New Ways for New Times

What level of compulsion should you introduce in going ‘Green'. An authoritarian approach will anger, through its excessive Cost placed on the Homeowner. There is also the real degenerative economic aspect, where ‘Green’ industries and suppliers enjoy a greater freedom from Price competition by creating a monopoly of regulatory Demand. Rebate systems lack financial sway, as they must either be Windfall, or non-influential. My personal Choice has always been to insist that all Electrical equipment should be Utility-owned, maintained and owned by the Power companies; Homeowners limited in their Right of Protest to esthetic declarations settled before a Local Commission. It is still too dictatorial, but Homeowner compliance and Energy policy must achieve a balance.

The Job numbers are bad, and the Federal Reserve expects them to worsen. I always ask myself why deteriorating conditions come right before the Christmas Season. Economists continually utilize the same old Rationales for the declining Labor Market, and they sound as bad as when first uttered. Reality states that higher Fuel Costs translates into higher Utility Rates, which incurs higher Pricing of Product, requiring less Product and fewer Workers to produce the reduced Product. Some form of regulatory power to protect Labor interests seems the optimum adoption, but the Conservative bent observable arising with Reagan, and now backed by heavy Money, would appear to deny any deviation from cutthroat Job eliminations to meet a highly variable Production schedule.

It is amazing how the treatment of Labor never intrudes into the Boardroom. Could Rick Wagoner or the GM Board be blamed for the lack of Sales?–No. Can they be blamed for the Management payscales in light of the massive loss of Sales?–Yes! A simple Federal law stating there could be no Salary increases or Pay Package increments in any Tax Year for any Business which laid-off personnel from any Production operation. Unworkable?–Yes! Could there be insistence that Pay Package Increases not exceed more than 10% of Wage Savings accomplished by Laid-offs or Downsizing?–equally Yes! Predatory slicing of Labor Rolls to save Executive Pay Packages from reduction can be stopped, with the proper authorship of financial rules by the IRS and Tax law. lgl