Daily Archives: 24 December 2015

For the Children

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Liberals love their programs “for the children;” albeit they’re carefully paid for with OPM. Take, for instance Michelle Obama’s school lunch program, which has become a Federal government mandate—carefully paid for by the States and the school districts. But never mind, it’s for the children.

Now we get this. A food service worker in the Irving Middle School in Pocatello, ID, gave a lunch to a 12-yr-old girl who had no money to pay for it. The lunch cost all of $1.70, and the food service worker offered to pay the bill for the child.

No dice, said District 25 Director of Human Resources, Susan Petit. You’re fired, she said in her letter telling the worker that she’d been fired.

It’s for the children.

Update: The Pocatello/Chubbuck School District No 25 has apparently released a statement (it’s not available on the District’s Web site as I write this) that offers the food service worker her job back.  Buried at the bottom of the 600+ word statement was this sentence:

The District has been in communication with Ms. Bowden extending an opportunity for her to return to employment with the District.

However, as of last night, the food service worker hadn’t actually heard anything from the District, much less anything about the details of this “opportunity.”

Maybe It’s Time

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I’ve written before about the…suboptimality…of the SEC using its own “court” system (in quotes because it’s more of a kangaroo court system, with the SEC serving as accuser, prosecutor, judge (no jury), punisher, and appellate “court”). The SEC has even pretended to be changing its ways.

Now, this.

After five years, four judges, three rulings, two appeals and the loss of their careers, John Flannery and James Hopkins this month won their legal battle against the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The former State Street Corp executives’ long legal fight took place almost entirely in the SEC’s in-house court system, which agency officials have lauded as offering a fast-track alternative to federal court.

Their problem is all too typical of this SEC.

Since Mary Jo White became SEC chairman in April 2013, the median time for the agency to decide appeals of its in-house judges’ decisions has increased to 19 months….

Then there’s the excuse.

A key part of the agency’s argument has been that the internal tribunal is more efficient.

You bet it is. The conviction and upholding rate is through the roof compared with the rates from those cases that make it out of the SEC and into an actual Federal court.

Since the bureaucrats at the SEC place their own imperatives ahead of their job, maybe it’s time to disband the SEC and replace it with a securities industry overseer that will place its job ahead of the imperatives of the new, fresh personnel who will populate it.

Alternatively, maybe it’d be sufficient to replace the head bureaucrat with someone who understands for whom she works.