When talking about a $700 Billion intervention it only makes sense that taxpayers and members of Congress would want that money to go where it’s needed rather than to propping up salaries of $50 Million/year to executives of failing companies.
But Wall Street, its lobbyists and trade groups are waging a feverish lobbying campaign to try to fight compensation curbs. Pay restrictions, they say, would sap incentives to hard work and innovation, and hurt the financial sector and the American economy. (emphasis mine)
It seems to me that incentives to work hard and be innovative got us into this mess – I think we would want to sap those incentives for the time being.
Never mind how much innovation stifling will occur among normal taxpayers and the economy at large if this bill is passed. All I can say is that these guys really have a lot of nerve.
I would have said that they were callous – even “past feeling” . . .
I’m afraid I would have called them “spineless, soft-handed, thieves”. The CEO golden-parachute oath of office is, “I am not meant to work.”
Granted, not all of them get that, but the those who do certainly don’t deserve it especially after getting into this mess by abandoning the idea that real people depend on them to make intelligent decisions.
So, more mixing of politics and business. A great example of the golden parachute is Carly Fiorina, the former CEO of HP who got $21 Million for being fired. I guess the board figured that HP would lose more than that if she stayed on . . .
This is the woman who supports John McCain but who suggested that Sarah Palin could not run HP. It seems that Fiorina couldn’t run HP either and now we get a shot at all of Washington running all of Wall Street by committee.
Does anyone else see a reason to be worried?
Well done.
Here’s my favorite golden parachute. Whatshisname Ovitz worked for Disney for nine months, count ’em nine. His contract was worth something like 25 million over five years. His golden parachute was valued at 140 million. What kind of idiot would try to run the company well instead of get himself fired?
Wow. That’s what I call incentive to fail.