Obama’s plan to regulate paychecks

Like I was say… you make too much!

No long ago in a speech, the president said that executives that receive bonuses in this economy is in bad taste and as president, he won’t stand for it.  Now, it seems reasonable to agree that executives and employees that work for companies that would have gone out of business except for large cash infusions from the tax payers should not receive bonuses.  However, back when I saw this I noticed that between the lines Obama wasn’t attacking those companies, but all companies.

Today I was reading an article that indicated that Obama was going to introduce a new plan that would call for increased oversight of executive pay at all financial companies and not just those that received taxpayer help.

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 plan to overhaul financial regulation, the New York Times reported.

The story mentions that the administration is currently debating how broadly they can regulate the pay of private companies.  Another worrisome fact is that they will not achieve this through legislation, but rather through regulation.

The changes could go into effect through regulations, not legislation, depending on the result of discussions on the issue.

The article goes on to report more troubling information:

The regulations would reportedly cover all financial establishments, not just those receiving federal bailout aid and would likely work to ensure executive pay was in line with the financial interest of the company.

So now, the administration that is running trillion dollar deficits, is filled with people that can’t figure out their tax forms, and is still “working” on a plan to rescue banks is going to be deciding how to best pay executives as private companies to ensure the companies are well run.

Regan said it best when he said something along the lines of “government isn’t the solution to our problems, it isthe problem”.  Now they are finding new and creative ways to be a bigger problem.  Our income tax system started as a way to limit the wealth of a few extremely wealthy individuals and then trickled down to the rest of us to the point that the government believes that it can take over 1/3 of our incomes.  I imagine that it will only be a few more years when depending upon what you do for a living, anything over what the government things is good for the company will be taxed at 90% or more.

We are all rich when it comes to Cap and Trade

Like I was sayin… you get what you ask for.

Everybody wants to be kind to the environment, however, some would like all Americans to pay a hidden tax to combat the specter of global warming (or climate change, the new ice age, or whatever bugaboo the climate fear-monger’s PR department is using now).

The president’s current budget depends upon and plans for vast revenues from a cap and trade program.  Some people assume that corporations will just pay these fees without passing on the expense to customers.  This is a very naive way of looking at how businesses work.

Today in the WSJ, there was a great opinion piece that lays out the ramifications for all Americans.

Hit hardest would be the “95% of working families” Mr. Obama keeps mentioning, usually omitting that his no-new-taxes pledge comes with the caveat “unless you use energy.” Putting a price on carbon is regressive by definition because poor and middle-income households spend more of their paychecks on things like gas to drive to work, groceries or home heating.

The bottom 95% of earners will not have their direct taxes raised, but rather the amount that they pay in pass through taxes.  A pass through tax is a tax that a company passes along to it’s customers.  By the way, all taxes levied on businesses are pass through taxes.

Interestingly enough, this “tax” would not be spread evenly across all Americans.  Some will be harder hit than others.

Coal provides more than half of U.S. electricity, and 25 states get more than 50% of their electricity from conventional coal-fired generation. In Ohio, it totals 86%, according to the Energy Information Administration. Ratepayers in Indiana (94%), Missouri (85%), New Mexico (80%), Pennsylvania (56%), West Virginia (98%) and Wyoming (95%) are going to get soaked.

The fact that individual Americans will be required to pay for this type of program seems to not sink in for many Americans.

Many liberal democrats have lamented the drop in oil prices which were impacting all Americans.  This cap and trade scheme put forth by the administration is an attempt to push energy prices back up.  In another opinion piece in the WSJ, Laura D’Andrea Tyson points out:

 Critics of a cap-and-trade system are correct when they claim it will raise the prices of goods and services whose production and use emit carbon. That’s exactly the point: Higher prices are necessary to encourage energy efficiency and the development of renewable energy, to discourage carbon emissions, and to reduce the societal costs of global warming.

Here again is the specter of global warming being put forth as justification for enacting policies that will be detrimental to all Americans.  The fact that global average temperatures have been dropping for the last 8 to 10 years doesn’t seem to figure into the calculation.

Slowly but surely, Americans will begin to realize the path we are headed down.  I only hope that it won’t be too late to reverse course when they do understand.

Brown to Obama: “Did you get a gift receipt?”

Like I was sayin… what else was in the bargain bin?

As is the custom, when leaders from two nations visit for the first time, gifts are exchanged.  These gifts need not be extravagant, but often have some meaning behind them.  I was reading a recent story on-line about our current president.

During the recent visit by the British PM, Tony Brown, Obama and Brown exchanged gifts.  Brown presented Obama with some unique gifts including:

The first of which is a pen holder fashioned from the oak timber of HMS Gannet, a Navy vessel that served on anti-slavery missions off Africa.

Obviously, Brown understands the significance of America’s first African American president.

Another treasure given to Obama is a framed commissioning paper for the HMS Resolute, a Royal Navy ship that came to symbolize British-American goodwill when it was rescued by the U.S. from icebergs and given to Queen Victoria. It is the sister ship of the HMS Gannet.

Again, another well thoughout gift symbolizing the friendship between America and the UK.

Finally, Brown gave Obama a first edition of Martin Gilbert’s seven-volume biography of Winston Churchill, whose World War II partnership with President Franklin Roosevelt symbolized the U.S.-Anglo alliance.

All of these gifts were very well thought out. 

However, I would have loved to see Brown’s face when Obama presented his gift to Brown…

President Obama on Thursday gave British Prime Minister Gordon Brown a set of 25 classic American movies to mark his historic visit to the White House.

Let’s just hope that there weren’t any Revolutionary War movies included in the set…