Regarding, the subject of political and corporate 'lobbyist narcissism' and unethical lobbyist practices...
If there are 'corporate lobbyists' hanging around heads of pertinent government departments -- or 'power politicians' even above heads of government departments -- and 'contracts' or 'drug approvals' are at stake worth millions or even billions of dollars...and 'money' is either directly or indirectly (through 'political contributions') passing hands from 'private corporations' to 'government officials'...
then we all know that this is 'blatant conflict of interest', violating 'private competition laws'....and a form of direct or indirect bribery which obviously is illegal -- or should be.
However, like the 'back of the food package', often if not usually, we would just as soon not 'read or hear what we do not want to read or hear'....and when we read or hear these political-corporate scandals coming out in the daily news, we deem ourselves to be more or less 'helpless' on these matters, and eventually just let the whole scandal slide....which is what the accused and/or guilty politicians want us to do...
Meanwhile, the lost government money goes out the back door, or into the hands of some fired government official who walks away with a multi-hundred thousand dollar 'separation agreement', and to compensate for all the lost money, government just raises our taxes in the next budget meeting -- for example turning our 'Goods and Services Tax (GST)' into a more lucrative, all-encompassing, and hard-hitting 'Harmonized Sales Tax (HST)'....See, even the name of this new tax sounds nice and 'harmonious'...like the front of the package that says: 'No Trans Fats!'...
Every prime minister-to-be, or president-to-be has the greatest ideals for 'cleaning up government conflict of issue problems'...until they actually get into power...and then their 'ethical clean up program' seems to get swallowed up by the gigantic 'Government Establishment Whale'... Personally, I would create a whole system of new taxes geared towards reducing government and corporate corruption...
A brand new network of 'EHTs -- Ethical Harmony Taxes' such as: 1. The 'GOT' (as in 'GOT CAUGHT!') -- i.e., The 'Government Overspending Tax' -- this would be a 13 per cent 'Ethical Harmony Tax' applied to the personal income tax of any government official convicted of having a 'lavish and grossly inappropriate personal/government expense account' in any particular budget year. 2. The 'UGLYT' -- i.e., The 'Unethical Government Lobbyism Yearning Tax' -- this tax could be applied to either government officials and/or private corporate lobbyists who are convicted of any type of unethical government lobbyism malpractice -- such as:
Brian Mulroney and the 'suitcase full of money' episode with the German arms dealer.
At the very least, the Government of Canada could have hit Mulroney with the UGLY Tax -- a 13 per cent surcharge on his personal income tax plus another 13 per cent corporate tax on any company owned by Mulroney or anyone else associated with this debacle (we would hope that, in this case, the German arms dealer would have been banned from any further business dealings with The Government of Canada... however, I doubt it......this might be partly laughable but at the very least, any 'contract chaser' inside or outside Canada convicted of UGLY (Unethical Government Lobbyism Yearning) would be hit with a 13 per cent 'EHCT'' (Ethical Harmony Contract Tax) on any further government contract dealings, as well as an additional 13 per cent corporate surcharge tax, and a personal income tax surcharge for the particular convicted lobbyist and the owners and/or shareholders of the company the lobbyist is working for. It could be applied to anyone 'reasonably assumed to knowing what shenanigans were going on'.
In Ontario here, there was the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Scandal in which the terminated CEO, Kelly McDougald walked away with a$750,000 termination settlement...
And there was the EHealth Scandal which the auditor said was a '1 billion dollar waste'...
His report says the board of directors at eHealth Ontario felt it had little power over CEO Sarah Kramer because she had been hired by chair Alan Hudson "with the support of the premier." That, McCarter said, gave Kramer the impression she had approval to ignore normal procurement procedures.
It was revealed late Tuesday that Health Minister David Caplan resigned because of the report.
Just minutes after the release of the report, Premier Dalton McGuinty announced that Children and Youth Services Minister Deb Matthews would take over the health portfolio.
Too much power in too few hands
McCarter's probe, which went back to 2000, criticized unnamed consulting companies for driving up each other's fees to artificially create a higher rate for their services and putting too much power in too few hands in awarding of contracts.
In his report, the auditor general also slammed unnamed officials at the Ministry of Health for thwarting his efforts to get investigators into the ministry for a routine audit in the summer of 2008. In the end, the audit didn't happen until February 2009.
McGuinty has since announced new rules to keep a closer eye on the expenses of about 300 top executives at 22 of Ontario's 615 arm's-length agencies, boards and commissions by having them approved by the province's integrity commissioner.
EHealth was set up in 2008 to create electronic health records after Smart Systems for Health spent $650 million but failed to produce anything of lasting value.
Smart Systems for Health was quietly shut down last September.
Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/toronto/story/2009/10/07/ehealth-auditor.html#ixzz0jZX5E7cj
Sarah Kramer walked away with, I believe, around a $300,000 termination settlement...Meanwhile here was what was said about her 'government performance as former CEO for The EHealth Department...
Kramer's $114,000 bonus was double eHealth's allowable rate
Cancer Care Ontario CEO says no one there was getting such bonuses
Last Updated: Friday, June 5, 2009 | 2:26 PM ET
CBC News
EHealth Ontario CEO Sarah Kramer's six-figure bonus was double the maximum rate allowed at the Crown-owned agency, a spokeswoman for the organization has confirmed.
EHealth Ontario first came under scrutiny last week for nearly $5 million doled out in untendered contracts, with more than half questioned over personal ties to company executives. (CBC)In early March, four months after Kramer started her post at the newly created agency, its board of directors approved a $114,000 bonus, on top of her $380,000 salary.
