February 12, 2009--

The Left, Center and Right Agree on Curbing Compensation/Benefits to Business Executives Serving or Departing Financially Troubled Companies Seeking Bailouts from Taxpayers, but...

Currently, there's one thing on which union members, proprietors, taxpayers, leftists, liberals, centrists, conservatives, rightists and everyone else appear to agree:  Compensation/benefits for a business executive serving, or departing, a financially troubled company seeking a bailout/loan from taxpayers (or reorganization protection under bankruptcy laws) ought not protected from reduction needed to enable the company to recover.  In contrast with such unanimity, union members, leftists and liberals disagree with everyone else that union benefits likewise ought not be protected from such reduction.

There's another important distinction:  Although there are some cases in which the sizes of executive compensation/benefits under the circumstances seem egregious, there's virtually no case in which reduction of same would be <i>necessary</i> for the company to recover, but there are  cases in which substantially reducing union benefits would be essential for such recovery.   Yet unions, leftists and liberals adamantly demanding rescission or reduction of executive compensation/benefits are equally adamant in opposing reduction of union-benefits legacy costs even when common sense makes the necessity of such reductions obvious.  Such is the case regarding the severe competitive disadvantage such legacy costs impose upon General Motors relative to other motor-vehicle manufacturers not burdened with such costs.  Not only do unions, leftists and liberals straddle this intellectual chasm, but they do so without shame that ought to accompany the breathtaking hypocrisy of such "heads we win, tails you lose" agenda.  

Adding insult to injury, they also parrot the demonstrably false claim that General Motors' having failed to produce sufficiently environmentally "friendly" vehicles (instead of having produced the kinds of vehicles needed to satisfy demands of its customers) caused its current financial crisis.  (Virtually every economist knows that absent such legacy-costs burden, General Motors would have been making, rather than losing, money in its domestic market.)  Magnifying such insult and compounding such injury, unions, leftists and liberals wrap their collectivist dogma in the pantheopian liturgy of their Global Warming Religion (for which "scientific" arguments are getting weaker by the year).

Worse still, the current "stimulus" package enacted by Congress (in reference to which the most "bi-partisan" position is Republican and "Blue Dog" Democratic opposition in the House) makes the problem far worse by providing tens of billions of federal subsidies to the Global Warming Religion.  Worst of all is the fact that few of the so-called "independent" and "middle-of-the-road" voters are even remotely familiar with the contents of the "stimulus" package (as is the case also with a vast majority of Senators and Representatives who have not even read it).

What chance is there that ordinary voters who are not devout parishioners in the Churches of Unionism, Leftism, Liberalism, and Pantheopianism will become knowledgeable about these issues before it's too late?  It's already too late to stop enactment of the current version of the "stimulus" package instead of tax-cut proposals that would have produced twice the number of jobs at half the "cost."   Even though it's already too late to stop this significantly farther slide down the slippery slope toward a statist economy, it's not too late to keep us from reaching the bottom of that slope.  There is hope for change (in contrast to Hope for Change) if, but only if, proprietors, taxpayers, centrists, conservatives, and rightists mount an effective public-education campaign to expose the contradictory and economically destructive nature of the collectivist liturgy embraced by each of those "Churches."  

To be effective, such campaign must tap the outrage in the minds of the so-called "independents" and "middle-roaders" currently directed almost exclusively at "business executives" (as a result of the limited perspective furnished to them by the dominant media) so that such outrage broadens to include recognition of the role of governmental social-engineering regulation and union-benefits legacy costs as the main causes of the problem.  Such public-education campaign must effectively counter the spurious assertions that "greedy wall street executives" caused the mortgage crisis that led to the current financial/economic problems rather than the primary cause having been governmental coercion imposing social-engineering recipes for disaster on the marketplace through the influence of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and federal policy forcing lenders to make millions of worthless loans under the Community Reinvestment Act.  Indeed, (and no thanks to McCain's inept campaign), the vast majority of so-called "independents" and "middle-roaders" in the country believe President Obama's false claim that George Bush implemented policies that caused the mortgage crisis even though it's demonstrably a matter of public record that Bush tried to prevent it and that it was political resistance by liberal Democrats who legislatively blocked his efforts to do so.  Thus, the voters have unwittingly hired the looters to run the bank and the arsonists to fight the fire.

Although talk-radio reaches tens of millions, the vast majority of that audience already understands the issues.  Talk radio does not reach a large proportion of so-called "independents" and "middle-roaders," whose perceptions are shaped by the limited perspective provided by the dominant media (which overtly supports the economic, social and foreign policies of unions, leftists and liberals) and messages relentlessly reinforcing such perspectives embedded by Hollywood and the entertainment industry into entertainment consumed by the "independents/moderates."  There's no "George Soros" on the right (or in the center) ready, willing and able to counter such skewed perspective.  Thus, it's not going to be done unless and until hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of proprietors, taxpayers, conservatives and rightists find and fund ways to gain the attention of the "independents/moderates" and counter statist propaganda by educating them on economics, real science and liberty

Permanent Link:  http://wrenncom.com/CommentaryArchives/2009/20y09m02d12-01.asp .

Start

--Jim Wrenn, Editor at WrennCom.Com; also Editor at PoliSat.Com.

.