December 31, 2004
 
COMMENTARY: Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down, Part VI: Good Samaritans in Huntington; Obscene Platinum Parachutes; Population Growth Isn't Always a Good Thing

by David M. Kinchen
Editor, Bluefield News Network

Hinton (BNN) - At my last newspaper, the editorial page staff periodically published a useful commentary column involving thumbs: Up for good, Down for bad. I'm using this format, which is offered in many variations at various magazines and newspapers, to comment on some recent news items or events. This is the sixth installment of an occasional series.

THUMBS UP to Ohio resident James Barker who risked his own life Dec. 22, 2004 in Huntington to rescue two young children wandering nearly naked in the streets. As reported by BNN's Tony Rutherford, Barker was driving his truck down Sixth Avenue. He saw the children, ages 2 and 4 holding hands ready to stroll out into the street. Coming in their direction was a Ford Explorer SUV.

"I saw an Explorer coming my way," Barker told Rutherford. "He did a U-turn onto the wrong side of the street to block the Explorer. The driver was a little irate until he saw what I was doing. Barker used his truck to keep the kids from leaving the sidewalk, hopped out, gave one of them his shirt, and the other his coat."
 
Witnesses Lynn Parsons and her husband Rodney credited Barker with preventing a tragedy. But Barker has a humble attitude about his pre-Christmas heroics, according to Rutherford, who praised him for his actions. Barker's reply: "I figure anyone with a heart would do it. It was my time to step up and help."

THUMBS DOWN to Fannie Mae for rewarding former CEO Franklin D. Raines, 55, a Platinum Parachute that will give him a pension of more than $114,000 a month for life, along with generous health insurance - dental, too -- and life insurance benefits. This is happening when at least one airline, run by a CEO who probably is paid an obscene amount, is asking employees to work for free! Is this a wonderful country or what? The $114,000 amount is from an Associated Press story; Bloomberg News adds (Dec. 27, 2004) that Raines will receive deferred compensation of about $8.7 million. I reported the departure of Raines, a Friend of Bill (Clinton) and Chief Financial Officer J. Timothy Howard (I don't trust anyone who hides behind an initial letter) in my previous Thumbs column on Dec. 24, 2004. I said Raines and Howard were poster boys for a dysfunctional baby-boom generation who think that money will solve all problems and I called this the Too Much Money (TMM) Syndrome. They are typical of the overpaid managerial class, who get handsome salaries for running companies into the ground. Fannie Mae, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the regulator of Fannie and its younger brother Freddie Mac, "wrongly accounted for hedging transactions on its mortgage holdings, used improper 'cookie jar' reserves, and deferred expenses in 1998 so executives could get their maximum bonuses. The company (Fannie Mae) has said it will restate earnings by as much as $9 billion."

Whew! All that and a screwed-up accounting firm, KPMG LLP, which has been fired. When I worked in Los Angeles, I was told, jokingly, I think, that the most creative people in Hollywood were the accountants. Now, I realize it wasn't a joke.

THUMBS UP to Armando Falcon Jr., director of the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO), the federal regulator of Fannie and Freddie. This is a guy with cojones, a bulldog who was consistently right about the accounting malfunctions at both the mortgage lending giants. He was regularly dissed by Raines and his counterpart at Freddie. I hope we have more people in government with the guts of Falcon, an aptly named guy who swoops down on prey. News update: OFHEO plans to challenge the Platinum Parachute granted by Fannie to departed CEO Frank Raines. Stay tuned to BNN, where the 1984 president of the National Association of Real Estate Editors (moi) will keep you posted in the coming days.

THUMBS DOWN to just about everybody who says rapid population growth is an unalloyed good thing. The latest example is a woe-is-me headline in the Charleston Gazette bemoaning the fact that West Virginia's population grew by only 3,914 residents from July 1, 2003 to July 1, 2004 in the recent U.S. Census estimates released just before Christmas. Speaking from the perspective of a former resident of a rapidly growing state-California - I can state that rapid growth doesn't necessarily mean more jobs. A lot of the jobs in California and other states are being snapped up by illegal immigrants. Supposedly these are jobs citizens don't want, but I doubt that. Rapidly growing California has a higher unemployment rate - 5.7 percent -- than slow growing West Virginia - 4.8 percent.

Happy New Year!
 
Thumbs Archives:
10/16/04 — Part I
11/10/04 — Part II
11/26/04 — Part III
12/15/04 — Part IV
12/24/04 — Part V
12/31/04 — Part VI
01/08/05 — Part VII
01/14/05 — Part VIII
01/21/05 — Part IX
02/04/05 — Part X
02/11/05 — Part XI
02/18/05 — Part XII
02/25/05 — Part XIII
02/28/05 — Part XIV
03/06/05 — Part XV
03/10/05 — Part XVI
03/18/05 — Part XVII
03/26/05 — Part XVIII
03/30/05 — Part XIX
04/09/05 — Part XX