish to end a nation where we are all free to pursue, life, liberty and happiness. No, we enslave ourselves to the opinion of others who through some arbitrary and nebulous personal formula decide for themselves when we've had enough life, liberty and happiness.

The mob is trying to rule, and unless stopped, we all will suffer.

Unsoliscited Punditry #1

Hard Choices, Blame and the Price of Liberty

What is the sound of freedom dying?
Is there a color to tyranny rising?
Can you smell the death of your rights?
Do you feel the Constitution shredding?

The instant that Congress moved to enact a tax of 90% against AIG and other corporate bonus recipients, we became a dictatorial state with the trappings of a democracy just like any other banana republic like Venezuela and Cuba. It is only a matter of time before we become the targets of such avarice and greed by the political class. The war against the common citizenry of America has begun, and this was our 'Boston Massacre'.

The Congress of the United States, or at least select members of it in charge of running the system. Chris Dodd, Chuck Schumer, Barney Frank, Maxine Waters and Nancy Pelosi seem to be prime movers in this economic debacle, but many more are stretching from it's epicenter and roots are complicit as well. The new administration is far from innocent with P-BO and Hillary also being tied to strings of corruption and payola to the source of the economic collapse. Whatever could I mean? Just this:

AIG, Freddie Mac, and Fannie Mae all were massive donors to each one of these people's campaigns. Chris Dodd recieved sweetheart loan deals from Countrywide due to his collusion and illicit protection of corruption and probably illegal activities in Freddie and Fannie. Combine this with Dodd being the largest recipiant of AIG "contributions" to his campaign. Next in line behind Dodd for buy off "contributions" would be Clinton, Obama and Frank. If their actions following this monetary assistance to their campaigns present past and future is not conspiracy to defraud as well, it is at least a conflict of interest and bordering on bribery. There needs to be ethics and potentially criminal investigations going on right now into the involvement with these people. If they are willing to tie AIG to the stake and burn it, they need to be considered as well.

Now these are people currently in power to blame for this mess. Some, are continuing to make it worse to protect their own personal agendas and power. Unfortunately this collapse was long in the making, with origins stretching back to the Carter administration and "Community Reinvestment Act" and the creation of sub-prime loans. The administrations and congresses since then are not out of the woods either, for many of them expanded and or protected the continuing problem as the fundamental flaws of this crisis grew, fertilized by greed and personal ambition. Heads of Freddie and Fannie mistating earings so they could gain big bonuses like Franklin Raines and Jamie Gorelick are to blame as well for covering up the eventual collapse with fancy accounting and outright lies on the real situation.

At least the W Administration tried to rein in Freddy and Fannie... but too late. The question was only of when it would collapse by then. It would have collapsed at a particularly inopportune time for all involved, and the protectors of Freddie and Fannie by those Congressmen and Senators currently in charge of this disaster were never going to do anything to threaten this power structure for their own re-election.

So now, we the people, look at the smoking financial ruin of our nation, in a strange form of freefall. As if somehow it had a velocity of it's own and is still being kept aloft in a floating miasm of it's own disintegrating wreck, beginning to fall to earth. We have to figure a way to make this a controlled crash or impact. Something to walk away from. The issue is one of who should be at the controls. Those currently there are either at fault for this and are fighting for their phoney baloney jobs, or incompetant, or attempting to use policies created 80 years before that failed. FDR was a cataclysmic failure, and the current admin wishes to return to these??

No, we need to stop this. We, as a people... as a NATION... need to stand up together and demand accountability for mismanagement. For corruption. For greed. For personal power grabs of the most heinous sort... from our representatives in government. We need to shake ourselves from shock and deal with this crisis, shoving those who are trying to protect themselves and their friends from righteous blame and anger, out of the way.

This is no longer a time for children to play, but a matter for men and women to deal with the horrible realities we now face, as a way to save ourselves and those we love from true hardship not seen since the 1930s.

This means assessing problems and fixing them post haste. Credit and blame can be assigned after we are safe again. Those that hamper real solutions by offering convoluted fixes to cover their own agendas and illicit gains need to be bulldozed to the side and dealt with appropriately after this is over.

The ultimate question is: Are we a people capable of doing such hard choices and tasks on our own, or have we softened to the point of permanent victim status till someone else takes us over?

Time will tell.