28. April 2009 by David A. Peterson.

Sometime in the near future…

On January 20th, 2012 the Republican controlled U.S. House and Senate prepares to bring criminal charges against all members of the Obama Administration’s economic team including the President and the Democratic leadership of The Congress.

The charge… Economic terrorism and the economic sabotage of the U.S. economy.

I completely get that  a very small minority of people in our country consider what the Bush Administration did to the detainees was torture and maybe even criminal. After all this small minority is the exact group who thinks the U.S. brought 9/11 on itself. This is the same group that believes if we just worked with these fringe terrorist groups instead of working against them we could all live in peace.

I may get it but I certainly don’t agree with it. I’m going out on a limb here but I would assume that everyone reading this post thinks that this small minority of U.S. citizens is dead wrong, maybe even a little bit crazy - but we all respect their right to have an opinion.

I have written before that President Obama appears to be the “idea man” not really the actual leader of the country. This torture debate is another perfect example. Instead of leading the President is allowing this small minority the ability to rewrite how future administrations treat previous administrations.

We are moving right past the point of rewriting history. The history isn’t being challenged. In this case the terrorist were real. The terrorist really did kill 3,000 Americans on one day. The terrorist were not being challenged and were not kept in check by previous U.S. administrations or by any of our world governmental bodies.

As a result the terrorist were allowed to flourish and allowed to carry out a world wide military campaign. History is not being rewritten - all of this happened in a span of about 10 years. What is being rewritten is the fact that if an administration creates a policy that is not popular by any number of citizens, however small or large that group may be, then lawyers and not historians will be employed to put the issue into its correct context.

Unfortunately “correct context” really depends on who is writing the history.

What you are seeing from President Obama is exactly what leaders of third world countries do. They do not accept that they have been elected as leaders, as the face of entire nations, as the heads of nations that are expected to be in world leadership positions 1,000 years from now.

In essence President Obama is scared to lead, just like President Asif ali Zardari of Pakistan is scared to fight the Taliban, Obama is scared to take on the extreme leftest members of his party.

By not leading he is setting himself up for defeat. Unfortunately he is setting the country back as well. We will become a country that looks at disagreements on policy as disagreements of law. Unfortunately he is legitimizing a new policy of disagreements being be settled by the courts instead of by elections.

President Bush was reelected to keep American safe. His policies were certainly controversial but at that time a little more than 1/2 of the country agreed that it was the correct policy. Given the 2004 circumstances, given that the Iraqi war was not going well he was STILL reelected.

The Bush Administration checked the U.S. laws on the subject of what constituted torture. They examined and then reexamined again to see if they were within the law with respect to the policy. They did not see this as “torture” and just to make sure the inmates would not be harmed they had medical personnel standing by.

During his tenure as President the Democratic leadership in the U.S. House and Senate were aware of the “torture” policies. At the time these Democratic leaders also thought that these measures were within the law.  At that time they decided that America’s citizens as a whole were more important than these few individuals being kept awake for days-on-end.

That same Democratic leadership may be talking a different game today but documentation will eventually bear out and show that they approved of the “torture.” 

Regardless if you believe in the torture policies, if these policies saved lives, if you believe the policies are reprehensible, or if you believe this wasn’t torture at all, the policy was made by and approved by an ELECTED representative government that believed it was acting within the law.

To go back and rewrite history, to now call it criminal… there will be no end to that type of thinking in the future. The United States needs a leader right now before this stuff gets out of hand.

Sometime in the near future…

On January 20th, 2012 the Republican controlled U.S. House and Senate prepares to bring criminal charges against all members of the Obama Administration’s economic team including the President and the Democratic leadership of The Congress.

The charge… Economic terrorism and the economic sabotage of the U.S. economy.

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20. March 2009 by David A. Peterson.

Yes I must admit I was watching the Congressional AIG hearings this week. I’m as irritated as the next guy that an underperforming portion of our government is paying out bonuses to its employees.

Let’s get a couple of things straight, 1st at least as I see it, the government as in you and I own AIG. We own 80% of the common stock. There is nothing that happens at AIG without the knowledge of the government.

