Wolfowitz and Riza: How Sweet It Is!

At the start of the scandal triggered by the revelation that World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz had helped arrange generous pay boosts for his girlfriend Shaha Riza, Wolfowitz declared, "I made a mistake, for which I am sorry."

Two and a half weeks later, Wolfowitz had readjusted his rhetoric. "The ethics charges are unwarranted" and "bogus," he said.

On Friday, the Bank's board of directors was working to complete its report on the Wolfowitz affair and pondering whether to reprimand or even remove Wolfowitz. But regardless of the outcome of the official deliberations--which have been affected by behind the scenes maneuvering and the individual agendas of member nations--the Wolfowitz and Riza tale is one of Washington insiderism, a story in which a powerful player was able to guarantee that his companion would make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year and be entitled to a lucrative pension while working at a fledgling foundation with a friend of his. This is not how most public servants in Washington live.

After Wolfowitz, a former deputy defense secretary who was a prime architect of the Iraq war, assumed the Bank's presidency, he was faced with what he has called "a potential conflict of interest." He would be the boss (albeit not the direct boss) of his girlfriend, who was a communications officer in the Middle East section. He subsequently worked out a deal under which Riza would remain a Bank employee but be reassigned out of the Bank. What has caused the fuss is that this arrangement included a 36 percent pay hike--which raised her annual salary from $132,660 to $180,000--and guaranteed yearly pay increases of 8 percent. (She is now pulling in $193,000 a year.)

Wolfowitz has justified the initial compensation boost by arguing that when he arrived at the Bank Riza was short-listed for a promotion to communications adviser to the vice president of the Middle East region. Such a promotion would entail a jump in pay grade. The office of the vice president of the region had placed Riza's name on a short list of nine candidates, but, according to an official familiar with the deliberations of the human resources committee overseeing this job opening, Riza's position on the short list was not initially approved by the committee--a necessary step for her to receive the job. That did not end the matter. "It became clear the board was under strong pressure from upstairs to keep her on the short list," this official says.

Whether or not she made it to the final short list--Bank officials have different recollections--she was no shoe-in for the promotion. Two years earlier, Jean-Louis Sarbib, then the vice president for the Middle East region, had proposed Riza for a similar position, and the human resources board had rejected her. The board noted, according to a report made available to The Nation, that Sarbib should have sought other applicants for the position, that Riza "needs to establish herself as a communications professional," and that she should not receive a "promotion through the backdoor." Riza did not meet the minimum job qualifications: an advanced degree in communications and 15 years of experience. She was a gender specialist at the Bank--a well-known Arab feminist-- who had done communications work for only a few years.

In statements to the Bank's board, Wolfowitz has pointed to Riza's candidacy for the communications adviser post as a reason for awarding her a $47,340 compensation increase. "This raise is about double what you'd be allowed to get if you got that promotion," the official familiar with these deliberations said. "For Wolfowitz to use the argument that she was short-listed goes against what the committee said about her two years before. It does not justify the salary increase."

The Riza deal included more than that first big pay hike and annual increases. It also essentially guaranteed Riza subsequent promotions to higher pay grades. And the deal would provide her the yearly pay increases for up to ten years, if Wolfowitz remained at the Bank for a second term. By the end of a second Wolfowitz term, Riza, were she to stay a Bank employee, would make close to $400,000, possibly more.

These pay increases would lead to an outsized pension. According to a Bank source familiar with the institution's pension rules and formulas, pensions for Bank retirees are based on the average salary of an employee's last three years at the Bank. Under the Wolfowitz deal, Riza could expect an annual pension of about $110,000, if she retired in 2015 (assuming Wolfowitz served two terms). If Wolfowitz had not awarded her that initial salary hike of nearly $50,000 and she instead received steady annual raises of 4 percent over this ten-year period, her pension would be about $56,000. With the Wolfowitz deal, Riza could look forward to a rather comfortable pension.

And she could retire after working with a close friend of her boyfriend.

In September 2005, the Riza deal was finalized, and the World Bank and State Department agreed she would be seconded to the department's Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs. She was given the task of developing a foundation that would focus on reform in the Middle East and North Africa. It would eventually be called the Foundation for the Future. (At the time, Elizabeth Cheney, the daughter of the vice president, was a principal deputy assistant secretary in the bureau, coordinating Middle East initiatives.) But there aparently was some question about her status at the State Department. The next month, J. Scott Carpenter, a deputy assistant secretary in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, faxed a note to the World Bank saying that "we do not view Ms. Riza as detailed or seconded to the U.S. Government." He offered to "further refine this arrangement." Documents released by the World Bank do not indicate what subsequently transpired between the State Department and the Bank regarding Riza's employment status.

