Not only the “usual suspects” but others have been pointing at the compensation packages given to chief executive officers of large corporations and claiming that the compensation is “too great” and should be reduced. Some are even calling for government regulation of executive compensation. 

As a believer in the “free market,” I think that the only ones who should determine the compensation of any employee are those who hire the employee. They are the best judges of the individual’s worth and they are the ones paying the compensation.  All other commenters have no responsibility to the employee,  the corporation or the stockholders.

 A  number claim the “moral imperative.”  Compensation “ought” to be in accordance with their world view.  If they would die and rise from the dead on the third day, I might listen.  However,  unless they bear a reasonable resemblance  to a  Supreme Being – all knowing and omnipotent –  I pass.

But the question remains. What is a reasonable compensation for a chief executive officer? 

First of all,  the question should be answered,  if it can be answered, based on readily verifiable data that is value neutral as to the question. In other words, don’t stack the deck!

I suggest the following test for reasonable compensation :

First :  we will measure the total compensation package of a CEO against the total sales revenue for a particular year.  The total compensation package must include all deferred payments received in the out years and the total sales revenue must include all adjustment to that year’s revenue.

Second : Ideally, we would compile this data on every cheif executive officer but that will create some disortion as a small corporation’s compensation may be greater in terms of corporate revenue.

  Two reasonable compromises are to just use the Fortune 500 or to just use corporations with sales revenues in the bilion dollar range. 

In either case, we then add the total compensation packages of the CEOs and divide by the number of CEOs. Then add the total adjusted  sales revenues of these corporations and divide by the number of corporations. This will give us two averages :  average compensation and average revenues.  Simple third grade division will give us the percentage of revenue received by the average CEO. 

Now, here is the kicker – if you have some experience and ability in mathematical puzzle solving – you have recognized what the results will show.  It does not seem right but, if you do the necessary math, you will find that, expresed as a percentage of sales, those huge CEO compensation packages are proportunately less than the average compensation package.

A couple of Air Traffic Controllers have bee ncaught sleeping on the job and the FAA has reacted by requiring Air Traffic Controllers to get nine hours of sleep before each shift rather than eight.  The pointy-haired boss in Dilbert has company at the FAA. In fact, if the pointy-haired boss left Dilbert’s company and went to work for the FAA, I believe that the intelligence level of both organizations would rise.

It is not a lack of sleep that has caused these Air Traffic Controllers to sleep on the job but the boredom of working a night shift with no activity. Any front-line supervisor worth their salt knows this.  The Air Traffic Controller could have matched Rip Van Winkles’ snooze and still dropped off on a long shift with nothing happening.

There are two “real” solutions to this problem.  The first is to have the Air Traffic Controller check in like a night watchman – punching a button every fifteen minutes. However, this can just limit the “snooze” to less that fifteen minutes before someone is aware that the Air Traffic Controller is asleep. The best solution is to install voice recognition software that will recognize when a pilot is calling the tower and sound a loud horn or bell. With such a system, you can let an Air Traffic Controller work a double shift because on the late night portion, he can sleep until alerted of the arrival of an aircraft.  Pay regular time for the double shift since the late night shift will involve little work and you utilize your personnel to maximum advantage at a lower cost.  Since it makes sense, the government won’t buy it.

(Disclaimer : I am not nor have I ever been a speculator. I do have an MBA in Economics (minor Finance) but have never worked in either an economic or financial position.)

I have been troubled for many years by allegations made by politicians, some economists and financial writers that the actions of speculators are the cause of the rise in prices – especially oil. I have spoken to and corresponded with such people in an effort to ascertain whether their statements are true.  So far, the best response I got was an “appeal to authority” by a New York papers financial columnist. 

For any “trolls” reading this diary, let me explain the difference between a thermostat and a thermometer. A thermostat is a device that is used to regulate temperature. A thermometer is a device that shows the themperature.

If speculators are thermostats, their actions would have an effect on prices. However, if they are thermometers, they only report on the effects of other actions on prices.

From what I have been able to determine, speculators are thermometers – thermometers that forecast future events, yes, but only thermometers. 

If anyone can show credible proof that speculators are thermostats, please produce your evidence.

First of all, we all attended law school in the 1970′s – in fact, Anita Hill and I graduated in the same year.

What few people know about attending law school in the 1970′s was the “culture” in some law schools.