Under eHealth's regulations, however, executives are permitted to receive a bonus ranging from zero to 15 per cent of their salary, spokeswoman Deanna Allen told CBC News.
Fifteen per cent would amount to $57,000 under Kramer's current salary. However, she received a bonus worth 30 per cent.
Asked by CBC News whether she had an explanation for why Kramer's bonus was double the highest allowable rate, Allen responded, "No, I don't."
The letter notifying Kramer of her approved bonus was signed by Dr. Alan Hudson, chairman of the board of directors and the former head of Cancer Care.
Hudson and Kramer have been under fire since late last week for awarding more than $5.5 million in untendered contracts, more than half of which have raised questions about personal connections to the vendors.
Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2009/06/04/ehealth-ontario-cancer-care-bonus-kramer.html#ixzz0jZXobnoq
So who is paying for all of this overspent Ontario government money? The new 'Harmony Sales Tax' start on July 1st, 2010.
I think my 'EHT' and/or 'EHCT' ideas would have been, and still would be, much more appropriately suited here...There are a lot of potential 'ethical culprits' who could have, and should have, been taxed a new 'Ethical Harmony' tax....Without the McGuinty Liberal Government having to turn in the direction he has always turned in since he took power -- by taxing the citizens of Ontario more for his government's ethical transgressions and indiscretions...
Everyone maligned in 'The Gomery Report' regarding 'The Liberal Adscam Scandal' could have been hit with the EHT (Ethical Harmony Tax) and/or the EHCT (Ethical Harmony Contract Tax). You see, in Canada, Liberals and Conservatives alike have both been found guilty of such 'Unethical Lobbyism Scandals' (ULS). One might almost be tempted to say that it is in 'the blood of many, if not most, seasoned politicians'...not to mention the corporate lobbyists that they deal with behind closed doors, in bars, in alleys, and in untaped phone conversations...As far away as they can reasonably get from the probing public eye and ear...This is called the 'narcissistic capitalist subversion of democracy'... AIG....banks, mortgage companies, insurance companies, stock trading companies...which brings me to another two proposed taxes associated with the newly proposed EHT network of taxes...
3. The 'UGCBT' -- The 'Unreasonable/Unethical Government/Corporate Bonus Tax' -- charged against any and/or all government and/or private, corporate executives charged with, and convicted of receiving 'unreasonable and/or unethical bonuses' for performances not rendered...and/or not appropriate to their job...Sarah Kramer, are you listening? AIG, are you listening?
4. The 'UCSCT' -- The 'Unreasonable/Unethical Corporate Service Charge Tax' -- applied to any corporations and/or associated executives and/or shareholders who are found guilty of charging private citizens and/or employees for 'service charges and/or administration charges where there is no service delivered or delivered sufficiently to warrant the service charge'... Banks would probably be the number one offender here...
5. The 'CGT' -- The 'Corporate-Customer Gouging Tax' -- applied to any corporations and/or associated executives and/or shareholders who are found guilty of overcharging private citizens and/or employees for goods and/or services rendered (or not rendered)...
6. The 'RCBWT' -- The 'Rollover Contract and/or Bank Withdrawal Tax' -- applied to any corporation and/or executives and/or shareholders who are found guilty of coercing/seducing/manipulating customers into signing 'rollover contract agreements' that allow the particular corporation to keep withdrawing money from the customer's bank account even after year end and/or without any overt and/or direct consent on the part of the customer to continue with the contract basically until the customer is dead...or rather, the bank account is dead...All 'rollover contracts', or 'multi-year' contracts in cases such as 'gym memberships' and 'cell phone contracts' should be illegal and/or failing that, also hit corporations and their executives and/or shareholders who indulge in such 'unethical profit gouging' practices with a 13 per cent personal and/or corporate RCBWT...
7. The 'CMMMCT' -- The 'Corporate Monopoly and/or Collusion Tax' -- should be applied to any corporation and/or its executives and/or shareholders who are found guilty of artificially raising consumer prices because it is a monopoly goods and/or service company, and/or because it has found a way to 'manipulate the market' to artificially raise prices, and/or because two or more companies have banded together and colluded, in effect, to create a 'non-competition monopoly' in order to artificially raise consumer prices...
8. The 'GSOTT' -- The Government's (President's, Prime Minister's, Premier's, Mayor's...) Special Over-Taxing Tax' -- designed particular for any and/or all of those politicians held accountable for creating and passing into law the existence of a 'new citizen tax' -- such as the HST -- which is deemed inappropriate by a court of law based on the government's (President's, Prime Minister's, Premier's, Mayor's...) own accountability in the government's waste of taxpayers money relative to government overspending and/or lobbyist and/or bonus and/or expense account overspending scandals that should put the accountability for such overspending squarely back on the government's broad shoulders -- and any and/or all particular officials within the government who are dutifully (or non-dutifully) held accountable for such scandals -- through the administration of the GSOT on any and/or all of the accountable government officials on his or her: 1. personal income tax; 2. private expense accounts; 3. salary bonuses; and/or the elimination of all such future salary bonuses and/or expense accounts all together....
9. One more thing: A 'three strikes and you are out' policy where any and/or all politicians and/or corporations and/or corporation lobbyists who are convicted three times for 'overspending transgression's -- if they have not been let go already after the first or second transgression -- will be removed from all government jobs and/or government-corporate business transactions...forever...
That is about the limit of my political-corporate ethical imagination for today...
-- dgb, March 29th, 2010
-- David Gordon Bain
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...
-- Are Still in Process...
-- Democracy Goes Beyond Narcissism....
