Cambridge
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Post by Cambridge on Mar 24, 2009 19:29:46 GMT -5
Umm, could you point out to me where in the Constitution it says the government should be concerned about executive compensation? Or better yet, why should the government be concerned about how much a CEO is making? Where was the outrage when Larry Ellison or Bill Gates* or some other tech CEO made a ton of money during the tech boom? Or is it only that we get upset over executives making money in an economic downturn? * Yes, I know those two probably didn't draw that much in salary and probably had mostly stock options or something like that. However, there were plenty of execs doing quite well. The government should care because it regulates public companies and has a responsibility to make sure that management isn't defrauding investors. I don't care what private company management makes. In the case of AIG and the banks, the government now owns large stakes of these companies (they shouldn't - but they do), so now there's a responsibility on the part of the government to make sure that they are not paying people crazy salaries and bonuses or diluting ownership on stock options with taxpayer money. And yes, Ellison's compensation has been controversial (google it), and even Jobs' compensation has come under fire in terms of the size of grants he has gotten and the ways in which they've approved them. Gates makes under $1M in salary and bonus. The government didn't own a stake in those companies when those salaries and bonuses were earned. |
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TC
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Post by TC on Mar 24, 2009 19:33:20 GMT -5
The government didn't own a stake in those companies when those salaries and bonuses were earned. If the government didn't own a stake in those companies those salaries and bonuses would not have been paid. |
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SFHoya99
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Post by SFHoya99 on Mar 24, 2009 19:35:08 GMT -5
Executive compensation should be limited by the shareholders of corporations. It should not be done by the government. In response to the inevitable, we've seen how well that works comment. It has worked well. We are the richest nation in the history of the world, and one of the reasons for that has been that people can work or invest here without fear of excessive government interference. Fine. Then as a smaller shareholder with no real voter power, let me sue members of the board for absolutely unconscionable executive pay packages. In no way should anyone get "bonuses" when a company is effectively bankrupt. I'm no legal scholar, but practically speaking, that's grossly negligent and has got to be reasonably close to breach of fiduciary responsibility. And if there is any quid quo pro going on -- like members on each other's boards -- these guys should go to jail. There's a giant issue here that all these board members are complicit with each other and didn't do their jobs. They aren't stupid, so there's got to be another reason... |
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TC
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Post by TC on Mar 24, 2009 20:25:45 GMT -5
The founder of singingmonkey.com who IPO'd and cashed in a fortune before going bankrupt is just as much a fake capitalist as the Wall Street crowd. The greedy shareholders who wanted to get rich quick? Just like the armchair housing tycoons of today. And of course the Wall Street crowd that pumped these stocks when they knew they had no value were just looking out for their bonus. I could cite so many examples of this fake capitalism that I saw at tech companies during the dot com era - I worked at a company where the entire management team had to be removed because they were all involved in a massive stock options exercising scandal where they attempted to un-exercise management member stock options that had been purchased before the IPO fell through. But as GIGAFAN said, those companies are gone, they didn't get bailed out by the government, and those management people were fired. And tech workers certainly didn't see retention bonuses during the 2000-2003 period - it was pink slips, outsourcing, and H1B hires galore - Wall Street made sure of all of that. Now it's their time for reckoning and facing all of those things and they are delaying it by stealing from the government coffers. |
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Post by PushyGuyFanClub on Mar 24, 2009 20:51:12 GMT -5
The AIG bonuses are pretty unconscionable, but they're evidence of a culture at these banks where you make boatloads of money when your incredible risks pay off but you don't have to take paycuts when they don't. I further find the argument that certain divisions of AIG were profitable ridiculous. When you're part of a team, you're part of the team. You win together and you lose together. Buffett encountered the same ridiculous culture at Salomon back when he bought shares in that headache.
AIG is an evil company. Period. They just got big. But they're opaque, dishonest, staffed by jerks, and an example of the short-term focused greed that got us into this mess.
BUT...if the government didn't want to align themselves with that sort of crap, they should have let the company go down. Enacting bills of attainder to punish people who already effectively work for you (WE own 80% or some such) and who you've said should die seems a little bit like sinking to their level. I'm pretty disappointed with our government. For those of you who thought incompetence would end with the Bush administration, well, we've got a good 3-plus years at least of it left.
