 On Point Vincent Carroll, editor of the editorial pages, writes his On Point column most weekdays. He is also an author and freelance writer. Reach Vincent Carroll at carrollv@RockyMountainNews.com. |
Carroll: The sea he swam in
In the late 1980s, the Denver Police Department was infected with a loosey goosey culture regarding disabilities. This week we learned, thanks to the attorney general’s office, just how far one officer allegedly took this relaxed attitude.
If former officer David Holt is the scam artist portrayed in the state’s indictment, he is of course a remarkable scoundrel. While collecting more than $667,000 in workers compensation and disability benefits, the indictment claims, he led bow-hunting expeditions in Africa, gave lessons in how to hunt, wrote and published books, and generally behaved as a resourceful entrepreneur.
If Holt is guilty, he’s as bad as any of the thieves he might have collared if he’d stuck with the force.
But here’s something we should also recall about the era when Holt first claimed to be disabled: A shocking percentage of his fellow officers at the time were making similar claims, although not until they were ready to retire.
Until 1992, when the Internal Revenue Service finally objected, an incredible 70 percent of all Denver police and firefighters retired on disability pensions. The vast majority didn’t depart early, like Holt; indeed, they faithfully served the required time. And they didn’t concoct elaborate, phony stories, as Holt is alleged to have done. But they did manage to get tax-free disability benefits despite having worked, in most cases, for many years after the injuries supposedly occurred.
During one period, six of seven retiring police chiefs were granted a disability pension. One of them, Ari Zavaras, has served in two governor’s cabinets, including the current one.
Holt’s indictment says he presented himself to one doctor as “a frightened 3-year-old child clinging to his mother’s skirt for protection against a hostile world.” If convicted, he’ll soon learn what a hostile world really looks like.
Notebaert’s payoff
So Richard Notebaert, all-around good guy and first-rate executive, will walk away from the top job at Qwest after five years with total compensation and benefits eventually likely to top $100 million.
By all accounts, he worked like a dervish — but does a man with Notebaert’s talents idle down when the potential payoff is only half as much? Would he have spent the afternoons in a hammock if he’d been granted, say, somewhat fewer stock options or a less extravagant pension?
The obvious retort from Notebaert’s defenders is that he wouldn’t have taken the job under such terms, leaving Qwest to the mercy of some lesser mortal. It’s not a bad argument, either — especially as we’ll never know if it is true.
Achilles’ heel
Everyone knows American manufacturing jobs are sometimes outsourced because of lower foreign wages. What fewer people realize, however, is that they are also outsourced because of lower foreign energy costs.
A case in point — particularly relevant at this moment of debate over whether to open the Roan Plateau’s vast deposits of natural gas to development — is the petrochemical industry.
The CEO of Dow Chemical, Andrew Liveris, is an Australian whose respect and affection for the United States was palpable in a recent interview. But Dow nevertheless has reduced employment in this country by more than 7,000 jobs in the past five years.
Why? “America’s lack of competitiveness in natural gas, particularly,” Liveris told The American magazine. “Our industry used to be the second-largest exporter of American goods outside aviation and aerospace. But that disappeared, and U.S. petrochemistry as an export sector will not exist again .. . . ”
There are more than 80 multibillion-dollar petrochemical facilities “under construction around the world right now,” he points out, “and only one, and maybe not even that one — it is not a sure thing — is being built in the U.S.”
Vincent Carroll can be reached at carrollv@RockyMountainNews.com.