This is the right moment for my first post on Bad Faith since February. The author's initial manuscript of my Third Edition of "Litigation and Prevention of Insurer Bad Faith" has been sent to West Publishing Company, my Publisher. Page proofs are weeks away. Current events present many opportunities to address Bad Faith issues in the meantime.
No more so than this week. To put the events of this past week into perspective, the Courts in the United States have without any exceptions required Fiduciaries to serve the interests of the ones who put their trust in the Fiduciaries, and on whose behalf the Fiduciaries exist to act. Fiduciaries are never, however, required to eliminate their own interests or the interests of others, only to subordinate their own interests to the interests of those trusting souls for whom the Fiduciaries are supposed to act.
And not to serve hidden masters instead.
Members of the U.S. Congress are fiduciaries. They act on behalf of the people, and the people put their trust in the Members so to act (they may have no choice). This week, the U.S. Congress with the President's approval passed a law they called a "budget bill". What was released to the newspapers was a story that the "budget bill" was about spending and revenue; basically, about cutting spending and not raising certain people's taxes. However, that was not all. See Julie Mianecki, "Gray Wolves, Abortion Funding and Other Policy Changes in the Budget Bill" (Los Angeles Times Online, posted Friday night, April 15, 2011). There were also these earmarks which were hidden, with other earmarks, until after the "budget bill" was signed into law:
- Parents of school-age children in Washington, D.C. who send their children to public schools, most having no choice, will find that funds intended to improve schools, classrooms, and public education in general have been switched to paying for vouchers for people who can afford to send their children to private schools.
- Certain animals were removed from the endangered species list in certain States. This is the first time in history that the U.S. Congress removed any animals from the endangered species list.
- Guantanamo Bay prisoners cannot be tried in U.S. Courts (where most have been convicted) but instead must be tried in Guantanamo by members of the U.S military, since a provision in the "budget" law prohibits their transfer.
Here are two items in the law that might actually end up cutting the Federal budget down, at least a little:
- Cutting or eliminating Federal funding available to poor women in the District of Columbia to have abortions. Unable to enact restrictions on abortion procedures which would apply to women who can afford to pay for abortions, the U.S. Congress and the President decided to require poor women to go to unsafe providers of abortions as they were forced to do back in the day. I am personally opposed to abortions. But this is not addressing abortions, nor is it about budget reformation.
- Cutting or eliminating funding for the Climate Service, a branch of the Federal Government. The Service, a recent addition to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ("N.O.A.A."), was supposed to gather information regarding climate change. Perhaps the more cherished purpose of Congress and the President in this "budget" provision is to bar information regarding climate change in their belief or hope that this will bar climate change itself.
Fiduciaries are not supposed to serve a hidden master. In enacting this law, they have not just saved money (assuming that they have done that).
They have acted in Bad Faith with the people, for whose interests they hold office to act.
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