Over a year later, on October 1, 2006, Anwar Ibrahim, chairman of the Foundation for the Future, wrote Robin Cleveland, a senior Wolfowitz aide at the Bank, and requested the transfer of Riza from the State Department to the Foundation for the Future. Two months later, after Cleveland instructed the Bank's vice president of human resources to approve the transfer, the Bank okayed the switch.

The Anwar letter and other Bank documents related to this transfer did not mention that Anwar is a longtime friend of Wolfowitz. One of Asia's most prominent Muslim politicians, Anwar was a former deputy prime minister of Malaysia. He and Wolfowitz met and developed a friendship in the mid-1980s, when Wolfowitz was U.S. ambassador to Indonesia, according to Aasil Ahmad, an adviser to Anwar. In 1998, after addressing a rally protesting the government, Anwar was arrested and subsequently jailed on corruption and sodomy charges. During his years in jail, Wolfowitz was an outspoken champion of Anwar. Shortly after the 9/11 attacks, Anwar, while still imprisoned, wrote an essay condemning the attacks and calling on the Muslim worked to address "the suffering inflicted on the Muslim masses in Iraq by its dictator."

When Anwar was released from prison in 2004, Wolfowitz flew to Germany to meet him. The next year, Anwar, a former finance minister for Malaysia, endorsed Wolfowitz's appointment to the Bank, though he noted that he didn't share Wolfowitz's view of the Iraq war. ("The best the Americans can do is to withdraw their forces from Iraq," Anwar said.) These days, Anwar is back in Malaysia, advising the PKR opposition party, which is led by his wife, and preparing to run for president.

While helping to establish the Foundation for the Future at the State Department, Riza had recruited Anwar to serve as its initial adviser, according to Ahmad. The two then went about selecting a board of directors and drawing up the mandate for the group, which calls on the foundation to "advance and strengthen freedom and democratic trends and practices" in Middle Eastern and North African nations by supporting reform, media, human rights, and women's groups in those countries. The foundation, which is not a US government entity, has received a $35 million funding commitment from the United States and about $20 million in pledges from other governments. The board includes prominent citizens of Muslim nations. Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor is the only American on the board.

The foundation has not gotten off to a big start. It has yet to provide a single grant. Its first president, Bakhtiar Amin, an Iraqi who served as a minister in the first interim government set up following the invasion of Iraq, left the post after a short time in the job. "He was not up to the task," says a source who has worked with the foundation. No replacement has yet been selected. The group also does not have a chief financial officer or a chief operations officer at this time. Last year, it decided to open its main Middle East office in Beirut--right before the war in Lebanon. It has no permanent office in Washington. Email requests for information on its activities have gone unanswered. Its website lists no phone number. But Ahmad, the adviser to Anwar, says the foundation will soon begin awarding grants, perhaps in the beginning of June. Riza, he says, has continued to handle the day-to-day operations of the foundation. Riza, who is qualified for the job, has not been talking to the media.

Bloggers have raised conspiratorial questions about the foundation. (See here.) The available evidence is that the outfit is legitimate, though it has been beset with logistical problems. But until it gets around to handing out grants, its work and aims cannot be fully assessed.

In the Paul and Shaha saga, the work (or non-work) of the Foundation for the Future is not the main issue. Riza ended up there after a Wolfowitz friend (Anwar) wrote the Bank and asked for Riza to be detailed to the foundation--and a Wolfowitz crony (Cleveland) said yes. Whether such actions violate any Bank rules, this is incestuous. Consider the overall scenario: thanks to her boyfriend, Shaha Riza, after receiving a hefty pay raise, could serve as an adviser to a barely-functioning foundation she helped create, working with a friend of her romantic partner, and pull in $200,000 to $400,000 annually over the next ten years. And then she could retire with a $110,000 per year pension. This is quite a deal for the average foundation aide in Washington. In all that, is there nothing wrong? (Wolfowitz attorney Robert Bennett told Newsweek that it was Riza who "worked up the numbers" and pressed Wolfowitz to craft such generous terms.)

After first admitting he committed an error, Wolfowitz now fiercely argues he is the victim of a smear campaign waged by Bank employees who opposed him from the get-go due to his role in the Iraq war. His detractors at the Bank may be out to bring him down as payback for Iraq and for his heavy-handed management ways at the Bank. But Wolfowitz, who entered the Bank a self-styled scourge of corruption, has handed them potent ammunition. Every recipient of World Bank money must now want deals with terms so sweet.

With reporting from Stephanie Condon.

