Ward on Words

When listening to NPR yesterday, I heard an interview with Callie Shell, Time's White House photographer, a story that included an interesting comment about Obama's changes to the Oval Office: "When presidents move into the White House, they often put their own mark on the space with photos on the wall and various personal knickknacks. Shell says that Obama hasn't done much to the Oval Office. 'To me, he appeared to go in the first day and just start working,' she says. 'He wants the room to look good and make people feel welcome. And I've heard him say that, 'This is the people's Oval Office.'" So the most powerful man in America made the decision when he took office at a moment of crisis to leave decorating decisions aside for the time being, choosing instead to focus his energy on developing solutions for the myriad problems the nation faces today. The Oval Office, says Callie Shel, remains essentially as it did when Bush was...

Rick Wagoner, newly retired CEO of General Motors, is driving away from his career with a $20 million retirement package. That's what's being reported in the MSM (see here for one of the stories.) Wagoner had been CEO at GM since 2000 - so had nearly a decade to make an imprint on the company. Prior to that, he had been COO and CFO for the company - meaning he spent at least 15 years in the C-suite at GM. His company exists today thanks only to the largess of the American taxpayer. And thanks to the brilliant retirement package he negotiated sometime ago, Wagoner will never again have to work a day in his life – nor will his children. His time at GM was spent building up massive generational wealth that the autoworkers who worked for him cannot even fathom. (It's funny when Detroit talks about the expense of building cars, they never factor the enormous compensation package of the CEO into the equation.) The employees built cars - the CEO built wealth - for ...