France Telecom: 24 Suicides in 18 Months

Here's a case where a company weaned from a state monopoly--France Telecom--may have gone too overboard in management style, which a union leader labeled as "real indifference, no humanity."

A call center worker for France Telecom this week jumped off a bridge into onrushing traffic to become the company's 24th suicide victim in 18 months.

As that above-quoted union leader noted after the worker's death: "[A}ll they talked about was numbers and workers were treated like sausage meat."

When France Telecom's market was deregulated, stress levels began rising as management pushed to reach goals free-market style. As the stress rose, so did the suicide rate.

Maybe a little socialism isn't such a bad thing, after all. No one ever accused a socialized company of causing stress. Death by boredom, yes, but never suicide.

What Are the Odds of This Law's Surviving?

The Senate Finance Committee, in the legislative equivalent of a show trial, has voted unanimously to force Members of Congress and their staffs to choose their health insurance from the proposed insurance exchanges beginning in 2013.

The exchanges, under health care legislation being currently considered, would be the one-and-only-stop shop for health insurance for the public, and it would look unseemly for politicians to exempt themselves in favor of the VIP health plans they currently enjoy.

Of course, it's easy to vote for something that makes you look like one of the public when the vote doesn't mean anything. By the time this provision gets to the full Senate floor, however, it'll be invisibly swept under the rug and forgotten forever.

It would be sheer delusion on our part to think that the politicians who enact our laws ever have any intention of following them themselves. They routinely exempt Congress from the laws they themselves pass, including sexual harassment and other acts they routinely engage (read: revel) in.

Currently, Congress and federal employees get to choose from a generous array of health plans administered by the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP), which candidate Obama promised he'd extend to all Americans but which President Obama has conveniently forgotten in favor of "Medicare for all" and rationing for the elderly.

There's no way the Congressional elite is going to give up its exclusive, VIP health packages. While the rest of us will be forced onto a health care dole, our politicians will continue to have gold-plated private care that knows no boundaries.

ARRA Targets $600K to Nonexistent Schools

Veep Joe Biden was named the watchdog for ARRA (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act) funds, but he and his don't seem to be paying much attention. While Biden is busy bragging that ARRA is working better than anyone imagined (oh, yeah), the people at ProPublica point out that:

In Kansas, 11 school districts that no longer exist are on the U.S. Department of Education's distribution list for stimulus funds. They are set to receive nearly $600,000.

We found these school districts when Kirby Ross, managing editor of the Phillips County Review in Phillipsburg, Kan., alerted us that our county-by-county stimulus tracker [1] included two districts in his area that didn't exist. That prompted us to do some more digging.

Is it too late for me to set up a dummy school district and line my pockets?