******

DON"T FORGET ABOUT HUBRIS: THE INSIDE STORY OF SPIN, SCANDAL, AND THE SELLING OF THE IRAQ WAR, the best-selling book by David Corn and Michael Isikoff. Click here for information on the book. The New York Times calls Hubris "the most comprehensive account of the White House's political machinations" and "fascinating reading." The Washington Post says, "There have been many books about the Iraq war....This one, however, pulls together with unusually shocking clarity the multiple failures of process and statecraft." Tom Brokaw notes Hubris "is a bold and provocative book that will quickly become an explosive part of the national debate on how we got involved in Iraq." Hendrik Hertzberg, senior editor of The New Yorker notes, "The selling of Bush's Iraq debacle is one of the most important--and appalling--stories of the last half-century, and Michael Isikoff and David Corn have reported the hell out of it." For highlights from Hubris, click here.

Comments (49)

1. Okay, Mr Corn, but what I want to know is....

   when does all that lead to Karl Rove being forced to testify and then be indicted for perjury and frog-marched out of the White House?

   hehe

   Posted by Mask at 05/04/2007 @ 4:56pm

2. The gall of these people is incredible. Wolfowitz should have been tarred and feathered, not place at the head of the World Bank.

   Posted by mtspence05 at 05/04/2007 @ 5:13pm

3. Wolfie learned about favoritism at the feet of the Master - Dick Cheney. Just today we learned that Dick's former CFO at Halliburton has been let off the hook by the SEC for cooking the books when Cheney was in charge.

   http://sec.gov/litigation/litreleases/2007/lr20104.htm

   How did Dick do it? He got his Boy, Christopher Cox appointed to head the SEC. (Cox is no friend of small investors - he WROTE the law that gutted the right of investors to band together to sue corporate wrongdoers. Another in a long line of Bush-appointed foxes guarding Public henhouses...) Cox and Cheney go way back together - David can list the ways. What is surprising is that it took THIS long for Cox to make this case go away... As is usual where Cheney is involved, there was a scapegoat: the lowly controller who did what Cheney and Morris told him to do.

   So, just the way Bush 41's SEC made the Harken open-and-shut insider-trading case go away, Cheney's Halliburton problems are just fading away...

   Unless someone at DOJ takes up the challenge? I think not...

   Posted by sjduskin at 05/04/2007 @ 5:57pm

4. Posted by SJDUSKIN

   And all the little small time peddlers like the old lying bald coward actually believe the Repubs are looking out for their interests.

   Posted by mtspence05 at 05/04/2007 @ 6:04pm

5. Bush sees no issue with Wolfowitz's sweet heart deal. In Bush World corruption and cronyism is not something to be avoided, it is something to be embraced and exploited. Welcome to the face of the new Republican Party... more for the privileged screw the rest.

   Posted by NeilSagan at 05/04/2007 @ 7:11pm

6. jUST ANOTHER FLASH THAT THE ONLY THING THE REPULICANS KNOW HOW TO DO IS APPOINT POLITICAL HACKS AND TURN THE GOVERNMENT INTO RIGHTWING RELIGIOUS ZEALOTS.

   Posted by was at 05/04/2007 @ 7:14pm

7. Quite well-written and informative. If they had chosen Bono he would never have arranged a sweetheart deal for the Edge...

   Posted by RLawrence at 05/04/2007 @ 7:19pm

8. Notice MASK offers no defense for Wolfowitz's penis oriented thinking - thinking with his dick - or his cronyism, or countering a reasonable critcism of favoritism with an attack on his accusers, or the claim of victim status, or groveling for his job, or any comment on any detail in the story as reported.

   But to be fair, and to give credit where credit is due, Mask was the first to comment. That's something.

   Posted by NeilSagan at 05/04/2007 @ 7:32pm

9. If the United States attorney scandal has made one thing clear, it is that the riskiest job in the Bush administration is being a prosecutor investigating a Republican member of Congress. Carol Lam, the United States attorney in San Diego, was fired after she put Randy Cunningham, known as Duke, in prison. Paul Charlton, in Arizona, was dismissed while he was investigating Rick Renzi. Dan Bogden, in Nevada, was fired while he was reportedly investigating Jim Gibbons, a congressman who was elected governor last year.

   Ms. Yang was investigating Jerry Lewis, who was chairman of the powerful House Appropriations Committee. Ms. Lam and most of the other purged prosecutors were fired on Dec. 7. Ms. Yang, in a fortuitously timed exit, resigned in mid-October.

