The Day We Will Be Told How Much We Can Earn

August 14th is a date that may become a historically significant date. Not for the obvious reason, it was my birthday but it was the deadline for companies to submit compensation information to the Pay Czar. Since June, when he was appointed, Pay Czar, Wesley Mouch, oops I mean Kenneth Feinberg, has been hard at work interviewing the several companies whose executive pay comes under his authority.

My question is where did Mouch’s, oh I mean Feinberg’s, authority come from? I know he was appointed by the President and I suppose the President can appoint whoever he would like to advise him. But Mouch, ah Fienberg, is making rules not advising. At least cabinet members must have the Senates consent before they take office. In a letter to the Treasury Secretary, Dave Mitchum, oh I mean Timothy Geithner, Nancy Pelosi and Barney Frank said "Congress and taxpayers alike are rightly alarmed that companies would enrich their executives while deferring repayment of the federal financial assistance that helped them avoid financial catastrophe". So I guess Mouch, I mean Feinberg, has the authority to do what ever he wants since the Constitution specifically states that if the Speaker of the House and Barney Frank (yes the founding fathers mentioned Barney by name) write a letter citing the avoidance of a financial catastrophe any Presidential appointee shall have the authority to make any rule the appointee deems necessary, as long as the rule has no effect on any member of Congress. What you don’t think that clause is in the constitution? You want me to show it to you? How dare you. You are just another Astroturf mob member, a wing nut birther and someone who I will report to flag@whitehouse.gov if you don’t watch it. Now if we can move on to something more productive.

For now Mouch er Fienberg (I just don’t know why I keep getting these names confused) has the authority to set the compensation for executives of the companies that have not yet paid the government back for the TARP money they were loaned. I guess that I am ok with that because there should be some penalty for taking government money but what may happen next is concerning to me. The TARP companies will not be allowed to pay their people at the market rate while the non-TRAP companies can. Naturally the best and the brightest will leave the TARP companies and head to the non-tarp companies. With inferior leadership the TARP companies will not be able to compete causing them to lose even more money making them even less likely to pay back the government and possibly require even more government loans. This will infuriate Congress who will demand the CEOs appear before them to explain why things are going so poorly. The CEOs will blame it on the brain drain caused by their uncompetitive compensation structure. Congress will then turn to Mouch Fienberg whatever his name is and demand he level the playing field and that is when the Pay Czar will tell all of us how much we can be paid.

So now do you still think voting Libertarian is throwing away your vote?

On Friday July 30th, before leaving Washington for their summer recess the House of Representatives passed a bill to clamp limits on Wall Street bonuses. Oh by the way this limit on bonuses is not just for companies that have taken bailouts, it is across the board. You see the government is much better at deciding how much an employer should pay an employee than letting the employer and employee agree on compensation beween themselves. Rep Melvin Watt, D-N.C clearly believes in that philosophy this is what he said about the bill, “This is not the government taking over the corporate sector; It is a statement by the American people that it is time for us to straighten up the ship."

This is yet another intrusion into not only into private business but into our private lives. That is the Democrats view but what about our beloved Republicans, the guardians of free enterprise and limited government, what are they doing? Here was how AP put it: “Aware of voter outrage about the bonuses, Republicans were reluctant in Friday's debate to push back”.

Looks to me like voting Republican is just throwing my vote away! They won’t even take a stand on something as basic as letting a company decide how much it will pay its employees. This is not the only issue affecting our lives the Republicans have remained silent on or offered only half hearted rebuttal on. As the saying goes with friends like that who needs enemies.

It is time to stop looking at the letter (R, D, L) behind the candidate’s name and assuming we know what they stand for. It is becoming more and more apparent that we cannot assume R stands for conservative or even for that matter conservative stands for less government. We do have a chose and for me it has been made clear that voting Libertarian is a viable option, especially in the mid-term elections.