Another Week, Another Czar

The administration is ready to appoint its twentieth Czar; this one will be in charge of compensation in private businesses. The public relations spin is that this person is needed only to protect taxpayers who have bailed out banks, insurance, and automobile manufacturers from evil executives there who might over pay themselves. It’s just to protect the little people.

But already hints are emerging that the Pay Czar will also issue “guidelines” to “assist” other companies in designing their compensation packages. The Federal Reserve is openly mentioning the perceived need for bank rules, even for banks not involved in TARP, to restrict pay for executives to avoid bank failure. The policy creep for areas of bureaucratic control will slowly, continually enlarge until it’s forcibly stopped by legislation. As you know, that seldom occurs.

Of course, free market capitalism does all of this without government interference or expenditure of taxpayer money. But now that the government is in charge of major US industries and reaching for control of others, the need for a czar apparently has emerged.

So we get to pay for yet another well-heeled, powerful executive and his staff who are accountable to no one except President Obama. Don’t you just love government of the people, by the people, and for the people?