Gore wins Nobel Peace Prize?

Really?  He beat out a Polish woman who saved the lives of 2,500 Jewish children during WWII.  That’s remarkably stupid.

Another CEO gets rich for failing

I’m a strong advocate for the free markets.  Free markets are built on voluntary and willing win-win exchanges between individuals.  I buy the hamburger from the butcher because it’s worth more to me than the $3 I give in exchange.  Likewise, the butcher values my $3 more than a rotting hunk of meat.  A free market is a great feedback system.  Which means, if you aren’t producing anything of value, survival is going to be rough for you.  But, if you produce something others do value, you’ll do fine.  

Something is inhibiting that free market system when a failing CEOs is paid handsomely for destroying value.  Gary Foresee, former CEO of Sprint-Nextel, resigned under pressure from the Board for his poor performance and it’s estimated that his failure will enrich him by $50+ million. 

The Board of Directors that allow such things should be promptly removed by shareholders.  They aren’t doing their jobs.  Paying failing CEOs well has been a growing trend.  Directors defend this remarkable stupidity by blaming it on the market rates for CEO.  Hogwash.  If you offer rich rewards for a failure, you’ll get a failure.  

The problem is with the Boards.  They’ve bought a faulty bill of goods from compensation consulting companies.  The incentive structure is broke.

 If they want to a model on how to pay their managers, they should read up on Warren Buffett, or just think how they might pay a manager of a single retail location that they might own. 

Michael Moore

I will give Michael Moore some credit for figuring out how to monetize his stupidity.  But, it’s hard to believe that someone who’s been around as long as he doesn’t seem to have a clue on how markets work.

“But fire and police departments are socialist.  We shouldn’t have profit in life and death matters.” Seems to be Michael Moore’s stance.

Sorry Michael.  Bad comparison on several levels.  Nobody has an incentive to use fire and police resources when not needed.  In cases where overuse was occuring - like responding to false burglar alarms - many police departments started charging a fee to cover the cost of the wasted resources.  In Micheal’s health care system, would he charge a fee for somebody going to the doctor when they didn’t need to?    

Fire and police departments are locally controlled – usually at a city or county level.  Which means there’s a free market element in police and fire units that Michael doesn’t see.  If police or fire protection in my town are bad, I can choose to live elswhere.  Imagine local police and fire protection provided by the Federal government.  I wouldn’t have that choice. 

Likewise, with thousands of independently run police and fire departments out there, you get the benefits of free market innovation.  Each individual department is a lab experiment on how to provide the best protection.  When one group in Cedar Rapids, IA discovers a better practice, other groups can adopt that practice.  How would that work in a Federally controlled system where everything was dictated from the top?

“I have a wide stance”

What!?! 

I’m not sure who’s more stupid in this case.  Sen. Larry Craig for getting himself involved in this whacked out controversy or the media for educating us on what the controversy is all about.   

Rush Limbaugh’s Phony Soldiers

Anybody with a few brain cells can figure out that Rush wasn’t referring to all soldiers that disagreed with him.

C’mon Dems, mischaracterizing to politicize is a bit uncomely, don’t you think?

Are these slow days in Congress or what?