Geithner: No caps on pay for corporate executives - AP

New boss, meet the real bosses.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090610/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_executive_pay_16

WASHINGTON – Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner says the Obama administration doesn't want to place caps on executives' pay — even though it believes excessive compensation led to risk-taking that contributed to the financial crisis.

Geithner said the administration will seek legislation that will permit shareholders to vote on executive pay packages, but the results would not be binding on boards of directors. The administration will still restrict compensation at companies that are receiving taxpayer assistance through its $700 billion financial bailout program.

Geithner said the shareholder measures, as well as legislation to keep corporate compensation committees independent from boards of directors, will reinforce pay guidelines that the administration released Wednesday. Those principles encourage corporate boards to adopt pay packages that reward long-term performance rather than short-term gains.

n/t

for the government to set pay levels at companies?

(Giethner, Summers, Paulson, etc.)

But why doesn't Obama put his foot down?

Because he agrees with them.

When there were headlines about Obama "urging" the Corporate Ass wipes to conform to decent levels of bonus pay, I wanted to upchuck.

He either puts in effective people who will do the right thing, or he should quit pretending that he is "wanting things" to work out.

He is the PRESIDENT. Not Geithner, not Bernanke. And as more and more people wake up to the tremendous loss of working class clout in this country DUE TO THE FEDERAL RESERVE - there will be more and more outcry.

The Big Banks own the Media through their advertising. Ever wonder why so many ads for Banks and for credit cards? Those advertising monies are spent precisely so that the news teams on any number of given channels DO NOT defy Corporate America and start telling the truth.

Citibank killed the story about the Chiapas uprising in Jan 1994.

And who do you think is killing any mention of the Indigenous People dying in Peru? The same inner circle of bankers - the same ones, and this time it is our damn BailOut money used to buy commercial advertising to keep the pigs at the "news" stations in line.

read the article. The pay retrictions for bailout companies will remain "The administration will still restrict compensation at companies that are receiving taxpayer assistance through its $700 billion financial bailout program" and those are fine since we are footing the bill.

much compensation to "bailout companies" is actually capped. These greedy bastards don't intend to sell their summer homes (or yachts, or ski chalets...)

bailout recipients.Just no cap on the rest.

Maybe it's time to fix the problem on the upper end as well. And if you don't see that there is a problem, well then you have a problem.

When we're paying their bills-- you think CEOs should be able so siphon off any amount of our money they want and stick it in their pockets?

n/t

"The administration will still restrict compensation at companies that are receiving taxpayer assistance through its $700 billion financial bailout program".

Thanks for pointing that out so politely.

Is it your assertion that anyone who makes assumptions based on headlines and comments on the headline without reading what it's actually about is an idiot?

Because that is precisely what the government is doing in the case of minimum wage, setting pay levels at companies..

Change for the better...rare in the new administration. Change for the worse...more frequent. Non-change, though, rules the roost. :(

and health insurance companies can be depended on to help fix the mess they created.

I have a hard time believe that Obama and his staff are that naive.

Fuck... this "change" isn't shit.

back on him and not in a good way? :yoiks:

When one small segment of the population becomes so immensely wealthy that they can buy *both* political parties, you've got a kind of political monopoly.

Money the taxpayers will need to provide to Bailout the Wall Street crowd.

Yesterday, Michalel Lewis, who wrote a book detailing the ins and outs of the Wall Street crowd, stated that right now, the system is primed to break down.

There are only two things at this point that can happen:

It will break down immediately (As of the 550 Trillion outstanding in terms of unpaid derivative losses, only 9 trillion or so has been helped out)

Or it will break down eventually.

If it breaks down immediately, Obama and the rest of them will argue that we still need to put another two to three trillion into the pot to "save the World Economy"

end.

We need REFORM - not throwing more of our good money at these assholes.

Same DU members who early on "got" that the elections were being stolen are the same people who are understanding that the man behind the curtain is not working on our behalf?

A friend of mine, who lived in Brazil for her early years and therefore has no pretensions about the "democracy" of the USA, said right after Obama's election, "Tell me this - we had two elections stolen out from under us, so why are they willing to concede this third one?"

And now we know. Bush came in to strengthen the military induistrialists and oil people. And Obama is the "smiling face" that is handing what is left of our economy over to Wall Street.

our 'entitlement' programs, ie SS and Medicare to his Wall Street friends? Gotta reform those 'entitlement' programs to pay off the deficit, right Obama? :argh:


http://www.economicpopulist.org/?q=content/obama-targets-entitlements-social-securitymedicare-reduce-12-trillion-budget-deficit



He can keep his CHANGE! :grr:

Or they could take their measly $10M (per annum!) and STFU.

Would that we had an administration with the balls to do that.

