Kavmerica.com

Almost as soon as President Obama announced that he would limit compensation for executives at firms which take Federal Bailout funds, his critics started saying that this would cause ‘Brain Drain’ from those institutions. Their argument was that the companies won’t be able to attract high end talent anymore to come work for them. You know, the high end talent capable of running a major financial institution into the ground to the point where they need billions in bailout money to keep going.

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For the past several months Congress has been bungling the economic recovery of the United States in every way imaginable. Lack of oversight, no direction and pork barrel spending have been their trademarks. So far they have spent $700 Billion of the taxpayers dollars on the Bailout and are closing in on approving an $825 Billion dollar Economic “Stimulus” package. Thus far the Bailout has done nothing to help the economy and each day we read about more and more CEO greed and corporate waste. The new Economic Stimulus package is doomed to the same fate as the Bailout. It is filled with Congressional pork barrel spending. If they were serious about helping the average Joe they would have instituted a plan similar to the one below. It’s simple and to the point.

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In case you have not heard it’s been reported that Wall Street companies handed out $18 Billion dollars in bonuses as the US economy crumbled in 2008. Where did that money ultimately come from? The tax payer funded Bailout. The only thing that the Bailout has really shored up is the compensation system for rich executives. The economy is still in shambles, companies are failing left and right but the rich have gotten richer.

Now apparently President Obama has come out to express his disgust for this type of behavior but where is the action? Where is the oversight of these companies receiving tax payer funds? Congress essentially handed them a blank check but you don’t see them taking any responsibility. They are ultimately to blame but we all know that nothing will happen to them. The gave all the responsibility to former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. Before becoming Treasury Secretary he was the CEO of Goldman Sachs. Why would put a former Wall Street CEO in charge of handing out funds to Wall Street CEOs?

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As Merrill Lynch plummeted into financial ruin you’ll be happy to know that its CEO, John Thain, didn’t let it get in the way of decadence. In fact he decided to spend $1.2 million dollars to remodel his downtown Manhattan office. Amongst his extravagance: $87,000 for an ‘Area Rug’, $28,000 for a pair of guest chairs, and $28,000 dollars worth of curtains. Apparently when you are busy running your company into the ground you need to make sure you do it with a sense of style!

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Kavmerica.com has written about Oil Speculation in the past and we’ve gotten some requests to clarify exactly what oil speculation is.  So here we go, Oil speculation is basically when an individual or company buys up the rights to a future oil delivery without any expectation of actually taking delivery of the oil.  They do so in the hopes that they can sell that delivery in the future for a higher price.

You might be asking yourself why someone would buy up oil they don’t need.  Well they do it because they are greedy and looking to make a profit when the price of oil goes up.  They certainly don’t care that the average American will have to pay more for almost everything.  It isn’t just the price of gas that goes up when the price of oil goes up.  The cost to ship goods all over the country goes up.  You pay more for your groceries, more for you home goods, more for just about everything that gets shipped anywhere or requires fossil fuel to make.  It effects everything, remember the computer you are using right now to read this gets it’s electricity from the power company and almost guaranteed they use fossil fuels to help generate at least some of the power.

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