   Ms. Yang says she left for personal reasons, but there is growing evidence that the White House was intent on removing her. Kyle Sampson, the Justice Department staff member in charge of the firings, told investigators last month in still-secret testimony that Harriet Miers, the White House counsel at the time, had asked him more than once about Ms. Yang. He testified, according to Congressional sources, that as late as mid-September, Ms. Miers wanted to know whether Ms. Yang could be made to resign. Mr. Sampson reportedly recalled that Ms. Miers was focused on just two United States attorneys: Ms. Yang and Bud Cummins, the Arkansas prosecutor who was later fired to make room for Tim Griffin, a Republican political operative and Karl Rove protégé.

   It is hard to see what put Ms. Yang on the White House list other than her investigation of Mr. Lewis, which threatened to pull in well-connected lobbyists, military contractors and Republican contributors. Ms. Yang, by all accounts, had a strong record. Alberto Gonzales hailed her as "one of the most respected U.S. attorneys in the country."

   The U.S. Attorney, the G.O.P. Congressman and the Timely Job Offer By ADAM COHEN LINK

   Posted by NeilSagan at 05/04/2007 @ 7:51pm

10. Posted by NEILSAGAN 05/04/2007 @ 7:32pm

    Why would I defend the guy? Wolfowitz's one of the chief idiots that got us into Iraq. MTSP is right...tarrin' and featherin' too good fer him.

    But my snarky point (yes...snarky) was that David Corn has gone into another scandal jag...who knows how long this one will last, and it's likely to have the same dry well consequences as the others.

    Posted by Mask at 05/04/2007 @ 7:52pm

11. Paying for a girlfriend? And such a "powerful man" - sending other men to die. A position of such power over other man - and cant get laid for free? Dude, why do you have to pay to have a girlfriend?

    Posted by conshame at 05/04/2007 @ 7:57pm

12. It is significant that the powerful war hawk cant get a girlfriend without paying her, Mask.

    Posted by conshame at 05/04/2007 @ 7:58pm

13. Oh, and recently fired - by a big idiot. No free girlfriend to cry on, had to pay for one.

    Posted by conshame at 05/04/2007 @ 7:59pm

14. Posted by CONSHAME 05/04/2007 @ 7:58pm

    Okay, CS, facts rarely intrude on your life or your religion (i.e. politics)....but there actual TRUE things you can say against Wolfowitz rather than the false idea that he was "paying for a girlfriend", given he was dating the woman BEFORE he became head of the WB.

    Posted by Mask at 05/04/2007 @ 8:37pm

15. "Paying for a girlfriend" may be imprecise but its not entirely off the mark. Wolfie, the comb licker, wasn't securing a sweet heart deal for his brother, son or friend from the Department of Defense, or Yale Univ, No! he was securing this for his heterosexual, live-in, girlfriend.

    The fact the highest priority of his chairmanship at the World Bank is minmizing corruption in World Bank business dealings, makes his defense of this deal all the more hypocritical and laughable. The value of the deal is well documented above. Wolfowitz was persistent in his efforts to secure it.

    Posted by NeilSagan at 05/04/2007 @ 8:52pm

16. Full Explanation HERE

    Posted by CaptainKirk at 05/04/2007 @ 9:15pm

17. "Paying for a girlfriend"

    How else can MT get some? (being by yourself doesn't count)

    Posted by john maasch at 05/04/2007 @ 9:58pm

18. Riza could have purchased some pairs of socks for Wolfy, after all, with that level of revenue you dont let your partner walk around with holes in his socks, especially not when he must go and visit a muslim shrine, really low class people.

    Posted by areyouok at 05/05/2007 @ 04:21am

19. Corn, you surely are amaizing! Conradian you are, with depths of devilish detail.

    And NeilS., if you absent Mask as I/we, you'll never again be tempted to conflact speedy opportunism with reasoned thought, and give utterance, or at attention to Voldemort-like personages like Wolfy, the Ravishing Womanizing Wonk, and Masking Tape.

    Posted by lewwelge at 05/05/2007 @ 09:56am

20. At LEAST "attention" is what we desire, even from oneself in the closed screening room of ones mind, in addition to "acceptance." Validation is the appropriately accurate synthesis. Writings such as are found here, thanks so much, inform and inspire (teaching's twin obligations).

    Posted by lewwelge at 05/05/2007 @ 10:00am

21. "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man (ISBN 0-452-28708-1) is a book written by John Perkins and published in 2004. It tells the story of his career with consulting firm Chas. T. Main. Before employment with the firm, he interviewed for a job with the National Security Agency (NSA). Perkins claims that this interview effectively constituted an independent screening which led to his subsequent hiring by Einar Greve, a member of the firm (and alleged NSA liaison) to become a self-described "Economic Hit Man."

