October 21, 2009

Obama Wants to Destroy America’s Finances the Way Harvard University Destroyed Its Own Finances

Want to force out the people who know how to do the job?  That's what destroyed the financial strength of Harvard University. From Vanity Fair:

The fall of Harvard Management Company
• The longtime head of Harvard Management Company, Jack Meyer, quit to start his own hedge fund in 2005 after growing fed up with criticism over the eight-figure salaries some of his managers were pulling down and with persistent meddling from top Harvard officials. Two particular annoyances were Summers, who had been questioning Meyer’s investment strategies, and Robert Rubin, a member of the Harvard Corporation, who frowned on Meyer’s aggressive strategies and wound up on the “warpath” with Meyer, as one person put it.

• When Meyer left, he took much of Harvard Management Company with him — including 30 portfolio managers and traders, as well as the chief risk officer, chief operating officer, and chief technology officer. The place became “like a Ferrari without the engine,” according to a portfolio manager who arrived after Meyer left. This angered Rubin, according to someone who knows him well: “In Rubin’s opinion, Meyer crippled the institution.”

Now Obama wants to inflict precisely this kind of destruction on the very companies he pretended he wanted to save with the bailouts.

The Obama administration is set to dictate incomes to Americans at companies who foolishly believed that accepting government bailouts didn't give the government the right to dictate to them what they could and could not do with their lives. From the NY Times:

Responding to the growing furor over the paychecks of executives at companies that received billions of dollars in the government’s financial rescue, the Obama administration will order the companies that received the most aid to deeply slash the compensation to their highest paid executives, an official involved in the decision said on Wednesday.

Under the plan, which will be announced in the next few days by the Treasury Department, the seven companies that received the most assistance will have to cut the annual salaries of their 25 best-paid executives by an average of about 90 percent from last year. Their total compensation — including bonuses and retirement contributions — will drop, on average, by about 50 percent. The companies are Citigroup [C 4.42 -0.01 (-0.23%) ], Bank of America [BAC 16.51 -0.50 (-2.94%) ], American International Group [AIG 38.96 -1.47 (-3.64%) ], General Motors, Chrysler and the financing arms of the two automakers.

In March I posted:

Obama Wants to Turn the U.S. Into a Government-Managed “Planned Economy”

Obama is proving that some of the change he wants is to replace our market-driven economy, with one in which business decisions are made by the government and forced by law on we, the people. He wants greatly increased government control over health care, education, and energy......

Obama wants the government to control executive pay at all these financial firms. This kind of central planning of business decisions, controlled by the state, is called a "Planned Economy." From Wikipedia:

A planned economy or directed economy is an economic system in which the government or workers' councils manages the economy. It is an economic system in which the central government makes all decisions on the production and consumption of goods and services. Its most extensive form is referred to as a command economy, centrally planned economy, or command and control economy. In such economies, central economic planning by the state or government is so extensive that it controls all major sectors of the economy and formulates all decisions about their use and about the distribution of income. The planners decide what should be produced and direct enterprises to produce those goods. Planned economies are in contrast to unplanned economies, such as a market economy, where production, distribution, pricing, and investment decisions are made by the private owners of the factors of production based upon their own and their customers' interests rather than upon furthering some overarching macroeconomic plan.

Want to know what countries have, or have had, "planned economies"?

Important planned economies that existed in the past include the economy of the Soviet Union, which was for a time the world's second-largest economy[citation needed], China during its Great Leap Forward, and India, prior to its economic reforms in 1991, Afghanistan under the Soviet occupation and under the Taliban, and Iraq under Saddam Hussein from 1979 to 2003. ...Although most economies today are market economies or mixed economies (which are partially planned), planned economies exist in some countries such as Cuba, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Iran, North Korea, and Burma.

Yeah, baby! Let's turn the United States' economy into one like those of the Soviet Union, China, Afghanistan, Cuba, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and North Korea!

Frankly, that's change that nobody can believe in.

But that's what Obama is going for.

And just to rub in that what he wants is absolute rulership rather than to serve the people, Obama is threatening to cut people's salaries by 50% to 90%

That means people losing their homes.

That's the kind of rulership Obama wants to have over all the people.

Fight it or lose your freedom.