Fuming

When voters in New Brunswick went to the polls last September, they were still fuming over the incumbent Liberal government’s failed attempt to sell the province’s public utility. Premier David Alward and the Progressive Conservative party were able to harness that dissatisfaction and won the 2010 election in a landslide.

Americans are fuming about retention bonuses paid to executives at bailed-out American International Group; they’re sore from the stock market crash, and they still remember sky-high gasoline and home-heating costs of not so long ago. In other words, “the people are not happy,” a Washington, DC, lawyer told energy traders in Houston last Thursday before letting them in on the “craziness that’s going on in Washington with respect to your business.”

Americans are fuming about retention bonuses paid to executives at bailed-out American International Group; they’re sore from the stock market crash, and they still remember sky-high gasoline and home-heating costs of not so long ago. In other words, “the people are not happy,” a Washington, DC, lawyer told energy traders in Houston Thursday before letting them in on the “craziness that’s going on in Washington with respect to your business.”

Selim K. Zilkha, El Paso Corp.’s largest stockholder who is spearheading an effort to unseat the company’s current board of directors, said this week he was troubled about the “severance costs” that shareholders could be burdened with if they succeed in replacing El Paso’s board, particularly the compensation to be paid to Chairman William Wise when he steps down later this year.