The Feminist Movement was very active on law school campuses but it was very different movement than the Feminist Movement of today.  Prior to the 1980′s, the Feminist Movement urged women to be like men in some aspects. One of these aspects was to watch and enjoy porn.  Law students of my time were socialized to accept porn not only in the dorms but in the classroom. Yale Law even had a porn film club that showed porn on campus.  Law students from the 1970′s had a very different attitude towards porn than law students of today.  Law students would openly discuss porn films in mixed company and those who objected were scorned.

Thus, claiming that Clarence Thomas was “sexually harrassing” Anita Hil by discussing a recently seen porn movie is farfetched.  Anita Hill most certainly saw porn movies while a student. If she had not, she would have been viewed as an “oddball.” The statement by Anita Hill that Clarence Thomas spoke about the porn movies he had seen is believable but not sexual harrassment in context. 

Clarence Thomas and I have one other thing in common – we both have been falsely accused  by an African-American woman. He was accused of sexual harrassment while I was accused of denying her of “equal terms, conditions and privileges of employment” based upon her race and color.  I was accused in September 1978 and, although all investigators from the New York State Division of Human Rights found no evidence of discrimination, the Division of Human Rights wanted me to sign a Conciliation Agreement in which I would appologize for my “unlawful discriminatory practices.”  Shades of Kafka!

I refused and, supported by my Director and Legal Counsel, demanded a hearing. After stalling for almost five years, the Division of Human Rights, on April 19, 1983, dismissed the charges.  As this matter was was not publicized, my reputation was not dragged through the mud as was that of Justice Thomas. 

When the charges were made against Clarence Thomas, I did not know who to believe.

I was on vacation during the Senate Hearing and watched the entire hearing. By this time, i was a seasoned investigator and had four years experience as an Administrative Law Judge. Based upon what I saw and heard during the hearing, tempered by my legal and historical knowledge and experience, Anita Hill and her chief witness, Susan Hoerchner, lied under oath.

Fact : Anita Hill claimed that she left her high paid position at a major Washington law firm because of “sexual harrassment.”

 Fact :  A former partner in the law firm made an affidavit stating that she was “asked to leave.”

Opinion : Anita Hill claimed “sexual harrassment” rather than admit that she had been found wanting.

Fact : Susan Hoerchner, then living and working in California, had one telephone conversation with Anita Hill in which Anita Hill complained of “sexual harrassment.”

Fact: Susan Hoerchner stated that Anita Hill mentioned “Clarence” as the harrasser in interviews with Senate investigators.

Fact : The single phone call was made before Anita Hill went to work for Clarence Thomas.

Opinion : All attorneys are aware of the problem with witnesses “filling in the blanks.” The human mind plays tricks and honest witnesses can be deceived by their own mind. 

When a disrepancy in the testimony is pointed out, an honest witness will admit the error. Susan Hoerchner, when a Senate attorney (possibly Janet Napolitano) pointed out the time discrepancy, Susan Hoerchner stood by her “testimony” but, at the Senate hearing, claimed that she was unsure of the date.  

As there was only one telephone call between Hill & Hoerchner, the telephone records could have been supeonad by the Senate committee but the Democratic majority was refusing to issue supeonas.

Fact : Anita Hill followed Clarence Thomas from one govement position to another. If he was sexually harrassing her, she could have stayed on in her old job – the incoming director speciffically asked her to stay.

Fact : Victims of sexual harrassment do not follow the harrasser from office to office. Yet Anita Hill followed Clarence Thomas.

Opinion : When Susan Hoerchner made her mistake and notified the Democratic Senate investigators, Anita Hill could have simply stated that Ms.Hoerchner was mistaken. However, she allowed herself to be persuaded to submit her harrassment charge when assured by the Democratic Senate investigators that her identity would be protectd and that Clarence Thomas would withdraw his name rather than have his reputation ruined.

Fact : Nita Totenberg of NPR “outed” Anita Hill after a Democratic Senate investigator leaked her name.

Fact : Anita Hill, not Clarence Thomas, was in big trouble. Having made charges against Thomas in a sworn affidavit, she faced the loss of her university position, disbarment and, possibly, a term in jail.

Opinion : Having been given false information by the Democratic Senate investigators about her attempt at character assignation, Anita Hill had no choice but to go to the Senate hearing and  lie. Her whole career was at stake.

Just about every honest politician and concerned voter cheered when the paper ballot was replaced by the totalizer machines. It was a great day for those seeking honest elections. Now, our current crop of politicians (dishonest or stupid – take your pick) and the “useful idiots” in the media have returned the voters of New york to the “bad old days” of machine politics and voter coercion or intimidation.

