Well we're officially one step closer to communism! Seems the "pay czar" appointed by Chairman Maobama has decided how much is the appropriate level of compensation for the executives running some of America's largest financial institutions. Since these companies took the TARP handouts (and can't pay them back yet!), they opened themselves up to this type of control by the government. And it's happening in other industries too!

Recently, the Florida Public Service Commission recieved a request from "consumer advocacy groups" to force the Florida utility companies to disclose the compensation of their "most highly paid" employees. The request asked that the utilites provide info on anyone making over $165,000 per year. The anti-utility groups want to create the impression that if the electric companies would just stop paying their employees so much, they wouldn't have raise rates. The utilities argued (correctly IMO) that disclosing this information would put them at a competitive disadvantage when it comes to attracting/retaining the needed talent. The PSC, bowing to political pressure, ruled in favor of disclosure. As of now the utilities are trying to get this overturned by the courts.

The problem with these kinds of developments should be obvious. First, with the TARP comapnies, since when in AMERCIA does the government set wages for privately owned companies? Although I suppose the government DOES own a big chunk of those companies...making them quasi-govermental institutions. Do you really think that the CEO of any of these companies is going to be motivated to continue to lead that company forward at 10% of his former salary....and half of his former total compensation? I'm willing to bet they jump ship in droves! And then what? Do we really want the kind of folks the reduced compensation would draw running our financial institutions?! And for those who think they can't do any worse, I have one word.....CONGRESS!!!

More importantly, I believe this to be only the beginning of wage control. Right now it's CEOs. Or it's just disclosing the salries of the "most highly compensated" utility employees. Anyone want to bet that the "disclosure" turns into a mandate to reduce salaries in order to get a favorable ruling on an pending rate increase? And after the "most highly compensated" employees have already been sacrificed to political posturing, and precedent has been set, how long until we have the PSC (or some other governmental panel) deciding how much ALL utility employees are allowed to earn? With the exception of the unionized workers, of course! So do you want your electric company to only be able to recruit it's talent from the pool of candidates who are willing to work for the pittance allowed by a governmental body?

I hesitate to employ the slippery slope argument, but....given the lust for power that is being demonstrated on a daily basis by the current crop of pols, and the class-envy/warfare tactic employed by the left to great success, it's a valid argument IMO. I envision a not too distant future where the most absurd-sounding Randian scenarios have come to pass. The only question is...who is Wesley Mouch?

Some people just NEED shootin'

File this under "Too bad he wasn't a better shot"....

http://www.tampabay.com/news/publicsafety/crime/motorcyclist-gets-probation-in-july-road-rage-incident-in-which-he-got-shot/1045306?postCode=1

A St. Pete Beach man accused of pummeling an elderly driver in a hospital parking lot after a road rage incident this summer received two years of probation Monday.
The lack of jail time angered the family of the victim, who was seriously injured. But the defendant's attorney says the case is not so clear-cut — that his client got injured, too.
George S. Hall, 64, pleaded no contest to a charge of battery on a person over age 65, and adjudication was withheld, said his defense attorney, Roger Futerman.
"He didn't feel he was wrong, but he wanted to get the case behind him," Futerman said.
According to an arrest report by the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office, Hall was upset with the 83-year-old Snyder on July 3 because he believed Snyder cut him off as he drove his motorcycle near the intersection of Gulfport Boulevard and Pasadena Avenue.
Deputies said Hall followed Snyder to Palms of Pasadena Hospital, then attacked him. Snyder was going there to visit his wife, who was recovering from a pacemaker replacement.
During the scuffle, Snyder pulled out a 9mm semiautomatic handgun and fired, striking Hall in the upper arm.
Deputies did not charge Snyder, who had a concealed weapons permit, saying he acted in self-defense.
The State Attorney's Office agreed that Hall should receive some jail time, said Assistant State Attorney Brian Daniels. But Hall's lack of a criminal record meant he did not qualify for mandatory incarceration. He was sentenced by Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Judge Timothy Peters.
Nathan Snyder, a Holocaust survivor who retired to St. Petersburg from Philadelphia in 1984, suffered a fractured hip, spent nearly a month hospitalized and has had two surgeries. He needs a walker to get around, Lydia Snyder said, and has been having nightmares and panic attacks.
Through his attorney, Hall declined to be interviewed. But Futerman said his client refutes Snyder's version of events.
"He felt that when this dispute happened that Mr. Snyder overreacted, and that Mr. Snyder shouldn't have been carrying a loaded gun with 13 rounds of ammunition," Futerman said. "My guy got shot, and he felt that Mr. Snyder should have been charged with attempted murder."

So Mr. Hall gets his lil' biker panties in a wad because an oldster did what they USUALLY do, which is drive like crap. Truth be told, the biker was probably speeding, tailgating and/or crowding the lane marker...like they usually do! Instead of a rude gesture, or yelling at the guy, what does the tough biker dude do? Follows the old guy to a hospital parking lot and beats the crap out of him! Since the old guy, in full compliance with Florida law, shot him in the arm, now Missus Hall thinks the old guy should be tried with attempted murder?!?! For defending himself from a raging biker some two decades his junior? Puh-Leaze!

As I told some of the bikers who wrote in to the paper in support of their "bro": a) People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones...bikers are by far the biggest hazard to their own safety by the way they drive, and b) One of the given hazards of riding a motorcycle in Florida is the "seasoned" drivers. If you wanna take that risk, do so...but don't beat up the old folks for driving like....well, old folks! And when the old guy you're using as a punching bag pulls out a 9mm and shoots you, don't compound your already un-manly behavior by whining about it later!

And Judge Peters, you are correct that Mr. Hall didn't qualify for mandatory incarceration....but you could have locked him up anyway! Thanks a ton!

A dose of sanity

I was over at Dr. Frank's blog, and came across this quote from one of the founding fathers. Given the shenanigans taking place in the Piss-pot on the Potomac, it has never quite seemed so apropos...

“It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood.” James Madison

If you haven't checked out Dr. Frank's place, you really should!
http://summacontraprobus.blogspot.com/

I gotta get me one of these signs!

Seems like a fair warning to me!

(Hope they're not from MA....that threat really wouldn't faze Barney Frank!)

In which Shifty poses a question...

Back so soon?! Well done!
Alright, since you've now seen that perhaps, just maybe, possibly the whole "global-warming", or "climate-change" thing is a tad over-hyped, you might be asking yourself why your local power company is advertising all these lovely new "green" initiatives. Why is it that every time you turn around it seems like the company you buy your electricity from is coming up with a new "program" or gadget to demonstrate their "green-ness"? The answer to that, in my opinion, is two-fold.
Who has read "Atlas Shrugged"? Remember the "businessmen" like Jim Taggart (the heroine Dagny's limp-wristed twit of a brother) and his ilk? Did it strike anyone else as strange that supposed captains of industry would throw their support entirely behind government programs that were virtually guaranteed to destroy the very industries they were "captaining"? Why would they do stupid stuff like that? It's just a story...in real life industry leaders would NEVER go along with crap like that. Not so. and here's why.
Once the knot-hole rapists (you KNOW who I'm talking about...the "environmentalists" who have gone beyond merely hugging the trees to.....well you know!) found a sort of non-whackjob spokesperson in the Goreacle (before he lost the 2000 election, his mind and the ability to push away from the buffet table) and the deep pockets of Mr. Soros, they made themselves a movie. As luck would have it, Mr. Gore's tragic decline from official Whitehouse campaign extorter to Jabba the Hut stand-in engendered sympathy from the liberal "elite" who decide what the "proper" social position is on a given subject. Whereas the environmental extremists had been relegated to the role of stinky, stoner hippie cousin in the liberal family tree, the confluence of Mr. Gore's personal misfortune, Mr. Soros' large bankbook and the EEEEVIL Bush/Republican/Big Business cabal coming into power suddenly rehabilitated the knot-holer's image.
Soon it was considered ESTABLISHED FACT that the most lunatic of the environmentalists' notions were gospel truth. AlGore said so! Then the TOTALLY impartial UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change published their "findings" (which curiously parroted the whack-o's findings!) and undertook a campaign to systematically destroy any and all who dared hold a dissenting view. For a while, debate was virtually silenced on the "science" of Global Warming. The lap-dogs of the MSM did their part, happily trumpeting every storm, flood, earthquake, drought, birth defect and outbreak of teen-age acne as PROOF!! PROOF I SAY!! that global warming was real and HUMANS were the culprit!
In this climate, most power companies found themselves castigated as unrepentant planet-murderers, so consumed by profit that they cared not one whit for the damage they did to Mother Earth in the process. Standing up to the nonsense, which would have been the logical, sensible and morally correct thing to do was deemed too big a risk, in a newly risk-averse post-Enron electric industry. So what happened? The Jim Taggarts of the world decided to agree that their industries were eeeevvvil polluters and nature-rapers. Whatever needed to be done, we will support, they said. Cost was no object (more on why in a sec..), the stated aims of the opposition to "destroy" traditional fossil-fueled power production didn't matter....all that mattered is that the power companies not be seen as reprobate where the epic battle for the very survival of planet earth was concerned! Can't have the public thinking we don't care about global warming...why they might just decide to get their power from......uh.....well, I don't know who, since we have a virtual monopoly on delivering their power, but they will be MAD at us!
So all these power companies have signed on to support every stupid new anti-GHG scheme that's bubbled out of the bong resin.
Some of these "solutions" are fantastically expensive. We're talking BILLIONS of dollars to retrofit a company's coal-fired generating fleet with equipment to reduce pollutants. But it's not the power company's money that pays for that...oh no. Wonder why you electric bill has been climbing? If you listen to the drooling horde, it's because we fat cats in the power industry are giggling all the way to the bank at your expense. Just RAKING in the profits, while Joe Six-pack works three jobs to keep the lights on and his 2.5 kids fed. In actuality, although we ARE guaranteed a certain profit (why this is so is another post...) the rising cost of electricity has more to do with the rising fuel costs and the expensive new doo-dads the gubmint done required your electric company to install on it's generating fleet.
Much like what happens when "corporate" tax rates are increased, costs associated with mandated upgrades to a utilities generating fleet are simply past along to the consumer....presto-chango you get a bigger electric bill. And because of the system in place, you tend to see all of the costs hit your bill at one time, instead of slowly accumulating over time. Most utilities also have a fuel clause, which allows them to charge consumers directly for the costs of the fuels the company uses to generate their power.
"But Shifty" I hear, " How come when oil prices dropped, my electric bill didn't go down?" First, you're electric company uses a variety of fuels, not just oil. So while oil prices might have gone down, what about the price of natural gas? Coal? How much of each fuel is used to produce your electricity? AND...think back....did you're electric bill go up each time the price of a barrel of oil closed the days trading at a new record high last summer? Obviously not....your power company enters into long-term fuel supply contracts to stabilize costs. Only AFTER the fuel has been used can a power company "true up" their actual fuel costs with projected fuel costs (which they use to establish the GOVERNMENT set price per kilowatt of electricity you pay). If the utility had to burn more (or more expensive) fuel to satisfy your gluttonous power cravings, it's only right that they should recoup that cost. If they end up paying less (because they either secured a cheaper fuel source or you used less energy), most utilities will rebate the savings to the customer.
All of this begs the question....wouldn't you the rate-paying electricity consumer benefit MORE from executives who are more concerned about what's good for their customers (which would be to tell the truth about "Global Warming" and stand against the costly initiatives to appease the moon-bat knot-holers) than about being politically correct? I'll let you be the judge!

The Goreacle is a big FAT lying liar

Seeing as I've made my career in the electric industry, I could possibly be considered biased on the issue of the "global warming crisis". I would argue otherwise...and so would the good people at the Heritage Foundation. This is a link to a longish video produced by the Competitive Enterprise Institute that gives lie to the right Reverend Gore's claim that the "science is settled". I highly recommend it. Go watch it (at least through the video presentation...even I tunedout during the Q & A session afterward)...when you get back, we'll compare the "leaders" of today's power companies to James Taggart and his ilk!

http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid13746676001?bctid=33334489001

I wonder if this is included in the "reform" plans....

Came across this gem of a link at Insta-Pundit.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article6823630.ece#cid=OTC-RSS&attr=797084

It would seem our erstwhile British cousins are getting serious about battling the proliferation of fat kiddies inhabiting merry olde England. The solution? Why enroll the kids in a six week "fat camp" of course!

"PRIMARY school pupils as young as four will be offered places on “weight management” courses as the NHS urges health trusts to provide slimming programmes for overweight children."

So the NHS (the governing body that runs Britain's "Public Option" health care system) will now decide the appropriate weight for it's youngest citizens and "offer" parents the option of having little Dudders attend fat camp. Yeah that won't cause any emotional trauma....being officially labeled a lard-butt. So in later years they'll have to be treated for anorexia, bulimia, and a raft full of mental, social and psychological disorders that come about when a kid's weight is made an issue early in life. (And any takers on just how long until the "offered" spot in fat camp becomes MANDATORY?) This is the model we're supposed to emulate folks. When the government runs health care, the government gets to tell you how to live, eat, sleep, pee....anything that is REMOTELY connected to "health" will become their domain.

I love this quip from the comments section...

"£3,000 per patient for a six-week residential course" I hope it's the parents who will be paying and not the taxpayer! Gotta love that British sense of humor!