Much Ado about nothing
Yesterday we learned that O was going to cap executive pay of people receiving bailout money. I called bullshit, and it looks like shockingly I was right. What should have happened was companies taking bailout money shouldn’t be allowed to lay off employees.
NEW YORK — The squeeze on big paydays for executives of bailed-out banks will probably leave Wall Street plenty of wiggle room. Consultants on executive pay say the caps imposed by President Barack Obama on Wednesday will probably apply only to a few executives _ not star traders, brokers and salespeople who routinely earn whopping pay packages.
This was/is the type of change I believed in
There are also a few reports of layoffs at BofA that are starting to mount. How about this, we can require both executive pay caps and job retention.
it astounds me that he is saying he is protecting the middle class and then this paper tiger shows up.
how about something really good like actually protecting the middle class. Force them to keep the people on and then magically they have to take pay cuts at the top to survive….
or gasspppppp cut dividends
I am loving the coverage that the CEO pay caps is getting on the morning news.
A little turnabout in the class war for once. Awesome!
The only counter argument is that this”talent” will leave to wreck some other company.
Hilarious.
Leave it to Jason to applaud class warfare. Ridiculous.
Just wondering, farmers have been getting bailed out for as long as I can remember. Does the government cap what they are allowed to earn?
Class warfare? Funny how when bankers (read rich people) needed a bailout it was passed in a heartbeat with a sense of urgency. Now, when we try and pass a similar bill for the lower and middle class it’s suddenly not fiscally responsible and requires endless debate.
Now, I am not against debate, but where was all this concern and analysis when we were bailing out the rich folk? Oh, there’s class warfare alright, and it’s obvious which side keeps winning.
“Does the government cap what they are allowed to earn”
Yes, with either grain price supports/caps.
Instead of capping their (bankers) pay, just tax the crap out of it 🙂
The notion that there is no class war going on is ridiculous.
“What should have happened was companies taking bailout money shouldn’t be allowed to lay off employees.”
That policy proposal would make things worse for Banks not better. Do you support a pay cap on Hollywood elites when they make a movie?How can you justify Tom Hanks getting millions when there is so much economic suffering?
I guess you didn’t learn anything from the auto makers who kept a jobs bank which proved to be ill advised.
A much wiser proposal would be to ask for the removal of executives who were responsible for the implosion of their enterprises as a condition of getting assistance. New employment contracts could reflect the new reality in banking.
um is hollywood failing and I don’t know about it?
when the writers striked the actors marched with them.
I don’t CEO’s fighting for their peoples jobs….
You all have conveniently forgotten that the government bailout was forced on some of these institutions…
http://reason.com/blog/show/131506.html
Many of these execs make obscene compensation and are greedy pigs. No dispute there.
But if this distractive populist pandering move by Obama was actually going to be done for real (and viti points out what a farce it actually is (Obama and Rahm know who is going to butter Obama’s re-election bread)) we should be real about what it is, at least on its face :
Socialism.
Forcing companies to keep employees, no matter what, might be one of the most idiotic things I’ve read on this site.
Though this stimulus thang must work from the ground up….give the tax breaks to the workers and small business owners….create infrastructure jobs utilizing poor and middle class workers, via competitive-bid contracts.
The money will trickle-up eventually…heh.
TPN – you use the word, but I don’t think you truly understand what it means.
When haven’t we been a socialist country? 1853?
Who forced them to take it? It was Bush/Paulson wasn’t it? I hope Obama is not so foolish.
Agreed. Bush/Paulson are scum. So is Geithner. I wouldn’t count on much change, except populist foo-frah of marginal effect, like the CEO pay cap.
I was against the “BAILOUT”, big time. Ditto the “STIMULUS”. I don’t see how you can complain about one and simultaneously support the other.
VC – did I miss where we nationalized major portions of our economy in 1853?
In understand socialism as central state control of (formerly) private commercial enterprise. When the government is directly dictating specific business judgments, or removing them completely, it is socialism.