Let me say it: I don't give a shit about CEO pay. (KOS)

[kpete]

CEO pay
by kos
Tue Sep 23, 2008 at 08:00:28 AM PDT

Let me say it: I don't give a shit about CEO pay. What CEOs make is between them and their shareholders. Limiting what they make, while perhaps making us feel better, doesn't change the fact that we're pissing away $700 billion to Wall Street, while Main Street remains starved of investment.

Yes, it's delightfully populist, but it's a trifle at best.
.........................

Keep in mind what else is going on -- an Obama Administration will enter office with a trillion dollar budget deficit before it evens begin to address the nation's other needs. Given Bush has mismanaged things so drastically that we already have a half-trillion dollar budget deficit, that's $1.5 trillion at the starting block. Bush and his pals in Congress, in the White House, and in Wall Street, have bled this nation dry.

So as Obama looks to invest in health care, alternative energy, education, and other Democratic priorities, watch Republican suddenly become born-again fiscal hawks, oh so concerned about the nation's finances and the unfortuante lack of funds to pursue such initiatives. All of a sudden, they'll become the nation's staunches defenders of your money, even though they watched Bush piss away trillions over the past eight years with nary a word of dissent.

Hypocrites, the lot of them.

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more at:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/9/23/1102/24317/102/607049

[Solly Mack]

1. Exactly. The GOP will attack and attack and deny and deny

[Eric J in MN]

2. Congress shouldn't give Bush any more money.

Congress should listen to testimony over the next year on a wide variety of ways to help the economy.

And then hopefully choose a plan which doesn't involve the government paying billions for worthless financial products.

[Warpy]

3. We're going to have a need for a bailout sooner

than a year from now and this is why: the real debt bomb is going to start a slo-mo explosion starting in January. That's the Alt-A and jumbo mortgages that were issued in 2006 and early 2007 during the last frantic days of the real estate bubble.

However, Congress does need to stall now until the new Congress is seated, preferably a Democratic Congress with a Democratic President.

After all, Stupid is highly likely to veto anything that isn't a cash giveaway with no oversight, screaming about obstruction blah blah blah. However, Main Street seems to be catching a clue that what he wants to give Wall Street is not a good thing. It's not playing well in Peoria.

Institutions do need to be pasted together if we still want a system of being paid in discretionary cash for labor instead of going back to a barter system of being paid in foodstuffs we neither want nor need when what we need is a new pair of shoes (which is how I think of it, having lived in a barter system).

Our financial system is in desperate need of regulation, both from the top down and from the bottom up. Unless the carrot is paired with a very large stick, it is not going to work.

[Eric J in MN]

5. I consider the national debt a bigger problem...

..than corporations owning bad mortage debts.

The Bush plan makes the national debt much worse.

[Warpy]

6. What part of my post supported Stupid's plan?

Quite honestly, one of the large sticks we deliver with the carrot has got to be a hefty surtax on incomes over $500,000/year, meaning a surtax of at least 10% until the bailout and national debt are paid down enough for this country to avoid bankruptcy, itself.

[slipslidingaway]

4. Totally agree...

"...Throw a few guys with suits and suitcases into a room with our Democratic leadership, and they wilt. Pathetic. It's up to the Democratic rank and file, and situational allies on the Right (even the crazy ones), to stop or dramatically reform this mess.

Limiting CEO pay? Who gives a flying fuck? $700 billion is suddenly at stake. That's far more important than any feel-good measure punishing greedy CEOs.

First things first? Explain where the $700 billion came from. Dodd appears to have accepted it without question.

I want to know why $700 billion. Why not $100 billion, with Treasury going back to Congress when/if it needs more? Why $700 billion?"



And the five member oversight committee would be...


"MEMBERSHIP.—The Emergency Oversight Board shall be comprised of—

(A) the Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, who shall serve as the chairperson of the Emergency Oversight Board;

(B) the chairperson of the Board of Directors of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation;

(C) the chairperson of the Securities and Exchange Commission;

(D) one member who is not a government employee, having appropriate financial expertise
in both the public and private sectors, appointed jointly by the Majority leadership of the
Senate and the House of Representatives; and

(E) one member who is not a government employee, having appropriate financial expertise
in both the public and private sectors, appointed jointly by the Minority leadership of the
Senate and the House of Representatives.

http://www.politico.com/pdf/PPM41_ayo08b28_xml.pdf
http://www.politico.com/static/PPM41_ayo08b28.html

[Truth2Tell]

7. Kos is wrong.

It's about the culture of unaccountability. No, it won't save any significant amount of money now, but it may have a future impact. If CEOs are for once held accountable it may cause a few to stop and think in the future, even if only for a second.

Holding wrongdoers accountable is about more than just present expediency - in both finance and politics.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

8. It's not just the CEOs

I've heard stories about the average bonuses on Wall Street and I believe the figure I heard was $200,000. That's includes all levels of management. How can they run their businesses into the ground, strip off untold amounts of money, and then ask for a hand-out? Even if that amounts to nothing compared to a trillion dollars, it's the principle of the thing.