"ALL CAPS IN DEFENSE OF LIBERTY IS NO VICE."

Friday, March 16, 2012

THERE'S SOMETHING ROTTEN IN DENMARK -AGAIN

Every spring as farmers spread tons of pig manure in their fields a pungeant and mildly unpleasant odor engulfs Denmark.  This leads one's thought to the famous line from Hamlet...but there is a new ROTTEN scandal that is emerging that makes one think, perhaps, of MacBeth. 

A quick review may interest our readers:  The CEO of DONG - a state owned private company (is this hybrid peculiar to Denmark?) Anders Eldrup, is abruptly fired. The Chairman of the Board explains that Eldrup entered into extremely lucrative employment agreements with 5 key cohorts.  In addition to overpaying his buddies, Eldrup also included a  Golden Parachute for at least one of these lieutenants, Jakob Baruël Poulsen, that guaranteed a payment of almost $4 million dollars (20m dk kr) even if he left under his own volition. As Eldrup entered into these agreements without the consent of the Board of Directors, he was promptly fired and risks forfeiting his own $3million (17m dk kr) Golden Parachute.  (Why have these agreements now come to the attention of the board? whislte blower?)

Now it has also emerged that the average salary for all 6500 employees at DONG is @ $125k - 650.000 dk kr.  Dong pays its engineers 20% more that the 2 largest consulting engineering firms - COWI and Ramboll.  Thus, Dong  -  government entity - is making it more difficult for the private firms to compete globally!

But it gets better!  (worse)  Forget the stories of Caviar and Steaks for all in the company canteen ( for $3).  It turns out that Jakob Baruël Poulsen helped Eldrup secure his job as CEO of DONG.  And Jakob Baruël Poulsen was intrumental in helping Eldrup shift the focus of DONG from Coal burning electrical generation to Offshore Wind Power.   Now while some are questioning Chairman of the Board Fritz Schur's explanation for the firing, don't be suprised when I tell you that one of Fritz Schur's companies sells tons of equipment to Siemens Wind.

Prediction: I believe it will eventually come out that DONG's multibillion dollar investment in Offshore Wind is a massive squandering of taxpayers/electric customers money.


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