Sunday, June 24, 2012
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
Monday, April 30, 2012
Thursday, April 19, 2012
Liberty Mutual
Mr. Syre is quite correct, the policy holders and owners of Liberty
Mutual are quite powerless to affect the fate of the Company (Ted
Kelly's pay shocking on several levels, Boston Globe, April 13, 2012).
Several years ago in 2002, with no compensation to policy holders and
owners, the Company adopted a byzantine legal and organizational
structure that seems to have allowed the Board to spend freely with
little or no accountability!
* The lines of insurance are provided by three companies which are
wholly owned subsidiaries of Liberty Mutual Group, Inc..
* Liberty Mutual Group Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of LMHC
Massachusetts Holdings Inc.
* LMHC Massachusetts Holdings, Inc. is, in turn, a wholly owned
subsidiary of Liberty Mutual Holding Company, Inc.
The insurance commissioner allowed the Company to adopt this structure
after the Company threatened to move its headquarters out of state.
This three-tier structure leaves lots of questions unanswered: Was the
structure designed to weaken accountability or, as the company
claimed, improve access to the capital markets? At what level were the
extravagant expenses on a fleet of five airplanes and excessive
executive salaries incurred? At what level were they authorized? At
what level were the benefits received? Finally, how much did these
costs detract from the benefits received by the owners and policy
holders?
I hope the Commissioner will get answers to these questions. We policy
holders don't know where to begin.
Sent to Boston Globe
Mutual are quite powerless to affect the fate of the Company (Ted
Kelly's pay shocking on several levels, Boston Globe, April 13, 2012).
Several years ago in 2002, with no compensation to policy holders and
owners, the Company adopted a byzantine legal and organizational
structure that seems to have allowed the Board to spend freely with
little or no accountability!
* The lines of insurance are provided by three companies which are
wholly owned subsidiaries of Liberty Mutual Group, Inc..
* Liberty Mutual Group Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of LMHC
Massachusetts Holdings Inc.
* LMHC Massachusetts Holdings, Inc. is, in turn, a wholly owned
subsidiary of Liberty Mutual Holding Company, Inc.
The insurance commissioner allowed the Company to adopt this structure
after the Company threatened to move its headquarters out of state.
This three-tier structure leaves lots of questions unanswered: Was the
structure designed to weaken accountability or, as the company
claimed, improve access to the capital markets? At what level were the
extravagant expenses on a fleet of five airplanes and excessive
executive salaries incurred? At what level were they authorized? At
what level were the benefits received? Finally, how much did these
costs detract from the benefits received by the owners and policy
holders?
I hope the Commissioner will get answers to these questions. We policy
holders don't know where to begin.
Sent to Boston Globe
Sunday, April 1, 2012
Draw Down Oil Reserves
So the US and Europe are considering releasing oil from the strategic reserve in order to cut gas prices (Global Agreement Said to Be Near on Drawing From Oil Reserves. New York Times, March 30, 2012: B1, B6).
To do this would be sheer madness!
If gas prices were at European levels -- due to high taxation -- there might be a weak case for doing so.
But look at the purpose of the reserve: it is to ensure that the US will have sufficient oil if there is a constriction in overseas supply. If the Straits of Hormuz are closed so that imports from the middle east dry up, then that is the time to release oil from the reserves.
To release oil as a price stabilizer would put us in danger of an oil famine if the Straits were to be closed in the future.
To release oil as a price stabilizer would be to pander to the worst instincts of Americans -- very few of us are willing to make a sacrifice any more. We wouldn't even accept tax hikes to pay for the Iraq war.
This unwillingness will lead to our passing on an impoverished America to our children.
Sent to New York Times
To do this would be sheer madness!
If gas prices were at European levels -- due to high taxation -- there might be a weak case for doing so.
But look at the purpose of the reserve: it is to ensure that the US will have sufficient oil if there is a constriction in overseas supply. If the Straits of Hormuz are closed so that imports from the middle east dry up, then that is the time to release oil from the reserves.
To release oil as a price stabilizer would put us in danger of an oil famine if the Straits were to be closed in the future.
To release oil as a price stabilizer would be to pander to the worst instincts of Americans -- very few of us are willing to make a sacrifice any more. We wouldn't even accept tax hikes to pay for the Iraq war.
This unwillingness will lead to our passing on an impoverished America to our children.
Sent to New York Times
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Responses to Questions the Justices Asked about Obamacare
Memo to Justice Kennedy who asked: "Can you create commerce in order to regulate it?"
Memo to Justice Scalia: who asked why people should have to pay for maternal care or pediatric care if they did not intend to use it?
Case closed!
Martin G. Evans
Nancy R. Evans
Sent to Boston Globe
- Interstate commerce exists when uninsured New Hampshire residents, living the State's motto "Live Free or Die," go to emergency rooms in Massachusetts hospitals.
Memo to Justice Scalia: who asked why people should have to pay for maternal care or pediatric care if they did not intend to use it?
- Everyone in the courtroom received pediatric care; everyone in the courtroom's mother received maternal care.
- Our generation has not been very good at ensuring inter-generational equity. We need to pay forward for the health care of the next generation.
Case closed!
Martin G. Evans
Nancy R. Evans
Sent to Boston Globe
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Death by Order of your President
It is very rarely that I agree with John Sununu. Today he has it exactly right (Boston Globe, March 19, 2012: A11)!
To attack and kill American citizens is an outrage. Even if these people are giving aid and comfort to our enemies, it is not acceptable to kill them without due, judicial process.
I am very much afraid that Obama's Justice Department has suffered cognitive capture by President Bush's Justice Department. The ideas and values that were inculcated in the Department by that disastrous administration have continued to the present day. The whole idea of checks and balances in the war on terror has been abandoned.
The President and the Attorney General claim that they are making reasoned and fair decisions. There was a time that I would have accepted those assurances. I no longer do so and I certainly do not want successor administrations to have this unfettered power.
It is past time for Congress to put constraints on this power and on the States Secrets privilege which has been used to hide administrative malfeasance behind a security blanket.
Sent to Boston Globe
To attack and kill American citizens is an outrage. Even if these people are giving aid and comfort to our enemies, it is not acceptable to kill them without due, judicial process.
I am very much afraid that Obama's Justice Department has suffered cognitive capture by President Bush's Justice Department. The ideas and values that were inculcated in the Department by that disastrous administration have continued to the present day. The whole idea of checks and balances in the war on terror has been abandoned.
The President and the Attorney General claim that they are making reasoned and fair decisions. There was a time that I would have accepted those assurances. I no longer do so and I certainly do not want successor administrations to have this unfettered power.
It is past time for Congress to put constraints on this power and on the States Secrets privilege which has been used to hide administrative malfeasance behind a security blanket.
Sent to Boston Globe
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