A few years ago Circuit City brought in a new CEO. His first act was to fire the high-producing employees. What was left was a lot like congress. People who stood around and did nothing, and knew little about anything. Sales went in the tank and you know the rest of the story. Circuit City is gone. If only we could make congress go away so easy.
This week Fox Business News broke the story that Chris Dodd is the reason for the AIG bonus problem. The Bush administration tried to get congress to do something to prevent this from happening and they declined. Then to seal the lid, Dodd put in a provision in the stimulus bill to prevent anyone from stopping them. Now, in an effort to recover, congress passed a bill taxing bank employees income over $250,000 at 80% if that bank took government money.
It will work just like Circuit City. The good bank employees who are producers will go to work elsewhere. The marginal employees who stay will not produce, and the billions in TARP money will be lost. Or, the bank will send the TARP money back to avoid this and no loans will happen.
Meantime, Walmart set-aside $2 billion for bonus money to hourly employees. Walmart is having profit growth and wants to keep it that way. Meanwhile, congress is mulling the card check program, which will allow unions to unionize a company without secret ballot. Their first target, Walmart.
So, let’s sort this out. Congress wants banks to be like Circuit City and fail. But, not before we gave them billions in our tax dollars. And, they want a successful company like Walmart to fail so we can make them like Circuit City, but only in the U.S. Walmart has a big international presence and will just close U.S. stores and move their headquarters out of the U.S. and do well elsewhere. Then, all the poor people that the Obama folks say they are looking after will not be able to buy basic needs at bargain prices.
We would be so much better off if Congress did behave like the last generation of Circuit City employees and just stood around and did nothing like they did the last two years of the Bush administration. And President Obama just went on Leno and said he bowls like a Special Olympian. Guess that stuff happens when you don’t have a teleprompter. Lot’s of yuks over that until the phones started ringing all over the country. He is so, so sorry. If Bush had done that it would have been front page news.
This is another good reason why we must put term limits in and also have only a few months to campaign with a limit on how much you can raise. The polititions make good companies to donate to them or else. This could be stopped if we had term limits and a limit on how much they could raise. How much was Dick Durbin and Denny Hastert worth when they went in to congress and how much are they worth today?????????
Term limits is job one.
Bill Robertson
If we bail out the auto industry then nobody in those companies should make more than $250,000 either. Doesn’t matter if it is base salary or bonus income, we should just set a cap. Next there should be a law that any corporation that is not generating enough revenue to pay taxes should reduce salaries until there is some minimal level of taxes due. In fairness to all those who no longer make as much as they were promised or expected, all corporations should have a cap on salaries. Of course government workers would be immune because they are performing a public service. I’m not saying this will happen but we are heading more in that direction than away from it.
Ignore the partisan aspect of this and focus on the fact that when Tom Ridge resigned he claimed he did it because he needed more money to send his two kids to college. He was making $175,700 a year. So $175k and the guy responsible for homeland security can’t afford to keep his job and at $250k the government wants to take 80% to 90% beyond that amount.
I don’t want the government telling me how much I can make …… unless they promise me that in a bad year I make as much as the director of homeland security.
If the current idiot who is Director of Homeland Security gets us another Terrrorist Attack, what should her salary be?
Bill