Sure am glad there is no cap on their pay while I can barely get by. :eyes: The gap between the rich and the poor is fucking ridiculous. WE let them make this insane level of money here. WE let them treat the rest of us like shit. WE bow down to these assholes thankful to just get by. WE let them get away with corporate tax shelters and loopholes - these corporations and their endless greed IS why we are in the situation we are in today. No big surprise from Geithner, but this is bullshit how the rich get sooooooo much, and the poor just plain get fucked. Again.

the top brack should at least be 50%

They're still enjoying their bu$h tax cuts, are they not?

I could have sworn that Obama said he would roll back those tax cuts to pay for his economic policy. Oops.

this fits with the insights in this analysis:
http://baselinescenario.com/2009/06/02/what-would-gorbachev-say-on-the-us-china-and-saudi-arabia/#comment-16218

suckers, all of us who believed the slick "change®" BS. That vote was my last for that one.

if only Dennis Kucinich looked like Brad Pitt maybe we'd finally get a great Dem president... sigh.. that was indeed an interesting analysis of Obama.. just once i'd like to actually vote FOR somebody instead of against the Republicans.. this is the HUGE HUGE HUGE problem with a 2-party system. They KNOW one will always be in power. Face it - the Republicrats/Dempublicans own us. :(

:shrug:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Pledging to take "the air out of golden parachutes," President Obama announced Wednesday that executives of companies receiving federal bailout money will have their pay capped at $500,000 under a revised financial compensation plan.

Last year's "shameful" handout of $18 billion in Wall Street bonuses "is exactly the kind of disregard for the costs and consequences of their actions that brought about this crisis: a culture of narrow self-interest and short-term gain at the expense of everything else," Obama said to reporters at the White House.

"For top executives to award themselves these kinds of compensation packages in the midst of this economic crisis isn't just bad taste -- it's a bad strategy -- and I will not tolerate it. We're going to be demanding some restraint in exchange for federal aid -- so that when firms seek new federal dollars, we won't find them up to the same old tricks," the president added.

Under Obama's plan, companies that want to pay their executives more than $500,000 will have to do so through stocks that cannot be sold until the companies pay back the money they borrow from the government. The rules will be implemented by the Treasury Department and do not need to be approved by Congress. . .

more: http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/02/04/obama.executive.pay/index.html

google obama "salary caps" for more than 28,000 similar reporting/commentaries

----------------
edit: my bad, I just noticed the caps on bailout money do still apply. I apologize.

on further edit: I am truly a cynic, though, and believe that the bailed out execs will find loopholes to enable them to receive huge unearned "bonuses" and/or the caps on bailout money will just quietly be raised or eliminated.

I just can't understand all the BASHING!


:sarcasm:

:evilgrin:

the real issue is the time frame over which performance is measured as a basis for pay.
the problem is that huge bonuses for generating big profits in one year encourages great risks because you're paid to gamble big with other peoples' money.

if compensation were based on, say, profits over the course of the next 10 years, they would have incentives to do what made sense in the long run, long enough to avoid short-term risks. not the perfect solution, but far better. one simple implementation of this would be to grant restricted stock that had to be sold back to the company 10 years later, say, at the average stock price that year. again, not perfect, especially for someone who is still running a company after 10 years, but better than what we have now.


of course, the REAL solution would be to abandon the top-down hierarchical approach where so much power and compensation resides in the hands of so few people. risks are greatly reduced when control is distributed.

1. The restrictions on companies receiving bailout funds STILL APPLY.

2. Obama never, ever, campaigned on restricting executive pay. Higher taxes, yes. But actually controlling their salaries? No.

3. While minimum wage laws rightly prevent outright exploitation, any other attempts by the government to control the compensation schemes of PRIVATE COMPANIES should be avoided. If they pay their guys a the top too much, eventually they will feel the burn and make adjustments. Otherwise they fail. Not the government's place.

and welcome to DU.

many of the banks and financial investment firms have received not only TARP I BailOut funds, but received direct Bailout monies, and then other amounts from AIG. (AIG served as a pass through that richly rewarded those firms that needed their insured bets covered.)

So if Firm A received 29 Billion from TARP I, and then 19 Billion from direct BailOut and then an additional sum from AIG, then even if they have given the TARP I 29 Billion back, why should there not be restrictions? They are operating on our monies.

Also most of the public does not know that around 700 Billion was given to various banks and investment firms between Aug 2007 and Sept 2008 - so that they also got those welfare checks.

When someone is on welfare, they have to be accountable to the government. That is how welfare works. It should not matter as to whether it is a real person, or a Corporate Person.

Especially given that the heads of many families currently on AFDC are far more responsible with money and income than the heads of these firms!

And he's playing chess! Give him seven years to start getting things together. :sarcasm: