Compensation Caps

Barney Frank is a Congressman from Massachusetts and the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee (the committee in the U.S. House of Representatives that "oversees the entire financial services industry, including the securities, insurance, banking, and housing industries."). You may have seen him in the news recently, lambasting the bonuses paid out to AIG executives.

Well, now Congressman Frank is proposing that the government have control over the compensation of all employees of companies that receive government/bailout funds...

Byron York points out:

"[I]n 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."

Were people (rightfully) ticked when some AIG executives got >million dollar bonuses a few weeks ago? Yes! Were people given the whole story (as in, some of those executives worked for salaries of $1 and were part of the company that was thriving and not in the sectors that brought down the insurance powerhouse?) No!

I feel a little bit caught between a rock and a hard place on this issue. Do I think that companies who receive government (i.e. MY) money should be paying the employees responsible for failure millions of dollars? No. Of course... do I think that the government should EVER pour money into failing companies? N-O! And, do I think that the government should have any say over the compensation of any employee of any company? Well, this is where it gets tricky.

While I absolutely abhor the idea of executives who beg for bailouts getting fat checks while refusing to cut costs, I also think that allowing the government to mandate compensations for regular employees is a very bad idea.

When the government is allowed to say how much someone in a private-sector job should be paid, they are overstepping their power. I really think that if any bill is passed which allows our government to have this authority over "bailed out" companies, it could soon trickle down to the rest of us. First, they say they can control pay for employees of companies receiving government funds. Then, they'll say that that also includes the companies who contract with the bailed out companies; then it will include anyone who supplies/works with bailed out companies... until finally it includes everyone everywhere.

The proposed measure is also retroactive, which means it would break any pre-existing contracts for employees' salaries and include the past several months' worth of pay. Retroactive? How is that legal?

Even if there were a way to limit compensation control to only those companies directly receiving money from the government, I don't think we should let Tim Geithner (U.S. Treasure Secretary, a man who couldn't properly pay his own taxes) and anyone in our legislative body have any say on the matter. These are the same people who approved an automatic yearly raise for themselves while running up the national defecit to unprecedented levels, and they want to be able to determine what someone's salary is worth?

Give me a break.

Knock Your Socks Off

We both like the show, Mythbusters. Before we gave cable up for lent, we used to watch it together fairly regularly. I think Matt even has a season or two on DVD.

Well, the people of Esparto, California, became quite intimately acquainted with the show when an explosion created for an episode of Mythbusters blew out several residents' windows.

"'It was a boom that was just -- I had never heard anything like that before, it was really wired,' said Sherril Stephens.

"The explosion was so big it shook the town of Esparto, knocking Stephens off her couch and breaking her front window."

The Fire Department had been on hand to monitor the explosion, which was intended to test a myth by knocking the socks right off of a mannequin. Unfortunately, the blast was bigger than expected, shocking residents across town. Mythbusters replaced several windows in the area gratis. Now the town can't wait to see the episode air.

Couple Moves in with Ex-Husband

"Nicole Thompson-Arce poses on her wedding day with her husband,
Mathew Arce, and her ex-mother-in-law."

What a story! CNN reports on this couple, wed last July, who decided to move in with the wife's ex-husband to save money.

After a bitter divorce with a custody dispute in 2005, exes Nicole, 28, and Craig, 42, Thompson eventually buried the hatchet and became friends. When Nicole remarried this past summer, her ex mother-in-law was part of the wedding. And then, after job losses and financial problems, they decided to move in with the ex-husband.

They say that the arrangement works well, they're able to share time with their kids more easily, and that they like the living situation so much that they plan to keep it for "at least five to ten years"!!

"It has... taken a little time for the little ones to get the story straight. Seven-year-old Victoria went back to school after winter break -- and after the whole team had blended under one roof -- and started telling people this: 'My mommy has two husbands,' Thompson-Arce remembered. 'I was like, 'No, honey, don't tell them that!' "

This story is so unusual, I don't know what to say. I guess it's good that they can all get along, but it still sound like an uncomfortable living situation.

I'm a Yeller

Over the weekend, I spent LOTS of time in the car with Amy Beth. We took a road trip to a bridal shower for my college roommate and picked up one of my old sorority sisters on the way.

Well, throughout the weekend, it was brought up a few times about how I like to yell at cars while I'm driving. My sister thinks it's because I have road rage. I told her that I yell so that I don't get road rage.

Now, I don't stare down jerk drivers, and I've never given anyone the finger, but I will readily admit to yelling when people cut me off or poke around in the fast lane. I think its therapeutic and it makes me feel better. (Actually, I don't really think about it - I just yell... it comes out without any forethought) Of course, I think it scares the other people who are in the car with me.

And, it's not just cars. My poor husband has to put up with me yelling at the TV every morning while I'm getting dressed. I don't yell at the weather man, but I sure do get riled up when politicians come onto the morning news shows. I screamed at Senator Shelby while he was complaining about how unqualified our new Treasury Secretary, Tim Geithner, is. "Shut up, Shelby! You voted for him; I don't want to hear it... go add more wasteful spending to some bill!" And, don't ask me what I say when tax cheat Charles Rangle starts in on taxing the bailout recipients.


I know I sound like a lunatic when I yell at cars and the tv. I'm not yelling so that someone else can hear me, and I'm not actually interacting with anyone else. I'm just yelling for the sake of yelling.

And I'm not ready to stop yelling. I think I've always done it. My parents like to tell the story about picking me up after having spent the weekend with my grandmother when I was quite young. I was riding in the backseat in my car seat when I started yelling out the window at other cars, "Get out of the way, Grandma!" They gave each other a bewildered look, but soon realized where I'd learned to yell at cars like that when they repeated the story to my embarrassed grandmother. I'm proud to say that I've inherited my big feet and long legs from my beautiful Scotts-Irish grandmother. I'm also proud to say that she taught me the art of shouting at all of those incompetent drivers.

Of course, while I may not be ready to stop yelling at traffic, maybe I should learn to tone it down when I have passengers.

Fresh Veggies for the White House

I watched a segment on CBS Sunday Morning several weeks ago that featured Alice Waters. Alice Waters, a chef in San Francisco, has worked with schools across the country to setup "Edible Schoolyards", which are vegetable gardens planted and maintained by school children. The students learn how to grow and cook their own food. I don't think that it's practical to have them in every school (how could we afford it everywhere), but I do think it's a wonderful idea and should be encouraged where feasible.

Anyway, Alice Waters is just one of several people who has been campaigning for a vegetable garden at the White House for years. "I have been talking nonstop about the symbolism of an edible landscape at the White House. I think it says everything about stewardship of the land and about the nourishment of a nation," Waters said.

I agree. I think that the White House landscape should be known for more than its beautiful rose garden. It sets an example for the rest of the country and what better place than the White House to have its own fresh food supply?


Well, last week, Michelle Obama broke ground with a group of local school children on a new White House vegetable garden. The Washington Post writes:

"The Obamas' garden will not be the first at the White House. John Adams, the first tenant, planted a garden shortly after taking up residence in 1800. Woodrow Wilson brought in sheep to mow and fertilize the White House lawn in 1918, an effort to conserve resources for the war effort. In 1943, over the objection of the Agriculture Department, Eleanor Roosevelt planted a victory garden, inspiring millions of Americans to grow their own food during World War II.

"Recent efforts have been more modest. Jimmy Carter, a Georgia farmer who extolled the virtues of gardening during his campaign, declined calls in 1978 to plant a vegetable garden at the White House. During the Clinton years, a small garden was planted on the roof; the White House rejected the idea of a larger garden on the lawn, saying it was not in keeping with the formal nature of the White House grounds."

The garden will be used by the White House Kitchen to feed the First Family and will also be used to supply food for Miriam's Kitchen, which feeds the homeless of Washington, D. C.

I think this is a wonderful project!

Borat in Bama

I haven't watched any of his movies, but I still know who 'Borat' is.

Sascha Baren Cohen tricked the Alabama National Guard into admitting him to their training session and giving him a uniform on the premise of making a German documentary. During training, another cadet recognized him and alerted authorities.

"The ruse, which included comedian Sacha Baron Cohen exposing his thong underwear while changing clothes, was going well until a young cadet recognized Cohen and notified older officers who weren't familiar with the actor.

" 'It's an embarrassment to the Alabama National Guard,' Staff Sgt. Katrina Timmons said Monday. 'Since then we have put in protocols to make sure this doesn't happen again.'"

(Um, duh!)

Charlie Ponzi

With all of the Madoff ponzi scheme talk in the news, I wondered what a ponzi scheme really is.

Wikipedia says, "A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation that pays returns to investors from their own money or money paid by subsequent investors rather than from any actual profit earned."

CBS says that the term Ponzi scheme came from the con artist, Charles Ponzi. After WWI, Charles sold International Reply Coupons, a way to prepay international postage. Using an exchange rate "quirk", Ponzi could buy the coupons overseas and cash them in the States for a profit. He was able to rake in huge profits - up to a million a week (pre-Depression dollars).

The only problem was, he wasn't actually buying any of the coupons. When a newspaper pointed out that there weren't even enough of the coupons in existence to supply what Ponzi claimed to have bought, his plot came crashing down.

Investors went into bankruptsy and Charles Ponzi's name became associated with thievery.

Bulb Coupon

I got this coupon and thought that with the warm weather, other people might like some new bulbs for the yard. I'm thinking about getting a bag of Calla Lilies... maybe another (free) bag of Gladiolus or Asiatic Lilies.

Click here to print this and two other coupons from HD.

Forrest

I love this movie. I think it was the first movie that I ever owned on DVD.

Religion Reality

After the high of our missions conference and getting to hear several people speak about the great work being done around the world by the Lord, it was a little bit of sad reminder to see this headline today on the news, "More Americans Say They Have No Religion".

The study says that only 12.9 percent of Americans claim to be Protestant Christians and about 1/3 of the adult population views themselves as Evangelical Christians.

I guess it's just a reminder that even our own nation is in desperate need of revival.

Barbie Ban

A West Virginia lawmaker is proposing a state-wide ban on the sale of all Barbie dolls and other dolls that 'promote physical beauty to the detriment of girls' intellectual and emotional development.'

What a load of crap.

Regardless of whether or not you think playing with Barbies harms children's self esteem (I'll get to what I think about that in a minute), how should the government have any control in whether or not the toys are allowed to be sold in that area? Why do we think that we should have a say in what is available for people to buy - or not buy - for their kids. Hello?! We're not talking about lead-based paint here. We're talking about a doll.

I felt the same way when NYC discussed passing those laws about what kinds of food could be served, and what types of oils were allowed to be used for cooking. Wow! I may think that the food served at the Heart Attack Grill is unhealthy, but I definitely don't think that the government should be legislating a ban for any other people who choose to eat there.

And, according to the article I read, the sale of Barbies has already been banned (in 2006) in the town of Montpelier, VT. So as ridiculous as this sounds, it's not even the first time something like this has been proposed (or even passed). We already have laws in several states telling parents how and when they can discipline their children (there IS a difference between discipline and abuse); before you know it, we'll have government-mandated children's TV program schedules and approved playtime activities.

If you don't like Barbie dolls, that's perfectly fine; don't buy one for your kids. Everyone should have the right to decide what's best/appropriate for their own family, but don't outlaw other families who don't share the same concerns from buying a toy that they loved playing with for their own children.

Personally, I don't understand where all of the complaining about Barbie comes from. I had one Barbie doll and one Ken doll growing up and I LOVED playing with them. My sisters both had a couple of dolls (Skipper, Midge, Princess Jasmine, etc.) and we all three played together with the dolls. We spent hours in make-believe Barbie Land, entertaining ourselves. How else do you think my parents ever got any time to themselves?

Kids don't think Barbie should make them feel bad about themselves unless they're told so. I never realized that Barbie had unachievable proportions until I was older and heard someone say that. I never felt like I had to look like her either. All of our Barbie dolls were different sizes and colors, but we just played with them - we didn't have to compare ourselves to them. And, it's not like I had an unusually high self image or anything - when people used to tell our parents how cute/pretty we were as kids, I thought they were just saying that because they felt sorry for us... because we were ugly. (But I think that had more to do with Sam Billiter calling me ugly on the playground than what dolls I played with).

Even though I was a little insecure as a kid, I didn't have a self-image problem, never developed any esteem/image issues, and never related how I felt about myself to my favorite Barbie doll. I never likened my self image to Barbie - not how she looked, how she dressed, how smart she was, nothing.

About the only thing I learned about how I look from playing with Barbies is the effect of a bad haircut... my poor Barbie never looked quite the same after I took the scissors to her head! After seeing those effects, I definitely had a motivation to keep those things away from my own hair.

I never thought that Barbie was so beautiful that it made me look like an ugly duckling... I guess I was too busy tying her to the ceiling fan and making up conversations between her and Ken in our living room to think about that stuff.

SCHIP

I don't know about anyone else, but I started seeing ads on tv about a month ago talking about how great our local congressman is and that we should all call him and thank him for making sure millions of our kids have health insurance. Then, I got a flier in the mail with the same message and the phone number for the congressional switchboard. I looked into it and found out what they were referring to... the recent vote on the expansion of SCHIP - State Children's Health Insurance Program.

Wikipedia says, "The State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) is a United States federal government program that gives matching funds to states in order to provide health insurance to families with children. The program was designed to cover uninsured children in families with incomes that are modest but too high to qualify for Medicaid."


The program is mainly funded by the huge taxes on tobacco products, which ironically, affects the poor at a much higher rate than those with higher incomes. Michelle Malkin writes, "The National Taxpayers Union noted that tobacco taxes take a 50-times-larger share of income from those earning less than $20,000 than those earning more than $200,000. Put another way: Families making less than $30,000 per year pay more than half of all taxes paid on cigarettes, while families making more than $60,000 pay only 14 percent."

I completely understand the need for some sort of health coverage for the (working) poor, but I wondered who exactly is benefiting from this program.

So, a couple of weeks ago, I asked a local doctor what she thought of SCHIP. SCHIP in our state is called "All Kids", and families that make up to $45,000 can qualify. It can be helpful to those whose companies don't offer health insurance and they can't afford - or qualify - for it on their own. Still, $45k? That seems like a pretty high income. I don't know that I really want to be paying for someone else's health care coverage when they're making about the same as a starting college-educated engineer's salary.

Since every state can set their own rules for who qualifies, the income limits are different everywhere. Malkin notes, "In New Jersey, people earning as much as $295,000 were enrolled in its S-CHIP program dubbed “NJ FamilyCare.” Like many states, New Jersey failed to check eligibility for all program enrollees and refuses to do stringent assets tests. As I’ve noted before, the refusal to do assets tests on federal health insurance programs is why federal entitlements are exploding and government keeps expanding."

Well, this isn't a one-time scenario. Last month, President Obama lifted some of Bush's SCHIP eligibility rules. The Wall Street Journal writes, "Basically, the rules made it very difficult for states to use SCHIP for children whose families made more than 250% of the federal poverty level (somewhere around $50,000 a year for a family of four, we said in ‘07)." [Note: in New Jersey, a family of four earning $74,200, or 350% of the national poverty level, qualifies. In New York, that number is $82,600].

In an op ed on WSJ, one writer points out, "initially designed for children of working-poor families, this new Super-Schip will be double in size, and even kids whose parents make $65,000 a year will be eligible. The program will also now cover pregnant women and automatically enroll their new arrivals. The Congressional Budget Office estimates 2.4 million individuals will drop their private coverage for the public program."

So, people making up to $82,600 or less a year can now drop their own private health care in favor for "free" government-sponsored health care? Apparently, prioritizing your spending is not a valued American characteristic. If you make $82-65k/year (or less), I can't imagine that if you're responsible with your money (not living above your means, wasteful spending), that you absolutely cannot afford to pay for your own family's health care and that you should have the rest of the taxpayers pay for your and your childrens' health care. (By the way, you don't even have to be a citizen to qualify for SCHIP).

Reminds me of the newly-dubbed "octomom", who while facing foreclosure on her home and living off of food stamps, was photographed taking one of her sons on a video game shopping spree. What the...?! Where is the personal responsibility here? Why do non-working people who choose to spend their money on plastic surgery, multiple in-vitro procedures, and video games instead of their house payments qualify for these programs? Why are we paying for the (cushy) lifestyles of the lazy?

I'm not saying that everyone who takes advantage of these programs abuses the system, but it sure seems like a lot of them do. If we have enough of the lazies abusing the system, why are we expanding enrollment for more people to take advantage of their hardworking neighbors' tax money?

I love how the bill is pushed as "provid[ing] health insurance to uninsured, low-income children 18 years of age or younger, including those who are homeless," when in fact, it allows those who make middle-to-high incomes to drop their private health care to get a free pass. It also covers more than just children and expectant mothers.

Things to note about SCHIP (see SCHIP website here):
- You don't even have to be an American citizen to qualify
- 7.4 million people were enrolled last year - backers of the expansion hope to add >4 million this year.
- increases the tobacco tax from 39 cents/pack to $1
- increases "entitlement costs by $115 billion over ten years and the federal budget deficit by nearly $42 billion over that period"
- this isn't just children - 54% of SCHIP funds are spent on adults.
- "out of every 100 people who sign up for a state SCHIP expansion, roughly 65 have dropped private insurance to do so." - Independence Institute

I did call my congressman and leave a message about his vote for "ensuring that our kids have health insurance", but it wasn't to thank him.

Pocari Sweat

Only in Japan can you get away with a soft drink called "Sweat"... we used to love this stuff, even though it has a strange name.



One of the strangest things about Japanese television (besides their obsession with those pain-inducing game shows), were the numerous goofy commercials featuring American actors. I doubt the Governator would dream of starring in a commercial like this in the States.



And I wasn't kidding about those painful game shows. Painful (and also very weird)...



(Hat tip, Hungry K)

March Already?

I wish I had my camera out this morning. Waking up to a white-covered lawn was so nice. It's been a while since we've had any snow accumulation in our neck of the woods.

Of course, the pampered pups didn't appreciate it as much as Matt and me, but even the birds didn't seem to mind since I'd filled up their usually-empty bird feeder the day before.


Since the only blooms I've had in months are my newly-opened daffodils, I thought I'd bring in a few to cheer up the house.

Of course, talking to Lynne about gerbera daisies this weekend made it impossible to resist a pot of them on sale at Costco. Oh well. I can enjoy them inside until the threat of frost is negligible.

It's much easier to look at my gerberas instead of checking the news - I've been getting depressed every time I read about how our government is spending/taxing us into an oblivion! I can feel my blood rising just thinking about it... oops, time to look at flowers again.


Thankfully, it's already MARCH, and spring is almost here. (Wow, when did that happen?!)