Obama = Good
Thanks goodness. Obama is limiting corporate bonuses for the companies who were bailed out. Can we all get behind this one? (I am assuming the CEOs of AIG do not read this weblog).I can't quite figure out exactly why the corporate retreats/bonuses/Superbowl parties/private jets bother me so much. It could be because I am not crazy about taxes (who is?), and I want to see my tax money go to something that benefits (most) everyone. It could be that I don't like feeling like a sucker ("Give us money and we'll lend it to people to get the economy going again. You'll do it? Thanks! (Sucker!)"). It could be that it violates my basic sense of fairness. It could be that I am judging the CEOs as greedy (it is probably a correct judgment), and maybe I view greedy people as "bad." It could be that I love America, and these CEOs are hurting America. I don't really know - I can't quite locate the source of my feelings.
Still, I don't fully know why we are even giving them $500,000. Are these companies scared that "underpaid" executives will leave and go ruin other companies? Why would companies want to keep CEOs who ran the company into the ground? As Michael Lewis wrote in the previously-linked article, some CEOs don't even know what the company does! I say give them $100,000 per year (still roughly twice my salary as a Ph.D. wielding professional in charge of educating America's youth) and have them write hand-written thank you cards to member of the House and Senate for allowing them to keep their jobs (after all - the US Government is now a prime shareholder in these companies).
Not a snow snake, but it is probably even more impressive.
posted by Dirk Awesome @ 9:37 AM
2 Comments:
It looks like The Donald agrees with on about the salary cap, but not the cause of the recession:
Larry King Interview
He said that the problem is that banks won't lend to each other, right? This is a side-effect of my explanation. Once the banks started going under (due to gambling on the credit default swaps), banks became scared to lend to each other. My understanding is that the CDS market was not completely public, so other banks did not (do not?) know how financially sound other banks are. Because of this, other banks became afraid to lend money, since it is impossible to know who was about to go under. If Lehman Brothers can go under, then any bank could.
Did I misinterpret The Donald?
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