Is Barak Obama Megalomaniacal? (Part 2)

In my last blog, I considered whether Barak Obama is megalomaniacal, focusing on a now enacted Congressional bill purporting to grant Obama's manikin Treasury Secretary, Timothy "If-You-Understand-Me-I-Must-Not-Be-Obfuscating-Enough" Geithner near plenary power to establish salaries for the employees of any company receiving federal TARP money. Part 2 addresses the related question whether His Lowness may fire at will corporate directors and executives whenever he gets in the mood. For this issue I enlist the help of Robert Reich, the twenty-second United States Secretary of Labor serving under President Bill Clinton from 1993 to 1997, a graduate of Dartmouth College, a former Harvard University professor and former Maurice B. Hexter Professor of Social and Economic Policy at the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University and current professor at the University of California, Berkeley's Goldman School of Public Policy. In other words, a typical right-wing partisan hack. Robert's assessment, in his own words:

"Tim Geithner said on Sunday's Face the Nation that the Treasury might fire the heads of big banks that depend on financing from the federal government, just as it summarily deposed Rick Wagoner, the former CEO of General Motors -- and before Wagoner, the heads of AIG, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac. "Where that requires a change in management and the board, then we will do that," said Geithner.

"I suppose it's comforting to know our government stands ready to fire corporate executives and directors whenever taxpayer money is on the line. But I suspect Geithner's new tough line is mostly designed to reassure a public that's lost all faith in the wisdom of bailing out Wall Street.

"For the sake of the argument, assume he's sincere. What criterion will an axe-wielding Geithner be using? If precipitous loss of shareholder value is enough to "require a change in management and the board," presumably every CEO and director of every big bank now being bailed out should be fired, starting with Ken Lewis of Bank of America.

"If the criterion is diversion of taxpayer money to uses other than Congress intended when it first authorized the $700 billion bailout, the list of soon-to-be-fired CEOs is a bit shorter but still large. Surely it includes all the bailed-out banks that continue to fly their executives around the world in company jets, award them extraordinary pay packages, and run junkets at fancy resorts. Citigroup's Vikram Pandit (who collected $38.2 million for his taxpayer-subsidized services in 2008) comes immediately to mind.

"Why stop there? Perhaps Geithner intends to fire executives and directors of any company that's dependent on taxpayers and is now losing money. Just think of the corporate house-cleaning this will mean. Hundreds of agribusiness executives are now at risk as are scores of military contractors. Hell, the whole pharmaceutical industry depends on taxpayer support (research subsidized by National Institutes of Health, sales subsidized through Medicare and Medicaid), and it's doing badly, so their executives and directors will be gone soon, too.

"All told, about one out of every five large American companies depends on government contracts, and a majority of these firms are losing money right now. So ... off with their heads." (Courtesy of http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ - yes I find Ms. Huffington attractive in a Zsa Zsa "Dawn-of the-Dead" Gabor kind of way. . . .)

Off with their heads indeed. Having demonstrated - again - both its lunacy and its current lock-step with Field Marshallette Pelosi and her red-line to the White House, it's only a matter of time before Congress resorts to the invincible Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution (Article III, Section 8, for those of you who think I'm making this up) to find a financial link to the federal government for virtually every business entity in the country - including yours. Off with your head, anyone?