Can You Identify the Economic Structure of the United States?
As an advocacy site for the advancement of free markets and individual rights, it’s important for us to provide the definition (according to The American Heritage Dictionary) for the system that flies in the face of these moral standards:
so•cial•ism (sō’shə-lĭz’əm) n.
1. Any of various theories or systems of social organization in which the means of producing and distributing goods is owned collectively or by a centralized government that often plans and controls the economy.
Having formally spelled-out the exact meaning of socialism, we encourage you to read the following article by Daniel Gross from The Slate.com, and ask yourself, “what structure of government do we have in the United States?”
Citi’s $100M man wants his check now
Energy trader Andrew Hall’s contract entitles him to a $100 million bonus. Should the company, which is partially owned by taxpayers, stiff him?
The controversy surrounding the bonus promised to Andrew Hall, the phenomenally successful energy trader at Phibro, a unit of Citi, is coming to a head.
Hall’s contract entitles him to a $100 million bonus. But in order to make good on the deal, Citigroup, which is now hugely supported and partially owned by taxpayers, must get the blessing of Kenneth Feinberg, the Solomonic attorney who administered the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund and is now the Obama administration’s Wall Street pay czar.
Feinberg will have to consider whether it is proper for an institution that, without substantial taxpayer support, couldn’t pay $100 bonuses to pay a $100 million one.
There’s another question he should consider. Do Citi’s shareholders benefit from owning what is, in effect, a hedge fund? Citi’s management argues that it needs Phibro because it has been profitable over the last many years. The more it makes, the better off the company’s shareholders — including reluctant shareholders like us taxpayers — will be. But the last few years have taught us that such gains don’t always find their way into shareholders’ pockets.
Why is this issue even being addressed by our Federal government? How far away from the tenets of our Founding Fathers has this century’s U.S. administration gone? What will it take to reverse this ill-fated free-fall into socialism?