    According to his book, Perkins' function was to convince the political and financial leadership of underdeveloped countries to accept enormous development loans from institutions like the World Bank and USAID. Saddled with huge debts they could not hope to pay, these countries were forced to acquiesce to political pressure from the United States on a variety of issues. Perkins argues in his book that developing nations were effectively neutralised politically, had their wealth gaps driven wider and economies crippled in the long run. In this capacity Perkins recounts his meetings with some prominent individuals, including Graham Greene and Omar Torrijos. Perkins describes the role of an EHM as follows:

    Economic hit men (EHMs) are highly paid professionals who cheat countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars. They funnel money from the World Bank, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and other foreign "aid" organizations into the coffers of huge corporations and the pockets of a few wealthy families who control the planet's natural resources. Their tools included fraudulent financial reports, rigged elections, payoffs, extortion, sex, and murder. They play a game as old as empire, but one that has taken on new and terrifying dimensions during this time of globalization.

    The epilogue to the 2006 edition provides a rebuttal to the current move by the G8 nations to forgive Third World debt. Perkins charges that the proposed conditionalities for this debt forgiveness require countries to sell their health, education, electric, water and other public services to corporations. Those countries would also have to discontinue subsidies and trade restrictions that support local business, but accept the continued subsidation of certain G8 businesses by the US and other G8 countries, and the erection of trade barriers on imports that threaten G8 industries. Recent events in Bolivia and Tanzania are cited as examples of the effects of these proposed conditionalities."

    Source: Wikipedia

    Bush has the master plan. This ain't no "out to pasture" appointment for Wolfie. More economic imperialism with a Zionist taint blends nicely with the Bush Doctrine which Wolfie helped to craft and articulate.

    Posted by OneVote at 05/05/2007 @ 10:25am

22. Posted by RIO BRAVO 05/05/2007 @ 12:42am

    and only a moron like you could try to use Clinton as a foil for Wolfies malfeasance. Do you have any defense for Wolfies actions? Can you come up with any reason his piece of ass should get the job, at 193,000 tax free? Did Monica get a cushy job at the World Bank?

    Every time I Read your words, you are more of an idiot than the last time. It just blows my mind that you and the rest of the neo-con Apologists think this it the way government should work. Again i say, no wonder you have an inherent hatred of guvt, you cannot imagine hiring qualified people to do the work. You condone cronyism over talent at every turn. Then acted shocked, shocked that guvt fails its employers.

    Posted by crabwalk at 05/05/2007 @ 10:49am

23. Duke Cunnigham, Brent Wilkes, Dusty Foggo, Rev Haggard, Neil Horsley.

    Now Wolfie. It seems the most moral of the repubs have a problem thinking with the Big Head. But, RIO will single out Clinton, who NEVER took a job away or gave a job to one of his floozies.

    Posted by crabwalk at 05/05/2007 @ 10:53am

24. Mask:

    when does all that lead to Karl Rove being forced to testify and then be indicted for perjury and frog-marched out of the White House?

    Oh, come now. You're usually much better than that. This is one scandal that all Wolfowitz -- the usual suspects have nothing to do with this one.

    I hope I dodn't disappoint anybody else.

    I'm still waiting for Ponti to show up and tell us why it is not a scandal.

    Posted by Jack Rabbit at 05/05/2007 @ 6:57pm

25. Feliz Cinco de Mayo mi hermanos y sisterns!

    Posted by lewwelge at 05/05/2007 @ 7:49pm

26. Having paused Eastwood's "Flags of our Fathers" until manana, I would feel remiss without

    Posted by lewwelge at 05/05/2007 @ 9:58pm

27. I thought the World Bank was supposed to help the poor of the world, not pay for cushy retirements of the well-connected communications directors. That pension is more than most people earn on their jobs. How many desparately poor people could be helped with $110,000 per year?

    Posted by proudlib at 05/05/2007 @ 11:19pm

28. I like the ironic reference to Jackie Gleason and the "Honeymooners." The divide between labor/workers and management/owners is a gulf capitalists, even Brooksian "social capital" spouters, don't seemingly wish to bridge, unfortunately.

    Posted by lewwelge at 05/06/2007 @ 11:19am

29. I'm so glad to have found David Corn again! I missed you when my local PBS station dropped the news show you were on. As to Wolfie: what goes around, comes around. "Commit a crime and the world is made of glass"

    Posted by Bullet at 05/06/2007 @ 5:21pm

30. How many desparately poor people could be helped with $110,000 per year?

    Posted by PROUDLIB 05/05/2007 @ 11:19pm

    Dissolve HALF the jobs at the World Bank, and you'd get even more. Problem is, like always, the bureaucracy has surpassed the utility of the "international organization" as every Deputy Under-Secretary making $110,000 has an Assistant Deputy Under-Secretary making $75,000.

