Job Evaluation: Failure to Meet Objectives

The Census Bureau came out with hard numbers that permit us to evaluate the long term performance of Congress and the leadership class (to be called the Pharisees in the future).

WSJ (9/14/2011 online) "The income of a household considered to be at the statistical middle fell 2.3% to an inflation-adjusted $49,445 in 2010, which is 7.1% below its 1999 peak, the Census Bureau said."

FT (9/14/2011 online): “In 2009, the median full-time male worker aged 25-64 was earning $48,000 – roughly the same as in 1969 in real terms. Meanwhile, in the same 40-year period, the income of the top 2 per cent of working age men has jumped 75 per cent.”

These results are an unmitigated disaster.

The common people in America have lost ground in incomes during a period when the promises of the Pharisees in the Dark City have expanded.  For 40 years, the Pharisees urged the public to accept great changes in governmental policies based on theories. The promise was better living standards.

We can evaluate the success or failure of those policies with hard data:  they all failed.  Failure was bipartisan. The Pharisees in the Dark City and elsewhere got more [75% more!], but the plain people got less.

The 40 year social contract was a fraud to fool the people to accept risks to their lifestyles in exchange.  The Pharisees got a banquet, the plain people get to chew cud.

Here's a simple proposal to start to change to a better society:  cut the pay and benefits of Congress by 20%.  Cut the pay and benefits of Federal employees making over $100,000 by up to 20% [scaled to hit the higher levels with the full cut].  Require similar cuts for all government contractors.

Reason:  complete failure to meet objectives.

That's true shared sacrifice.  The leaders bear the pain, too.

Word of the Day

"Manqué" - adjective [$10] placed after the noun
Manqué means that might have been, but is not, unfulfilled (a comic actor manqué).
Sentence:  "Better lives from productivity increases" was a key part of a social contract manqué - the Pharisees are now in default.  Cut their pay.