This Goes Too Far

This is just not cool.

"Beyond AIG: A Bill to let Big Government Set Your Salary"

It was nearly two weeks ago that the House of Representatives, acting in a near-frenzy after the disclosure of bonuses paid to executives of AIG, passed a bill that would impose a 90 percent retroactive tax on those bonuses. Despite the overwhelming 328-93 vote, support for the measure began to collapse almost immediately. Within days, the Obama White House backed away from it, as did the Senate Democratic leadership. The bill stalled, and the populist storm that spawned it seemed to pass.

But now, in a little-noticed move, the House Financial Services Committee, led by chairman Barney Frank, has approved a measure that would, in some key ways, go beyond the most draconian features of the original AIG bill. The new legislation, the "Pay for Performance Act of 2009," would impose government controls on the pay of all employees -- not just top executives -- of companies that have received a capital investment from the U.S. government. It would, like the tax measure, be retroactive, changing the terms of compensation agreements already in place. And it would give Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner extraordinary power to determine the pay of thousands of employees of American companies.

The purpose of the legislation is to "prohibit unreasonable and excessive compensation and compensation not based on performance standards," according to the bill's language. That includes regular pay, bonuses -- everything -- paid to employees of companies in whom the government has a capital stake, including those that have received funds through the Troubled Assets Relief Program, or TARP, as well as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The measure is not limited just to those firms that received the largest sums of money, or just to the top 25 or 50 executives of those companies. It applies to all employees of all companies involved, for as long as the government is invested. And it would not only apply going forward, but also retroactively to existing contracts and pay arrangements of institutions that have already received funds.

In addition, the bill gives Geithner the authority to decide what pay is "unreasonable" or "excessive." And it directs the Treasury Department to come up with a method to evaluate "the performance of the individual executive or employee to whom the payment relates."

The bill passed the Financial Services Committee last week, 38 to 22, on a nearly party-line vote. (All Democrats voted for it, and all Republicans, with the exception of Reps. Ed Royce of California and Walter Jones of North Carolina, voted against it.)

Three words come to mind when I hear this...

OH...MY...GOD....

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You Knew It Was Coming Eventually

All of that money for the bail-out had to come from somewhere...

China "worried" about US Treasury Holdings

$2 TRILLION in U.S. debt to China. They have a reason to be worried. If something were to happen and the US defaulted on those loans, there would be at least 2 crippled countries.

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SERIOUSLY?

The Obama team is going to make retired veterans use private insurance to pay for service related injuries.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki confirmed Tuesday that the Obama administration is considering a controversial plan to make veterans pay for treatment of service-related injuries with private insurance.
But the proposal would be "dead on arrival" if it's sent to Congress, Sen. Patty Murray, D-Washington, said.

...Currently, veterans' private insurance is charged only when they receive health care from the VA for medical issues that are not related to service injuries, like getting the flu.

In the words of Hot Air...
"Most politically tone-deaf proposal ever."

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Going Galt?

In the book Atlas Shrugged, executives, and other leaders and innovators are becoming harder to find. They are objecting to the government's move towards socialism and statism, and to protest are no longer helping to pay for the government.

In the book, as these people leave employment and the government's revenue drops, the society begins to collapse.

Something like that is not too far off.

New York City has almost 9 million citizens, and according to Mayor Mike Bloomberg, 40,000 of those residents pay 50% of the total taxes the city takes in. This isn't only income taxes, but this is also sales taxes, property taxes, and corporate taxes. The thing people forget when they hear this "40,000 people pay 50% of taxes" is that chances are, the CEO's not only pay a ton in income taxes, but they also likely live in the city in a purchased condo/penthouse that they have to pay property taxes on. They also probably own the building that their business is in, and have to pay property taxes on that. Then they have to pay any form of corporate taxes and such to the city.

So yes, 40,000 people CAN and DO pay 50% of NYC taxes.

And if you don't think that those people might be looking to move to, say, Florida, just look at California. Start Thinking Right has a great piece on the subject and quotes the California Business Roundtable's findings;

1. The cost of doing business in California is 30 percent higher than the western-state average.

2. Almost 40 percent of the California decision-makers participating in the Roundtable survey plan to “outsource” jobs from California to other western states, preferably Texas.