    Problem is...same people who create these groups, rarely REFORM them.

    Posted by Mask at 05/06/2007 @ 10:38pm

31. Wolfie has tried to blame World Bank rules on the grounds that they were vague and imprecise for his behavior. It doesn't matter whether or not the rules existed or what they said. Any thinking, decent person knows that you do not behave the way Wolfie did.

    Posted by danmiller at 05/07/2007 @ 12:35am

32. Posted by MASK 05/06/2007 @ 10:38pm

    This is one of the reasons that arguments about public vs. private sector are so distracting. A large orgnaization is by its nature inefficient, regardless of whether it is public or private. There are run by bureaucrats whose first concern is to protect and justify their own jobs, which is really difficult to do in any practical sense because they do no productive work.

    Posted by Jack Rabbit at 05/07/2007 @ 01:43am

33. (All this fuss over a double-bagger...)

    Posted by drhammer at 05/07/2007 @ 10:52am

34. There are run by bureaucrats whose first concern is to protect and justify their own jobs, which is really difficult to do in any practical sense because they do no productive work.

    Posted by JACK RABBIT 05/07/2007 @ 01:43am

    Yet those who want expanded Government largesse rarely attempt to keep the bureaucracy under control....in fact...

    they UNIONIZE it, thus providing those folks with political clout to do just as you say!

    Posted by Mask at 05/07/2007 @ 12:57pm

35. Well, this is not hypocrisy; this is criminal. At furst you would think, Dubya is a visionary type of guy who would not pay attention to "small" details like this. However, if the pattern repeats itself time after time, from Scott Lybby to Gonzales to Rove to Wolf, the what you could say? Outright corruption and incompetence?

    Posted by HelenDAO at 05/07/2007 @ 11:15pm

36. At least this time Wolfie's criminality hasn't led to any mass death, as opposed to his warmongering, which has resulted in the slaughter of huge numbers of people, wrecked an entire society, helped destabilize a crucial region, and brought incredible shame to the nation that this war criminal at least pretends is his homeland.

    Posted by feinfein at 05/08/2007 @ 12:49am

37. Yet those who want expanded Government largesse rarely attempt to keep the bureaucracy under control....in fact...

    they UNIONIZE it, thus providing those folks with political clout to do just as you say!

    Posted by MASK

    While I can't speak for those that want expanded government largess (which I'm sure there are those that want the government to just give money away willy nilly), some bureaucratization is necessary--it's a necessary evil. If you compare the VA and Social Security bureaucracies to those of the same size in the private sector you'll find the same inefficiencies but a distinct difference in costs.

    What I don't understand is the prevalence of mega mergers in the private sector that serve only the interests of share holders. These mergers eliminate choice, jobs, and create large, inefficient bureaucracies.

    Posted by mtspence05 at 05/08/2007 @ 09:37am

38. Posted by MTSPENCE05 05/08/2007 @ 09:37am |

    Well, two points...

    1. JACK RABBIT and I agree that bureaucracies eventually spin out of control and become more concerned with protecting their own jobs rather than being efficient or less corrupt. And I believe he and I would agree that applies to both corporations AND Government....do you?

    2. I also mentioned the unionization of those bureaucrats, which means that it grants them POLITICAL CLOUT to influence the political parties (primarily Democrats), and since the political parties control the size and scope of Government....it means that they are able to prevent reductions in their work-force and even push for MORE workers in Government, leading to more members in their union, leading to more political power. A spiral that eventually leads to them controlling Government for their own "special interests".

    Many on the Left decry that type of system when it's "corporations" and special interests groups manipulating Government for their agenda....

    but seemingly have no problem when it's a government workers' UNION doing it...with a friendly political party!

    Posted by Mask at 05/08/2007 @ 09:46am

39. Posted by MASK 05/08/2007 @ 09:46am

    I'll confirm that at least in part (I don't think we agree in some of the details, but we pretty much agree on the broad picture).

    While you, Mask, emphasize the role of unions in the problem, I see beauracracies as a managment issue and the problem as being one inherent in large organizations. However, unions can become part of the problem by buying into the status quo rather than an agent for reform.

    An example of this in private industry was in the 1970s when the UAW bought into the protectionist solutions being hawked by the US auto companies. It wasn't the Japanese's fault if they were building better cars than our big three. To use the better mousetrap analogy, this is like company A trying to outlaw better and cheaper mousetraps when company B makes them.

