The FDIC, Government Payroll, and TSA Searches

FDIC

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation has proposed rules which would defer 50% of executive bonuses for three years.

Director of the Center for Investors and Entrepreneurs John Berlau criticizes the new rules.

“If Obama really wanted to be true to his word about rational regulation, he would tell the FDIC — led by George W. Bush-holdover Sheila Bair — to shelve this rule that micromanages decision that should be made by private companies and their shareholders. In a free market, it’s up to a company’s owners to decide how to reward those who run it. What is Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg worth given the value he has created? That is a hard question; but it is thankfully one government bureaucrats don’t have to decide.”

Government Payroll

As people in the private sector struggle to find employment, the government continues to hire.

Vice President Iain Murray estimates the size of the federal workforce.

“When we add up the true size of the federal workforce — civil servants, postal workers, military personnel, contractors, grantees, and bailed-out businesses — and add in state- and local-government employees — civil servants, teachers, firefighters, and police officers — we reach the astonishing figure of nearly 40 million Americans employed in some way by government. That means that about 17 percent of the American labor pool — one in every six workers — owes its living to the taxpayer.”

TSA Searches

Writer Andrew Ian Dodge recently told the story of his uncomfortable experience with the TSA.

Senior Counsel Hans Bader rounds up the latest complaints about the agency.

“Dodge wrote about the TSA’s recent decision to block competing private companies from performing airline security screening, even though private airport screeners do better on customer-satisfaction and passenger-happiness measures than TSA employees. I wrote earlier about how the TSA’s attack on private screening will harm innovation and passenger safety. CEI’s Brian McGraw wrote about the TSA’s recent decision to allow unionization of TSA employees, which TSA heads during the Bush administration had consistently opposed on security grounds.”