As I release this article and continue our series on the appointment of czars, there is continued debate going on in Washington over Healthcare Reform. We will begin looking at that next week. As I researched about my next subject, Kenneth R. Feinberg, who is the Pay Czar, I found conflicting information. I saw a couple of articles claiming that Mr. Feinberg was only 31 years old, drives a foreign car, and has no executive experience. Fortunately, I dug a little deeper and found evidence on the contrary.
Mr. Feinberg is actually 63 years old, born October 23, 1945 in Brockton, MA. He obtained a history degree from the University of Massachusetts and got his law degree from New York University. He worked for five years as an administrative assistant and chief of staff for U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy, and as a prosecutor for the U.S. Attorney General. Before founding his own firm, The Feinberg Group, in 1993, he was a founding partner at the Washington office of Kaye Scholer LLP.
He specializes in mediation and alternative dispute resolution and was appointed by President George W. Bush to be the Special Master of the U.S. Government's September 11th Victim Compensation Fund. Before that assignment, he was appointed by federal district judges to help resolve several difficult product liability lawsuits. He played central roles in resolving cases involving victims of asbestos, Agent Orange and the Dalkon Shield, a birth control device that injured more than 200,000 women. He oversaw the Virginia Tech victims’ fund as well. He was also one of three arbitrators who determined the fair market value of the Zapruder film that captured the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, resolving a dispute between the heirs of Abraham Zapruder.
With his many years of experience in arbitration and mediation I don’t question Mr. Feinberg’s credentials or his motives. He worked for nearly three years on 9/11 project Pro Bono. I respect his service to this country in that regard. So, if I don’t have a problem with Mr. Feinberg, what’s the problem here?
Here’s the problem I have with the appointment of a “Pay Czar.” I don’t think the Federal Government should be involved in taking over Wall Street and the entire financial markets. As I mentioned in a previous article, the TARP bailout was just a big “Ponzi scheme” for Goldman Sachs. Why were some companies bailed out, while others were allowed to fail? The Government picked the winners and losers, on what criteria? The argument for AIG was they were “too big to fail”, yet Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns, much larger than AIG, were allowed to fail. It has to do with who would benefit from the failure.
The appointment of Feinberg is an attempt, at least in appearance, to throttle the ridiculous spending and compensation going on. We shouldn’t have given them the keys to safe to begin with. Of course some people who have actually earned bonuses as compensation for selling toxic assets are getting completely shut off from justified commissions. They need to look at the abuses at the top and all the ties to Goldman Sachs. I could spend days talking about this. Maybe I’ll go further into it at a later time as more is revealed.
I also don’t believe the White House has any right to step in and fire CEO’s of Private Corporations without approval of the Board of Directors, stockholders, or creditors who are invested in the company. In the Chrysler and GM bankruptcies the labor unions were moved to the front of the line in the settlement process. That is not only unprecedented but rewrites the rule of law concerning lien holder rights. There was no purpose in giving the UAW stock in the company except paying off the debt of electoral influence and support. We also have government officials and new CEO’s and czars, who have no clue how to build a car, not only running auto manufacturing but also dictating dealerships nationwide.
Why are some dealers who have been successful for decades shown the door, while others are rewarded? Is this based on profitability or location? There have been many reports and stories about favoritism based on political affiliation. These dealerships are small local businesses with employees and economic impact for their communities at stake. They have decades of customer and vendor relationships and many are pillars of the communities they are located in. Who has the right to tell them they have no choice but shutdown or worse yet hand over the keys to a new proprietor of someone’s selective choosing.
Ford chose not to file bankruptcy or take any bailout money and actually reported a profit this past quarter. Why weren’t Chrysler and GM allowed to fail and reorganize into profitable corporations? Because this is not about profit, it is about to control; controlling the design and manufacturing of cars that will leave a smaller “carbon footprint,” in the name of Global Warming. All this is making me nauseous. I think I’ll go lay down. Maybe I’ll wake up and realize this was all a dream, or nightmare. See you when I wake up. Are you awake yet?
No comments:
Post a Comment