    Anyway, where the UAW had an opportunity to influence reform and failed was in buying the protectionist line instead of putting pressure on the automakers to design and build better cars. It was as if the last thing anybody in Detroit wanted to do build a fuel-efficient car while pump prices were skyrocketing and a low-maintenace vehicle saving on repair costs.

    What we saw in that spectacle was American industry (labor and managment together) acting as if it was allergic to competition, which for the consumer is supposed to be the big advantage of capitalism. However, when production is concentrated in only a few very big hands, there is no competition. Competition works for the consumer, but to the capitalist it is a nuisance; it is something to be undersold, bought out or otherwise eliminated. When real competition from overseas threatened US automakers, they responded by trying to eliminate it with government-imposed protectionism. They don't worry about the consumer; the consumer will be forced to buy what they market, no matter how many Gallons per >b>Mile it takes to run it or if it has to be Fixed or repaired daily.

    The UAW thus became part of the problem rather than part of the solution.

    To a conservative, it might seem that the problem is unionized workers trying to protect their jobs. To the left, it migh seem as though the problem is big business trying to protect its profits and being big enough to work its will on government to help eliminate competition (the government at that time was unwilling to do anything more than bail out Crysler).

    To me, the leftyliberalprogressive democrat (please note the small d), I can't help but wonder if the high school graduates on the assembly line, if encouraged to take such matters into their own hands, couldn't have designed, built and marketed a better automobile than the Harvard MBAs and the Yale lawyers in the corporate suites.

    Posted by Jack Rabbit at 05/08/2007 @ 2:33pm

40. Posted by JACK RABBIT 05/05/2007 @ 6:57pm

    I'm still waiting for Ponti to show up and tell us why it is not a scandal.

    Sorry, you'll have to figure that one out for yourself. I don't even have the patience to follow Mr. Corn out on his latest snipe hunt. You go ahead, tell me what you find when you get back.

    By the way, I expect a pat on the back for successfully predicting the outcome of the last 'scandal', although I did make the mistake of giving it a month before it disappeared into the abyss, or swampwater if you will.

    Posted by pontificus at 05/09/2007 @ 04:09am

41. Posted by LEWWELGE 05/05/2007 @ 10:00am

    At LEAST "attention" is what we desire, even from oneself in the closed screening room of ones mind, in addition to "acceptance." Validation is the appropriately accurate synthesis. Writings such as are found here, thanks so much, inform and inspire (teaching's twin obligations).

    Pay attention here, kiddies. This is why your parents told you to stay away from drugs.

    Posted by pontificus at 05/09/2007 @ 04:20am

42. Posted by JACK RABBIT 05/08/2007 @ 2:33pm

    What we saw in that spectacle was American industry (labor and managment together) acting as if it was allergic to competition, which for the consumer is supposed to be the big advantage of capitalism. However, when production is concentrated in only a few very big hands, there is no competition. Competition works for the consumer, but to the capitalist it is a nuisance; it is something to be undersold, bought out or otherwise eliminated. When real competition from overseas threatened US automakers, they responded by trying to eliminate it with government-imposed protectionism. They don't worry about the consumer; the consumer will be forced to buy what they market, no matter how many Gallons per >b>Mile it takes to run it or if it has to be Fixed or repaired daily.

    Jack, like a lot of liberals, you're always looking for people or organizations to act through your vision of altruistic motives; some sort of divine presence on Earth. If you want altruism, go to heaven. Fact is, here on Earth, people don't act through altruism, especially not in business. Psychologists will tell you that what often appears to be altruism is really nothing but an advanced form of survival technique for individuals operating in groups.

    If companies or business can eliminate the competition through government action, they will try it. And in systems where governments have such power, they will often succeed. This is not a flaw of such governmental systems. It is a feature. Why do you think Washington is crawling with lobbyists? Why do you think the Democrats who promised to end the 'culture of corruption' are currently feasting on it?

    This is one of the main reasons why governmental power needs to be limited to what is absolutely necessary and no more.

    Posted by pontificus at 05/09/2007 @ 04:37am

43. Ponti:

    First of all, no pats on the back. No scandals have mysteriously vanished into thin air. While the journalists concentrate on this one (one of the few that is not grounds for impeachment against Bush and/or Cheney), investigators are still working on the others. I understand Gonzo will be in front of a committee again tomorrow to tell the truth in a new and novel way than he has up to now. I've lost count. Well this be the fifth or sixth different way he's told the truth? I think it will be the third one under oath.

    Jack, like a lot of liberals, you're always looking for people or organizations to act through your vision of altruistic motives; some sort of divine presence on Earth.

    Gee, Ponti, tell me what else I think. You seem to be more of an expert on the subject than I am.