I learned my politics from ”Boss” Buckley’s Bronx Democratic machine. I was an eager listener to the tales of “Nails” and “Shaker” about the “good old days” when they could “steal” an election because of the paper ballot.

“Nails” got his nickname because of the lenght of his fingernails – longer than those of most working women. He kept them long because, with pieces of graphite cemented to those nails, he was able to invalidate many a paper ballot during the counting process.  However, this could only work in close elections such as party primaries.

For the general elections, in districts where the voters were either intimidated or compliant, another method was used.   When the polls opened the first bunch of “voters” were party regulars. They collected their paper ballots but did not deposit them in the ballot boxes. Instead they went outside and gave the already marked ballot to a voter. The voter was required to put the marked ballot in the ballot box and return the unmarked ballot to the party worker. The party worker would mark that ballot and give it to another voter. Since the intimidated voters had to produce an unmarked ballot, the party workers were the only one who actually voted. Now, with the new paper ballot system in place, “grand theft election” is certain.

Moe : Yesterday, I went to the NYSDMV to renew my driver’s license.  I decided to spend the extra $ 30.00 to get the enhanced version.  I carefully got together all the requested documents except for my Social Security ID card. I lost the last one in a hold-up in the 1970′s and had never bothered to get a new one.

I have managed to renew my driver’s license several times since the 1970′s without needing to show a Social Security ID card.  In fact, at my last renewal, the NYSDMV accepted my Form SSA – 1099 – Social Security Benefit Statement and my Form 1099-R  from the NYS & Local Employees Retirement System to verify my Social Security information.

However, this time the NYSDMV would not accept those documents and demanded a Social Security ID card. They claimed that it was a “Homeland Security” requirement and could not be waived.  I remembered that I still had the first Social Security card I was issued when I got my “working papers” at age 14 in 1952.  I asked if that old card would be sufficient. Thy said yes so I made the round trip to pick up the original card.

When I returned with the card, i thought that my troubles were over.  Then the NYSDMV person noticed that, on the ID card my middle initial was “P” while on all of my other documents, including the Social Security Benefit Statement, my middle initial is a “M.”  I tried to point out that the “P” obviously was a “printing error”  without success. 

I had to go to Social Security where, aftr a long wait, a helpfull clerk made the arrangements for a new Social Security ID to be issued.  It will take a week to ten days before I receive the new card in the mail and can begin the whole procedure once again.  Wish me luck.

There is a documentary being shown tonight on HBO entitled “Trouble the Water.”  It is about Katrina and, having read the review by one of my “usual suspects” – Linda Stasi of the New York Post, I can say that the kindest thing I can say about the filmmakers is that they are are totally ignorant about Katrina and its aftermath.

The initial section of film was made by Kimberly Rivers Roberts, a person “living below the poverty line” according to Ms. Stasi. She and her husband stayd, along with their neighbors, because “they had no way out.”  After all, “the government did not provide transportation for the trapped.”  Of course, the government is not identified but we all know it was Bush’s fault.  The fact that Mayor Ray Nagin and others in the city government of New Orleans failed to implement their own emergency evacuation plan is not mentioned or, at least, did not penatrate Ms. Stasi’s brain.

Ms. Stasi states that “FEMA never arrived.”  Of course!  FEMA is to blame!  Just ignore the fact that FEMA is not a “first responder” but, as its title states, the Federal Emergency Management Assistance Agency.  FEMA’s job in emergencys such as Katrina is to provide management assistance and logistical support to state and local governments.  In other words, those who “never arrived” were the first responders from the state of Louisiana and the city of New Orleans.  Why didn’t they arrive?  In the case of the Louisiana National Guard units designated for hurricane response, it was because Louisiana’s governor, in spite of appeals from her own staff and from the White House, did not call out the National Guard until it was too late for the units to reach their deployment positions before Katrina arrived.

That caused situations such as the FEMA tractor -trailer, loaded with filled sandbags, arriving at a levee to find that the National Guardsmen that were to use the sandbags to re-enforce the levee had not arrived.  Of course it was FEMA’s (and Bush’s ) fault. That tractor-trailer driver from FEMA should have re-enforced the levee all by himself.

The film mentions that 911 operators were telling people that the government is “not providing rescue at this time” but, it is not clear from Ms. Stasi’s column, just what “government” the 911 operators are speaking about.  Of course, the 911 operators are city employees and may have been refering to city government.  To hose who paid attention to what was happening, the fact that many city employees, who were supposed to perform various functions in accordance with the city’s emergency plans, did not go to their emergency assignments but, instead, took their families and fled the city before Katrina arrived.

