Suffering from the 4Cs- Corruption, Collusion, (in)Competence and Compensation- Don't go to the Emergency Ward

First- Corruption. According to Transparency International's 2008 Corruption Perceptions Index, Denmark, Sweden and New Zealand have the highest rating. U.S.A. is tied for 18th place. Corruption is fairly endemic, both in the public and private sectors. According to the NYT, "this morning, Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich of Illinois was arrested by federal authorities on Tuesday morning on corruption charges, including an allegation that he conspired to effectively sell President-elect Barack Obama’s seat in the United States Senate to the highest bidder."
Judgement should be withheld until the evidence is in, but the Illinois governor has been dogged by these types of charges for a while.
On the corporate side, CEOs of all three U.S. auto makers, after sucking up big chunks of money through salaries, bonuses and grants over the past decade, are not jointly asking for a bailout. Under normal circumstances this would be regarded as collusion. Rather than giving the automakers free dough, why doesn't the government purchase vehicles from the automakers for productive uses? Oops, these automakers don't make vehicles for productive uses.....
The compensation of the mangers, over the years, for the entities getting taxpayer funded bailouts, is astonishingly astronomical- whether it is Chuck Prince of Citi, Mack of MS, or anyone else. Their sheer incompetence is revealed in the size of their rewards. On the topic of incompetence, there is an AMAZING STORY today- Raines Faults Regulators for Fannie, Freddie Missteps- Apparently "Former Fannie Mae Chief Executive Officer Franklin Raines faulted regulators and housing officials for encouraging the mortgage-finance company and its competitor Freddie Mac to expand into riskier loans with limited oversight. “It is remarkable that during the period that Fannie Mae substantially increased its exposure to credit risk its regulator made no visible effort to enforce any limits,” Raines, 59, who was ousted in 2004 and accused of accounting manipulation, told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee in Washington today. Raines’s successor Daniel Mudd, and former Freddie Mac CEOs Richard Syron and Leland Brendsel also testified. The executives said Congress pressured the companies to finance lower-income borrowers while regulators did little to curb the increasing risk that ultimately led to a government takeover that wiped out most shareholders and potentially saddles taxpayers with a $200 billion tab. James Lockhart, the companies’ regulator, said in September that exerting greater control over Fannie and Freddie was impeded by “their lobbying power.” The corrupt Raines and Syron headed Fannie and Freddie and made truckloads of money, and now are blaming regulators whom they had supressed.

There was an interesting article in the WSJ on executive compensation. Titled "Japanese Wrestle With CEO Pay as They Go Global ArticleComments more in Management" and written by YUKA HAYASHI and PHRED DVORAKTOKYO, it says "U.S. financial institutions are criticized for giving executives big compensation packages. But their Japanese counterparts face the opposite challenge: As they step up acquisitions abroad and hire more executives from U.S. and European firms, they often must boost their pay. The gap is huge, as Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group can attest. Japan's biggest bank by market capitalization, paid a total of $8.1 million for 14 top executives in the fiscal year ended March 31, according to a regulatory filing. But at Morgan Stanley, in which MUFG acquired a 21% stake in September, John Mack, the chief executive, alone took home five times that amount -- $41.4 million -- in the year ended Nov. 30, 2006. His pay was cut to $1.6 million last year after the company posted a quarterly loss and he declined a bonus. On average, chief executives at Japanese companies with more than $10 billion in annual revenues are paid about $1.3 million a year, including bonuses and stock-option grants, according to Towers Perrin, a consulting firm, based on data gathered between 2004 and 2006. But chiefs in the U.S. are paid about $12 million, and chiefs in Europe are paid $6 million."
The question of compensation and how much is not much is a lot of money for thought.
NYT reported that "Merrill’s chief executive, John A. Thain, had requested a $10 million bonus this year, but the firm’s compensation committee balked at awarding him any payout, according to someone familiar with the situation but not authorized to discuss it." After soaking taxpayers for billions, this guy wants a bonus......

If one feels depressed at this wave of sickening news and wants to get relief, an emergency room visit seems to be the only hope as health insurance is slipping away. A revealing article in the NYT, Uninsured Put a Strain on Hospitals, says that "As increasing numbers of the unemployed and uninsured turn to the nation’s emergency rooms as a medical last resort, doctors warn that the centers — many already overburdened — could have even more trouble handling the heart attacks, broken bones and other traumas that define their core mission." This article is a must-read.
It is time that basic health care, especially preventive care, is provided for everyone.