Salary Cap

President Obama has imposed a $ 500,000 cap on executive pay for companies who receive federal bailout money. In addition the elimination of golden parachutes for the top five to ten executives would be implemented and Shareholders would have more say on executive compensation.

Indeed this is a noble effort. In part to counter the groundswell of outrage from Main Street and to get the stimulus bill passed through the Senate.

Sadly this will not apply to the companies that already have or are in the process of receiving TARP money. So the CEO’s of AIG, Citigroup, and Bank of America and so on will be allowed to languish with their millions off shore somewhere.

However strident these plans are they won’t combat the pervasive nature of Wall Street which is Greed.

“Who is going to work for a messily half million bucks a year with no bonus?” is the primal scream from the Board room. When you have been used to getting tens of millions it must feel like chicken feed.

The idea that CEO’s are paid astromincal amounts for failure is an argument worth propagating. So far there haven’t been any protests in the streets to demand serious penalties and jail time. If a million people can come out to an inauguration why the same number can’t come out and voice vitriolic disgust.

E mailing dissent won’t just do, me included here. Pushing executives out of their Gulf Stream jets without a parachute is a wonderful act of symbolism to end the tradition.

But if it’s greedy Brook Brothers clad types with hands in the till then it’s also lawmakers who don’t want to pay taxes. Business as usual? Not a healthy way start to a new administration.

At least some withdrew before hypocrisy was allowed to stain the new carpets in the Oval office.
If the banks are now nationalized, then the top job should be paid as much as the President which is $400,000.

What are you complaining about…you just got an extra $ 100,000… did you earn it?