Meet Your Czars VIII

A Czar is a person of high political office appointed by the Executive Branch without being confirmed by Congress. Czars, by Administration, are thus numbered:

Gerald Ford: 2
Jimmy Carter: 2
Ronald Reagan: 1
Bush I: 2
Bill Clinton: 8
Bush II: 33
Barack Obama: 38

It is the opinion of Warehouse Worker! that our Czars are a manifestation of the international business community, created as a vehicle to circumvent the last vestiges of an American Representative Republic. Today’s Czar is Kenneth Feinberg, appointed by Barack Obama.

Kenneth Feinberg is a Jew who graduated from Columbia University. Kenneth adds great diversity to the ranks of the Czars as he is a lawyer, and not an investment banker. As a lawyer, Kenneth has bounced back and forth between public service and private practice. Here is how Kenneth has been compensated:

As a Public Servant:
1. Chief of Staff for Ted Kennedy
2. A prosecutor for the Attorney General
3. Sets compensation rules for investment bankers.

In Private Practice:
1. Appointed by fellow public servants to ponder Agent Orange issues at, probably, better than $500 per hour.
2. Appointed by fellow public servants to ponder Asbestos issues at, probably, better than $500 per hour.
3. Cleared by fellow public servants to be paid by British Petroleum to ponder oil spill issues at a flat $1,250,000 per month plus extra compensation which Kenneth will not share with the public.

The Center for Justice and Democracy gets all bitchy about this little Number 3 thing:

“Mr. Feinberg, employed by BP, has decided on his own authority that all claims recipients must release all companies who caused this disaster from any and all legal responsibility, no matter how grossly negligent they were. This sweeping release, which assigns victims’ claims to BP, benefits only one actor: BP – the company that happens to pay Mr. Feinberg’s salary. In January of 2011, Judge Barbier, the federal judge over the oil spill litigation, after hearing evidence and arguments of the attorneys, ruled that Kenneth Feinberg was not independent of BP and could no longer claim to be so. Feinberg had been telling victims he was their lawyer and did not answer to BP.”

Good work if you can get it, and happen to be of low moral threshold, Kenneth. It appears that Kenneth has been one of the Czars serving the American people (salary $120,830 per year) in parallel with his little BP contract (fees from BP $15 million per year plus other undisclosed compensation).

The $120,830 Czar part is to ensure that American Citizens do not abuse their positions of office by taking excessive compensation.