Wait a minute, whats the job description again?

[SteamWake]

The Obama administration has begun serious talks about how it can change compensation practices across the financial-services industry, including at companies that did not receive federal bailout money, according to people familiar with the matter.

Another step towards socialisim.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124215896684211987.html

[AVGWarhawk]

In some respects this part right here is the cause:

The initiative, which is in its early stages, is part of an ambitious and likely controversial effort to broadly address the way financial companies pay employees and executives, including an attempt to more closely align pay with long-term performance.

In my world, you are compensated for performance. These banks who did get Fed funding still got fat bonus checks. Just how does that work? Run a company into the ground and take the world with it....make millions in your personal account. Just does not add up. Furthermore, banks that did not get Fed funding are also included. They should be. Regulation apparently is the only way to go. These other banks left to their own devices could do the exact same thing. Socialism? Maybe on the surface. Smart? I think so. It is sickening to see a CEO waltz away from a dead company with millions.

[CaptainHaplo]

Its true I have no great love for the current President, but in this case, making performance part of the equation when pay is considered - makes sense. The only problem is that its the government doing it.

Had the government not been giving handouts - which started well before Obama, these types of institutions would have failed and those making the bucks would have been unemployed and unemployable. Civil suits would have followed, and they would have ended up with very little of the ill gotten gains. Thats the way the free market works.

Government may intend good - even some really lefty leftists intend good, but whenever its government involved - regardless of administration - it rarely turns out successful.

[SteamWake]

Originally Posted by CaptainHaplo

The only problem is that its the government doing it.

Thats the point.

Name me one efficent, profitable enterprise the US goverment is involved in.

Oh and performance based pay? Hey lets see some of that applied to the politicians!

[UnderseaLcpl]

CH is absolutely right. The government is far too stupid and clumsy to put this kind of reform into effect without exacerbating the harms their dubious "regulation" has already caused.

What I don't understand is the constant whining about how much executives get payed. Executive compensation is a drop in the bucket compared to the amount of revenue and profit that these companies generate, and yet there are those who think that some companies might not have been bankrupted if executives had been paid less.

As with most things, the liberal solution to the bank conundrum is to make a big deal out of blaming someone whilst relying upon the inability of their constituency to understand large numbers, in order to pass what ultimately becomes a vastly more expensive and blameful piece of legislation.

I'm half-convinced that most liberals have absolutely no idea what a market is, and don't care to learn. The idea of mutually beneficial exchange may be alien to them, becuase they only care about themselves and instant gratification. Worse yet, they are led by people who know this.
They hate big business and monopolies, but they champion legislation that gets abused by big business to make monopolies, provided by the biggest monopoly of all, the federal state. More than anything, I think they completely lack definitions for "choice" and "incentive", because they don't want anyone else to have the former, and they don't have the latter.


edit-

Originally Posted by SteamWake

Thats the point.

Name me one efficent, profitable enterprise the US goverment is involved in.

Oh and performance based pay? Hey lets see some of that applied to the politicians!

This is also correct, and much more succinct.

[Tchocky]

I think most American politicians, commentators, and citizens only understand "socialism" as an insult.

They know what it is supposed to mean when used as criticism, that's about it.

Name me one efficent, profitable enterprise the US goverment is involved in.

Prison system.

[JALU3]

So they want to regulate all pay of executives in a certain industry, i.e. the financial sector? If this is approved, what is to stop them from doing so in other sectors.
But who is not to say that government cannot regulate pay? They already do so with minimum wage laws, so there is precedence in this field already. However, I think a better system maybe to tie the pay of the highest paid in the company to that of the lowest paid in the company. For example the amount that the highest paid in the company cannot exceed X amount more, or X times more (whatever is found to be equitable, within reason (which this is government (I must be crazy to think the government limits itself to reason alone), so maybe I should actually put a number rather than a variable)) than the lowest paid in the company. Therefore, as the water rises and the wealth of the company grows, all boats rise, as the metaphore goes.

[SUBMAN1]

Originally Posted by Tchocky

I think most American politicians, commentators, and citizens only understand "socialism" as an insult.

They know what it is supposed to mean when used as criticism, that's about it.

Prison system.

I understand you never grew up and like being told what to do because you want the government to be your mother. Over here, we like looking after ourselves and having freedom. Freedom to choose. Socialism is a never ending cycle of control and additional control until you cannot breath.

Over here, we are flabbergasted that you allow your government to keep making what we consider some of the dumbest and controlling laws on the planet. UK law making is entertainment in a way. It helps us understand what it is we 'don't' want.

-S