CEOs and infrastructure WPA style

I'm watching CPAN on Tuesday morning where past managers of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are being grilled. CEO reductions of compensation because of stock pricing collapse is a little a nice pay back for their greed. They get up to $1.2 M per year in pensions. Their testimonies are worthless without restitution for their failures.These guys are actually perjuring themselves, not answering the questions asked and never taking any responsibility.

Minorities and housing http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/09/opinion/09tue1.html

Merill Lynch's CEO wants a $10 million dollar bonus even though the company lost $11.6 billion. Think how many people would be put to work with the $10 million. Everything is so out of hand and I don't see it stopping or any correction to this excessive misuse of corporate and tax payers' money.

How much more can a person use? Is $10M going to buy that much more than $5M? Oh, I forgot, McCain has seven houses. I guess everyone needs to keep up.

Trickle down never worked. Trickle up always works. What kind of economics class did these people go to?

$100 billion fashioned like the WPA would be less than 10% of the current package. Roosevelt spent about $76 billion for the WPA corrected for inflation. People working has a ripple effect. Ripple is better than trickle down. That is real spending power.
Nick Taylor's op-ed piece about the New Deal in the NY Times today: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/09/opinion/09taylor.html

I really like the idea of investing in our infrastructure. Putting people to work and prepare for the future. There are something like 50,000 bridges in need of repair.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-07-24-bridges_N.htm

If a school is putting more than 28-30 in a class there is a problem. This happens at a local middle school science class in Seaside, CA. Give the schools compensation enough to just pay the extra teachers and not increase the salaries of the administrators. Pre-school support would be incredibly smart. A friend who has been teaching 15 years says students who aren't going to do well are recognized by the first grade if not kindergarten.

The good news and the bad news is Bush is still in office 41 days. Hopefully less "hogwash" soon.

We are losing doctors because of the paper work and insurance company costs. In my county many doctor's no longer accept Medi-Cal. People are choosing not to be doctors and current doctors are not recommending the profession. I read one medical facility in Pittsburgh was requiring doctors to spend 8 minutes with each patient. Try and get good care with that let alone not allowing doctors to actually do a job where they can feel rewarded. They are being set up for failure. We have to help them with the loans making it more attractive to go through the time it takes for their education.

I'm very excited Caroline is petitioning for NY Senator. I grew up in NY and still have family and friends there.