3. Half of the companies have “explicit policies to halt employment growth in California while less than five percent of companies have retention policies in place to keep jobs in California.”

4. Last, California’s “regulatory environment is the most costly, complex and uncertain in the nation.” Regulatory costs are 105 percent higher in California than in other western states.

Outsourcing from one country to another is as legitimate as outsourcing from one state to another. It’s a principle from Econ 101. And, it works: Just monitor California.

Or, people could just use their wealth and stop working. I know if I were that wealthy, I could find something to occupy my time.

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New "Compromise" Reached

The "Bi-partisan" stimulus package (which republican conferees were frozen out of) which is estimated to produce 3.5 million jobs has reached a "tentative deal."

$789.5 Billion.

That amounts to $225,571.43 of government spending for each job that "should be produced."

Let's look at that $789,500,000,000 to "create 3,5000,000 jobs."



From Congress Daily, via Michelle Malkin;

It appears that Pelosi and Reid staff met all through the night in secret with Democratic conferees’ staff to cobble together the “stimulus” conference report. Republican conferees were frozen out.
The objective appears to be to produce a final conference report on the trillion-dollar spending bill by this afternoon so that floor action can take place in both chambers by Thursday.
They intend to ram this trillion-dollar spending bill through with as little debate and scrutiny as possible.
The House voted unanimously yesterday in support of a Republican measure stating that the American should have 48 hrs to review the bill prior to passage. Will Democrats follow through? Or will they do the opposite of what they voted to do yesterday?

Red State has more.

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Mmmm, Tases Like...

A CRAP SANDWICH!

Check out Bloomberg's analysis of the Health (No) Care package that is placed in the bill;

Daschle says health-care reform “will not be pain free.” Seniors should be more accepting of the conditions that come with age instead of treating them. That means the elderly will bear the brunt.

Medicare now pays for treatments deemed safe and effective. The stimulus bill would change that and apply a cost- effectiveness standard set by the Federal Council (464).

The Federal Council is modeled after a U.K. board discussed in Daschle’s book. This board approves or rejects treatments using a formula that divides the cost of the treatment by the number of years the patient is likely to benefit. Treatments for younger patients are more often approved than treatments for diseases that affect the elderly, such as osteoporosis.

In 2006, a U.K. health board decreed that elderly patients with macular degeneration had to wait until they went blind in one eye before they could get a costly new drug to save the other eye. It took almost three years of public protests before the board reversed its decision.

Some of it is good. For example, keeping your medical record on an electric file for hospitals to easily access your records and previous problems. But there's also this;

One new bureaucracy, the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, will monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost effective. The goal is to reduce costs and “guide” your doctor’s decisions (pages 442, 446). These provisions in the stimulus bill are virtually identical to what Daschle prescribed in his 2008 book, “Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis.” According to Daschle, doctors have to give up autonomy and “learn to operate less like solo practitioners.”

Keeping doctors informed of the newest medical findings is important, but enforcing uniformity goes too far.

Oh yeah, and after Wall Street dropped I don't think investors like the idea either. Can you tell when Geithner made his speech describing the bill?

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My Kids Are Getting Their MMR Shots

In Britain, MMR immunization has dropped from 95% in the late 90's to about 80% in the recent years. This has caused the annual number of measles has increased from 56 cases in 1998 to 1,348 cases in 2008, which is a 37% increase from 2007.

What kicked off the huge concern that has now grown world wide? One report released by Lancet taht based their theory off of a study of 12 children, 8 of which according to the report developed Autism related symptoms just days after the shot.

One problem. The "study" in no way agreed with the doctor's reports at the hospital. Let's look at it.

Child One - The boy’s medical records reveal a subtly different story, one familiar to mothers and fathers of autistic children. At the age of 9½ months, 10 weeks before his jab, his mother had become worried that he did not hear properly: the classic first symptom presented by sufferers of autism.

Child Two - Child Two, an eight-year-old boy from Peter-borough, Cambridgeshire, diagnosed with regressive autism, which, according to the Lancet paper, started “two weeks” after his jab. However, this child’s medical records, backed by numerous specialist assessments, said his problems began three to five months later. The difference between 14 days and a few months is significant, according to experts. Autism usually reveals itself in the second year of life, when the vaccine is routinely given. If there was no sudden onset after the MMR injection, as claimed for the “syndrome”, the condition could be ascribed to a conventional pattern.