    The fact is that I don't expect people to be altruistic. Leave businessmen to themselves, they'll pay their workers nothing, produce crap merchandise at the amrket them at the highest prices and buy out anybody who can build a better mousetrap than they can and sell it for less. Not to mention pollute the air we breathe and the water we drink.

    Psychologists will tell you that what often appears to be altruism is really nothing but an advanced form of survival technique for individuals operating in groups.

    No one needs a psychologist to tell him that. An anthropologist will do.

    True, it's a survival technique. When I was a youngster, the opposing campus ideologies were a kind of crackpot Marxism on the left and on the right followers of another crackpot, the hack novelist and quack philosopher Ayn Rand. On the left they denied that humans were unique individuals, but an entirely social species, and on the right they asserted that humans were simply a territorial, acquisitive individuals with no real responsibility to the social group to which the individual belongs. The best art and literature plays on on the human conflict between the need to be a unique individual and the need to belong to a group, to reach out to other humans to survive. That is so much a conflict between individual or groups, but a conflict that exists within each individual.

    If companies or business can eliminate the competition through government action, they will try it. And in systems where governments have such power, they will often succeed. This is not a flaw of such governmental systems. It is a feature. Why do you think Washington is crawling with lobbyists? Why do you think the Democrats who promised to end the 'culture of corruption' are currently feasting on it?

    Since you have said that moving in groups is a survival strategy, what is illegitimate about groups of humans banding together to protect themselves from the abuses of modern large corporations? It seems that right wing morons in the halls of the AEI find something fundamentally wrong with opposing corporate power, as if there is some divine mandate that created them rather than the coming together people who could accomplish production of goods and services better as a group than they could as individuals. Thus, it is perfectly legitimate for individuals to form such groups as labor unions to oppose the tendency of the business owners to depress wages and government to set a uniform set of requlations for industry so that they don't just produce and market shoddy, even dangerous products or foul the environment.

    No corporation would on its own accord regulate poisonous emissions from its factories. Only an altruist or some believer in some similiar pie-in-the-sky steer manure would be foolish enough to think they would. To do so would put that corporation at a competitive disadvantage. However, if the government sets the sets the standards for the entire industry and makes certain that everybody follows those standards, then no one is at a competitive disadvantage.

    That is why it is absolutely necessary for government to have the power to regulate industry.

    Of course, that brings me back to my original point. Government, like private industry, when suffering from elephantitis, has a tendency to become a threat to well-being of the species. That is why citizens groups are formed to watch over government demand the removal of corrupt or incompetent officials who do things like start unnecessary wars with a pack of lies, blow the cover of a secret agent in a political vendetta, use partisan standards for enforcing the law, spy on citizens without a warrant, allow public facilities such as levees or veterans hospitals to become so delapidated that they cannot accomplish their mission or neglect rescue and recovery operations in the face of a disaster. There's nothing illegitimate about that, either.

    As for Mr. Wolfowitz, he should be treated like any other bank president who arranges a cushy job with a fat salary for his mistress at the expense of the institution which he serves.

    Posted by Jack Rabbit at 05/09/2007 @ 3:56pm

44. If you're peddling sobriety Ponti, you're right, I'm no poster boy. Ala Baudeleire (sp?) and a multitude of others, not all "muddled" as you accuse me of being, I revel in life's positives, here the great writing of readers/supporters of The Nation.

    Posted by lewwelge at 05/09/2007 @ 8:33pm

45. We've got him cornered Jack Rabbit!

    Posted by lewwelge at 05/09/2007 @ 8:36pm

46. Now post-somnolent, I apologize for both my impertinence, Jack Rabbi, in attempting to glom onto your capacious coattail(s), and for my ad hominem pulp Ponti. The quality dialectic here, at least, deserves better.

    Posted by lewwelge at 05/10/2007 @ 06:38am

47. Wiki: "On September 2, 2004, a panel of three judges of the Federal Court (Malaysia's highest court) overturned the sodomy conviction by 2 to 1, finding contradictions in the prosecution's case."

    Posted by ChiLois at 05/10/2007 @ 09:10am

48. So, the Uniform Commercial Code is THE means of escape, Rese, for we radicals desiring freedom from the Jesuits' control? I'm not anywhere near the level of material achievement to consider enlisting a tax attorney, but for those now and future philanthropic non-theistic advocates for social justice, your advice is appealing, I'd suppose.

    Posted by lewwelge at 05/10/2007 @ 09:38am

49. Can't you guy see Jews and Arabs not just working together, they are collaborating to rip you off? Didn't find you interesting? Hey you can put them up for Midd.East peace negotiation.

    Posted by pari sharif at 05/10/2007 @ 3:01pm