Ms. Stasi, to her credit, was one of those people who volunteered to drive a truck with relief supplies to the Gulf.  However the fact that she will “never forget” the total breakdown of FEMA  is disturbing.  She remembers something that did not happen.  It was the total breakdown of the city government of New Orleans and the partial breakdown of the government of the state of Louisiana that the documentary should address not the popular fiction of a FEMA breakdown.

I am 70 years old and there have been 11 Presidents in my lifetime. Consider the following about each :

Franklin Delano Roosevelt : When he first ran for President, he was considered an intellectual lightweight. H. L. Mencken called him “an amiable dunce.” The famous “Roosevelt Brain Trust” was put together to convince the voter that, while Roosevelt might not be so smart, he had surrounded himself with smart people. Roosevelt had prior administrative experience as an Assistant Secretary of the Navy during WWI and in two terms as governor of New York State.

Harry S Truman : Did a good job as a commanding officer of an artilery battery of the Missiouri National Guard in WWI, failed in the haberdshery business, was the best Roads Commissioner Missiouri ever had, served in the Senate. In the almost four months he served as Vice-President, Roosevelt and his staff kept him entirely “out of the loop.” A joke in Washington that preceeded Truman’s becoming Vice-President was that the only way a Vice-President could enter the White House was by joining a tour. When Roosevelt died, Truman was completely in the dark, not only about the Manhattan Project, but about almost all of Roosevelt’s policies and programs.

Dwight David Eisenhower : Entered the Presidency with the most executive experience of any President. However, Ike stated that his military experiences as a “chief executive” did not prepare him for the way civilian government worked. He had to learn “on the job.”

John Fitzgerald Kennedy : Our “martyred President.” Underneath the myth, Kennedy was almost entirely without executive experience and, for most of his time as a Representative and Senator, had a well deserved image as a “playboy.” In his first meeting with Nikita Khrushchev, he left Khrushchev with the impression that he was weak and indecisive. Thus, the Cuban Missle Crisis.

Lyndon Johnson : Was a very good schoolteacher in rural Texas before he entered politics. Spent his entire political career in the Legislature, little or no executive experience. Became President when Kennedy was shot. Kept almost all of Kennedy’s advisors. Big mistake! Where Kennedy knew his advisors and was often skeptical, Johnson took their advice at face value,

Richard Milhous Nixon : Probabily the best prepared man to enter the White House since Thomas Jefferson. When he was Ike’s Vice-President, Ike treated him in the manner he would have treated a deputy commander in the Army. Nixon was completely in the loop and was given assignments and projects to administer. In other words, Eisenhower trained Nixon to be able to take over if anything happened to Ike. That was the military way to handle a deputy commander not the political way.

Gerald Ford : Our first unelected President. A creature of the legislature with little or no executive experience. The less said the better.

James Carter : A former Naval officer, an enginering officer on a nuclear submarine, a successfull peanut farmer and governor of Georgia. His best qualification for office? “Trust me, I will never lie to you.” The smartest man elected since Thomas Jfferson, he was a micromanager with little understanding about the world’s peoples, cultures and politics.

George H. W. Bush : An experienced executive with good credentials in government service, He was too much the bureaucrat to be really effective.

William J. Clinton : A complex character with a mixture of virtues and vices hereto unknown in American politics. Had executive experience as Attorney General and then as a two term governor of Arkansas. Because of having a Republican Congress, he had to accept many Republican programs. Most of the political credit he now claims is for programs that the Republican Congress forced him to accept.

George W. Bush : Had executive experience as a businessman and then as governor of Texas. Responded well to crisis situations at home and abroad but was either unable or unwilling to fight the MSM when they misrepresented or distorted his record.

As to our two current candidates :

John McCain : His only executive experience was in the Navy. He did command, successfully, the Navy’s largest fighter squadron, but, as Ike found out, that experience does not translate well when dealing with civilians. His saving grace is that he knows not only his strenghts but his weaknesses.

Barack Obama : No real executive experience. A creature of the legislature with all of the failings of such. To see how Obama would fare as President, look at John Videt Lindsay’s two terms as mayor of New York City. After Lindsay, the city faced major financial problems either caused or aggravated by Lindsay’s manifest shortcomings as an executive.

It is ironic that, of the four people running for the offices of President and Vice President, the most qualified executive is Sarah Palin.