The 2nd point is that I’m all for paying performance bonuses, and I like the idea of retention bonuses for critical personnel. However, never in my life could I imagine paying a bonus to someone who should have been fired several months ago. If you ran a business unit (and a sizable amount of government assets) into the ground you should be fired not enriched.

But that is not what the employment contract at AIG said. The employment contract said if you stay you get paid. The owners of the business (as in you and I) agreed with this when Congress pass the stimulus bill that they didn’t have time to read.

Now Congress and the American people are boiling mad. How could this happen? Who are these people who got these bonuses? Where was the oversight? Blah, Blah, Blah - quit crying you elected the representatives in Congress, you know that they don’t really read the stuff they vote on. You know it, you always say it is not your Congressman’s fault and you keep voting for the same person.

My problem is that there was a mistake, and now Congress is making a bigger mistake by rushing in and taxing the crap out of those that got the bonuses. What a farce and what a slippery slope that will become.

My background is in sales and sales management. I have been involved in my fair share of compensation meetings. There is a lot that goes on when setting up compensation, entire departments are built around it. These meetings typically boil down to what do we want the individual to accomplish and how do we reward them.

After the compensation plan is drafted it is then delivered to the individual, explained to them, double checked to ensure that they understand it, and finally they will have to sign the plan.

As a lifelong sales manager nothing makes me more insanely mad than a representative that doesn’t understand how they are getting paid. I have spent a lot of time in meetings both individually and in team settings covering the points contained in every comp plan that I have been involved with.

If they hit their marks - they will get paid. If they miss their marks - they will not get paid. PERIOD!

I will have a sharper eye on the plans composition this time around. I will always have in the back of my mind what happens if Congress decides that my employees are making too much money. How do I structure my comp plan to make sure the employee doesn’t get hurt?

Congress needs to THINK before they act on this 90% tax on the foolish bonuses that were paid out. This new bill could cause major changes in how plans are written.

As an example: When you move your household for a company the money you receive from your employer for the move is taxed - a lot of companies protect their workers by ”grossing-up” the amount of the move to cover the taxes. That is a simple example of how a tax law ends up hurting a company and individual.

Did you get it…? The company has a greater expense (for all you non business people that really isn’t good) and the individual makes a little more money that is also taxed. The government really wins; they get the initial tax on the move and then the additional tax on the additional grossed-up income. Here’s an easy fix: DON’T TAX THE MOVE! It’s not really income the employee is receiving - it’s a pain in the ass to move not a pay raise.

Congress is rushing around setting up taxation policies that they don’t understand. One of the reasons they don’t understand it is they don’t read the bill. Even if they did read it they may not fully understand the consequences. Congress in general is house of doers not thinkers.

They don’t give a thought about how this bill or any bill may affect the non-involved. This 90% tax bill, even for its “good” intentions is bad, bad, bad, bad, bad policy. It will force compensation departments around the country to rethink how to get their employees paid.

Here’s my final thought: Instead of Congress creating another bill that will have more unintended consequences, how about just admitting that as a group you messed up, and you promise to actually read the bills presented before your organization. Go back and start reading and then reworking the mess you just sent us in February before creating a new mess in March.

THINK!

Here is an example off the top of my head of unintended consequences… What happens if the new bill needed to recapitalize the financial markets is rejected by Wall Street. By rejected I mean what happens if they say “take that money and shove it up your ass!” Wall Street will probably not fall into the 5pm Friday night trap of you “have to take this money or else” again.

If Wall Street knows that you are going to tax everyone’s income at a rate of 90% why in the world do you expect them to fall in line behind your policies? You would have to be on crack cocaine to agree to that. If Wall Street doesn’t fall behind the policy does that mean the financial markets are doomed? Now that would be an unintended consequence.

THINK!

NOTE: It’s nice to see the mainstream media picking up on this theme. I picked up the Atlanta Journal-Constitution this morning and they were running an article from the Washington Post on the possibility of Wall Street firms backing out of these rescue policies.

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