WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama on Wednesday imposed $500,000 caps on senior executive pay for the most distressed financial institutions receiving federal bailout money, saying Americans are upset with “executives being rewarded for failure.”
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The pay cap would apply to institutions that negotiate agreements with the Treasury Department for “exceptional assistance” in the future. The restriction would not apply to such firms as American International Group Inc., Bank of America Corp., and Citigroup Inc., that already have received such help.
Firms that want to pay executives above the $500,000 threshold would have to use stock that could not be sold or liquidated until they pay back the government funds.
Generally healthy institutions would have more leeway. They also face the $500,000 limit if they're getting government help, but the cap can be waived with full public disclosure and a nonbinding shareholder vote.
Oh FFS I agree with the move. Screw them if they want our money and think 1/2 mill is too little. Sorry if I need to spell everything out for you pendantic commie pinko muslins.
Ah, but that’s the devil in the details. The scaremongers on the right are using just the first part of that sentence–without mentioning that it only applies to institutions that took TARP funds–to scare the public off supporting an Obama stimulus package and supporting the Republicans in the Senate going forward with a filibuster. The democrats seem to be realizing this very slowly–as the original post here indicates.
IANAL, but I very much doubt Obama (or anyone else in government for that matter) could in any way cap the salaries of anyone not recieving government funding.
I have a vague recollection of reading about exactly this, a few days ago, but in the sense that “Obama should do this, but of course he can’t/won’t”.
And then blammo! he goes and does it. Interesting times.
Whoa, that’s a hell of a quote. In my mind, any execs are smart enough to warrant more than $500k is smart enough to shut the hell up about being worth more right now. The public outrage over this stuff is only going to grow.
Ya know, the last time the Republicans tried to stand up and stop a stimulus package (in the House) they got so much immediate flack from the public that they had to find excuses to quickly change their mind and change their vote.
Obama’s doing a good job of telling the public that it would be a world shattering disaster if Congress doesn’t pass this package. Honestly, he is probably exaggerating how close to the end of the world it would be, but he’s doing what he needs to do to create a public that will be mightily pissed if Congress doesn’t pass something soon. I have no problem at all with Republicans (and some Democrats) pointing out things in the bill that need to be removed because someone is trying to latch on to the gravy train, as long as it is only done in the perspective of sincerely putting together an effective package - but I think they are probably politically aware that being perceived as the people who are blocking the passage of a rescue package will be a bad thing.
Except, they are continuing to harp on things that were even taken out of the bill (like the National Monument infrastructure repair). Look, if it were a few people pointing out a few items that need to be removed (and relatively small items at that), then why didn’t a single republican vote for it? It’s not a sincere attempt, it’s a stunt.
You know, I don’t really give a shit. Their attitude is, “I perform well, I get a lot of money. I perform poorly, I still get a lot of money.”
Five hundred thousand is almost 10 times the median wage (maybe even a bit more). Fuck em… especially when they are guys that do this to avoid taking responsibility. I heard it was 100 bucks, not 10, but the same difference overall.
When as a class, they campaign against social programs to help out the poor and disadvantaged, work to compress the wages of their workers, and then they fucking want to use tax payer money to hand out bonuses to themselves? Who gives a shit if it’s pandering. It’s the right thing to do regardless.
Which “scaremongers” on the Right are taking this line? Everywhere I normally go, I see people agreeing with it. Public and political support for the stimulus bill was taking before Obama took any action in this regard. From my perspective all the use of fear on this issue is being utilized by those on the Left.