Chid Three - Child Three, a six-year-old from Huyton, Merseyside. He was reported in the journal to be suffering from regressive autism and bowel disease: specifically “acute and chronic nonspecific colitis”. The boy’s hospital discharge summary, however, said there was nothing untoward in his biopsy.

Child Four - Had the same GP as Child 8, which raised suspicions of if the study was indeed "random."

Child Six and Seven - Child Six, aged 5, and Child Seven, aged 3, were said to have been diagnosed with regressive autism, with an onset of symptoms “one week” and “24 hours” after the jab respectively. But medical records show that neither boy was “previously normal”, as the Lancet article described all the children, and that both had already been hospitalised with brain problems before their MMR. Child Six received his vaccine at the age of 14 months, but had twice previously been admitted with fits. Child Seven was given his at the age of 20 months but, again, problems already showed.

Child Eight - Child Eight, aged 3, from Whitley Bay, Tyne & Wear. She was reported in the journal as having suffered a brain injury “two weeks” after MMR. Her medical records did not support this. Before she was admitted, she had been seen by local specialists, and her GP told the Royal Free of “significant concerns about her development some months before she had her MMR”.

Child Nine - Athology report said: “No abnormality detected”, while the Lancet paper said: “Nonspecific colitis”.

Child Ten - Athology report said: “No abnormality detected”, while the Lancet paper said: “Nonspecific colitis”.

Child Eleven - When biopsies were done later, no evidence of the measels virus (the suspected cause of the link) was discovered.

Child Twelve - Diagnosed with Asperger’s disorder, in which language is not lost, and which is not regressive, nothing like what One and Two were diagnosed with.

Child Five was not listed as having inconsistancies


On top of that, check this out with the "Bowel Irritation" that was reported;

WHEN the children first arrived at the Royal Free, in addition to autism, they were also reported with constipation, diarrhoea or other common bowel complaints. This was the reason given for them travelling between 60 and 5,000 miles to London to enter the care of Wakefield’s team.

...

A Royal Free consultant pathologist questioned a draft text of the paper. “I was somewhat concerned with the use of the word ‘colitis’,” Susan Davies, a co-author, told the ongoing GMC inquiry into the ethics of how the children were treated, in September 2007.

“I was concerned that what we had seen in these children was relatively minor.”

However, after her challenge, it was explained, Wakefield’s team met for a “research review” of the biopsies. It was not an unusual move for a group of specialists to reconsider the evidence upon which their research was relying. It was nevertheless striking that their conclusion was that 11 of the children’s bowels were in fact diseased when their colleagues had found no abnormalities in at least seven of the cases.

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California Can't Tax It's Way Out Of A Deficit

A few years ago, Don "Do Nothing" Sundquist brought forward a bill imposing a sate wide income tax, promising that the sales tax would be eliminated. People went ballistic, and for a good reason.

Then later, the report was "Well, if we do the income tax, we can't eliminate the sales tax, but we'll reduce it from 9.75% to 6%. People went even more ballistic.

The sign that forever sticks out in my mind is one that basically said almost every state with a state income tax still had a budget deficit, even though it was supposed to "fix the problem."

No state sticks out in my mind more than California. The epitome of "You can't tax your way out of it."

California has some of the highest tax rates in the country with a 9.3% marginal tax rate on anyone making over $45,000, and a 7.25% (which can be up to 9.25% in some places) sales tax. OH! And the state has not had any money in the bank for the past 17 months. So much for taxes being the answer.

Could that be the reason people are leaving California for other, lower tax, states by the hundreds of thousands?

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Units? Units?

Verizon Wireless can't convert dollars to cents. In their mind $0.002 equals 0.002 cents. Think about that for 1 second. Any longer...and you need to learn your units.



Why is this important? Because even politicians need math lessons.


(*HINT* The US Population is 305,738,000)

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And My Vote For Best Super Bowl Commercial Goes To...

Hyundai?
Hyundai?!!

HYUNDAI!!!



Too Funny.

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