Some Serious Judicial Thinking

We have received some serious and original judicial thinking from U.S. District Judge, Jed S. Rakoff, of the Southern District of New York. This ought to alert all business men and women as well as the general public.

In the matter of a fine imposed on Bank of America by the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Judge said: Hold it. The executives of the bank had consented to a proposed judgment by the SEC to pay a fine of $33 million.

The judge, however, held that bank executives had acted on the advice of their lawyers. Why then penalize the bank and its stockholders? Would you penalize the bank executives for taking legal advice in good faith? Why not penalize the lawyers for the advice?

This opens up the whole matter for discussion in the court proceeding being scheduled.

The Government Does Not “Create” Jobs

The government can employ people. It can thus achieve full employment by drafting every unemployed person to work in a government job. Particularly, high-cost, make-work jobs. Federal “stimulus” spending is promoted for its job creation. But such spending does not “create” jobs.

Private industry jobs are created in response to economic demand, incurred in response to a need. A businessman knows that expenses should be kept to a minimum, so jobs are genuine. Real job growth requires business optimism. Training along with payroll expenses make human resources a long-term investment.

Government work also absorbs tax money, that could have been used for economically useful job growth. The government uses tax dollars as “stimulus” funds only as it sees fit.

The government can help create jobs by cutting taxes. That would make it easier to create business. They can help also by limiting restrictions on terminating employees. The latter would therefore more easily get hired by private industry.

Those “Greedy” Credit Card Companies

A question for the Do-Gooders in Washington who pick on those “greedy” credit card companies. Along with commentators in the media who fulminate over those “outrageous” charges and fees.

Bad debts incurred by the companies generally run close to 10%. The companies in the business are losing money, so they are attempting to earn fees where they can. If they cannot get it from the relatively few deadbeats, they will receive it from the many customers who pay their bills on time.

If the business is so great, why aren’t so many more banks running to get into it?

In fact, many credit card companies are losing so much money on their credit card operations, they are are cutting back on card issuance.

Questions About Corporations Not Treated As Individuals

The status of the corporation as a person, in law, has been considered going back to Chief Justice John Marshall in 1819.

Equal protection laws always applied to corporations in the past. There are questions which arise from time to time and which occurred more recently during the nomination and approval of Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor.

In a hearing prior to her approval, Justice Sotomayor made a remark about corporations not being people. However the Supreme Court has always held that corporations held broad First Amendment rights, the same as individuals.

Warning: Should her stance become the view of future Supreme Court rulings, the entire basic commercial structure of this country could be overturned.

Writing a Job Resume

The right job resume is important, especially these days. Make a job application simple and current. Keep it up-to-date. Dates are important, of course, as well as your formal education reportage.

In fact, these days, the latter appears to count primarily for inclusion on a resume. Much of what you learn in school is useless for a practical job.

Be sure you are explicit about what have you done to make money for your past employers or how you have been able to help them save money.

Or if you feel you have talents as an organizer, describe what you have done and accomplished in this type of effort.

Are You an Employee or Contractor?

This is a long running problem, especially for small business. I have written extensively on the subject in the past from practical experience.

The subject has become trickier, as the courts are more vague and tort lawyers have been given more leeway by judges and juries who know ever-less about business.

The rule of thumb for business is this: Basically, if you control how a worker performs, he or she is an employee, not a contractor. Tell the hired person how and when to report to work and you have an employee, not a contractor. Also, when you provide tools for the work, you have an employee.

Tricky vagueness comes about when a question arises as to how important the job is to an employer’s business. You can be a genuine contractor by all conventional definitions and still be considered by some courts an employee of a business. Sharp lawyers come in to help make a complaint against the boss and trouble then starts.

Remember, many newly hired want to escape employee taxes just as much as employers do, and prefer being contractors. Until they are no longer working and seek unemployment insurance. Then they complain they never were independent contractors but really employees, after all.

Contractors do not get unemployment checks

How to Ruin the Environment by Greening it: Part II

The Obama administration plans to have wind power supply 20% of our energy by 2020. The project calls for 186,000 50-story wind turbines to be built in California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico, along with 19000 high-voltage transmission lines.

Besides the probable killing of tremendous numbers of birds as a result, and the outlay of huge taxpayer subsidies, all this could be accomplished, according to the Nature Conservancy, by a minimal number of atomic energy facilities. And at much lower ongoing cost.

Without the eyesores that will beset the Southwest of the U.S. if the Obama Administration planning comes to fruition.