Congressman Jim Jordan Writes Back

(As an aside, I wonder how many people today have no idea who Herb Alpert is.  It seems a shame to me.  In my opinion, he's a very good musician.)

In my email inbox today I got a reply from Congressman Jim Jordan.  Granted, it was a form-letter, but still. 

In it, he informed me that he'd voted against the Mother of All Bailouts.  While I won't quote the entire thing, I do want to quote a bit of it:  "I remain deeply skeptical of its impact, though I was slightly encouraged by the successful efforts of my Republican colleagues to increase the transparency and accountability in the legislation, making sure that recipients of taxpayer dollars don't receive excessive compensation of golden parachutes, and that none of your money was going to radical groups like ACORN and La Raza."

That last sentence brings up two points ... golden parachutes for "executives" and radical groups (Congressman Jordan's words!) like La Raza (literally - The Race) and ACORN.  ACORN and the Obamessiah will be the subject of my next entry, but I wanted to talk about executives.

Before I did that, however, my therapist (yes, I'm still seeing him) asked me a question upon reading my blog.  I asked him in a session if he would mind if I included his question into an entry and he told me he didn't mind.  Here's his question:  "Do you [meaing me obviously] have a problem with authority?"

I'm going to give my readers (2 at this point :) ) the same answer I gave him.  The answer is no, conditionally.  The conditions are that they won't have done anything illegal or immoral.  They won't have squandered or stolen money or lied to their employees and/or regulators.  They won't have 'cooked the books,' or fudged the numbers.  That they treat their employees with respect and not ask anything of them that they themselves are not willing to do.  They won't write people up for no reason.  They won't cut their employees pay in order to line their own pockets.  He looked at me for a few moments and said "I can't argue any of that."

Which reminds me.  Some time ago, the Communications Workers of America had a radio advert out.  In it, they decried the outsourcing of American jobs.  While the advert is copyrighted, I can quote one sentence under the Fair Use clause:  (This line is from a woman playing the part of a voice recording at AT&T.)  "We're not sorry.  If AT&T pays foreign workers tiny salaries with no benefits, we can pay top executives even more."  (emphasis theirs)  Sounds about right, doesn't it?

In the interests of full disclosure, I'll say again that I was once a union member and was covered by the Communications Workers of America. 

Ok...back on topic. :)  Golden parachutes.  http://apnews.myway.com/article/20081008/D93M0K6G3.html  Less than a week after the bailout of AIG, they sent some of their "execs" to a luxury spa.  The tab?  $440,000  Think of it.  The execs ruin their own company and they get sent to a luxury spa ... and we paid for it.

I wonder how many people will be so pissed off this year that they'll refuse to pay their taxes, knowing that their tax money is being wasted on crap like this.