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TC
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Post by TC on Mar 24, 2009 21:09:53 GMT -5
For those of you who thought incompetence would end with the Bush administration, well, we've got a good 3-plus years at least of it left. Oh, I don't think it's incompetence - this isn't a Michael Brown situation. Paulsen was not incompetent. Geithner isn't incompetent. I'm just not sure they're aligned with the interests of the taxpayer. |
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Post by jerseyhoya34 on Mar 24, 2009 21:31:37 GMT -5
Unless President Obama immediately unleashes global thermonuclear war on Russia, Cuba, and Venezuela, he will be acting weak in the face of grave hypothetical threats from the Russian air force chief. Please, Republicans, keep telling yourselves that you lost the last two elections because you weren't crazy enough. Bando, at your age you were not around to experience the multi-year cold war with nuclear arsenals pointed at each other. You were not around to remember that Kennedy and Kruschschev met and Nikata judged Kennedy to be weak so he decided to test him by putting offensive nuclear weapons in Cuba and the resulting near-nuclear war. All you know is what you have studied or heard. You did not experience it. So it's not surprising you poked fun at STRATEGIC bombers possibly being based a few miles off the coast of Florida. The Russians are contemplating testing our President to see if he is soft or hard and their future foreign policy will reflect how our President reacts. China will also be watching with eyes on Taiwan. North Korea will be watching. Iran will be watching. So far our President has been silent. For someone who lived through it, likely read newspapers at the time, and was exposed to other contemporaneous reporting, the spelling above of a pivotal figure's name in this critical moment in history appears to be impressionistic. Nevermind the accounting of the Missile Crisis, which is among the best foreign policy decisions in U.S. history. Historical accounting of what was on the table in the Oval Office bears out the degree to which Kennedy's approach was measured and careful given the available information, not some wild-eyed, belligerent approach. I, for one, feel fortunate to be old enough to remember the Republican Party before it lost its mind and was hijacked by extremists like Dick Cheney, Wolfie, Rummy, and so forth. There is a reason why North Korea, Iran, and China are all watching this new President. After eight years of President Bush and his appointees, they are better positioned to do so, and, like most states, are trying to augment their power in the face of weakened United States. Obama is wisely not saying anything. There is no evidence here of any intent to start a hot war or an outward threat to the US apart from us being naturally suspicious given the Cold War. If he says something, it makes news globally and would needlessly draw attention to the issue and escalate it. There is also a degree to which it would not be credible given the issues confronting us in Iraq and Afghanistan, the latter of which directly related to the War on Terror. My sense is that Obama would be better served to address the problems we know about, rather than Cold War problems. I recall Obama's predecessor spent his first 8-9 months on the latter. |
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kchoya
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Post by kchoya on Mar 25, 2009 9:32:58 GMT -5
Umm, could you point out to me where in the Constitution it says the government should be concerned about executive compensation? Or better yet, why should the government be concerned about how much a CEO is making? Where was the outrage when Larry Ellison or Bill Gates* or some other tech CEO made a ton of money during the tech boom? Or is it only that we get upset over executives making money in an economic downturn? * Yes, I know those two probably didn't draw that much in salary and probably had mostly stock options or something like that. However, there were plenty of execs doing quite well. As far as I know, Bill Gates never received a massive bailout from the taxpayers to keep his company in operation. Nor did Microsoft doom the national economy through its business practices. Additionally, Gates also set up the largest charity in the world. So if a company "dooms" the national economy through its business practices, that justification for the government to step in and say how much the executives should be making? |
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TC
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Post by TC on Mar 25, 2009 9:47:40 GMT -5
So if a company "dooms" the national economy through its business practices, that justification for the government to step in and say how much the executives should be making? If the government steps in and rescues the company, yes. |
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Post by strummer8526 on Mar 25, 2009 10:03:19 GMT -5
So if a company "dooms" the national economy through its business practices, that justification for the government to step in and say how much the executives should be making? If the government steps in and rescues the company, yes. Exactly. We now own these companies! And so our elected representatives are, in a convoluted sort of way, as good as a Board of Directors for us (the shareholders). |
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Post by strummer8526 on Mar 25, 2009 10:06:50 GMT -5
Where were you when our last President made the biggest Presidential power grab in our nation's history and wrote an unprecedented number of "signing statements" to change legislation passed by Congress? Oh right.... you weren't worried as long as it the "king" was a Republican. How about telling me specifically what power grabs were made by Bush, how they were against the constitution, how they changed legislation passed by Congress, and how they exceeded powers exercised by Lincoln, Roosevelt and others since they were "the biggest Presidential power grab in our nation's history". Whoops, King George took habeas corpus. Guess he can just detain whoever he wants for as long as he wants and the Constitution be damned. www.oyez.org/cases/2000-2009/2007/2007_06_1195/Alright, so Congress passed the MCA. A Republican Congress following possibly the most hawkish, militaristic administration ever. |
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TBird41
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Post by TBird41 on Mar 25, 2009 10:21:10 GMT -5
How about telling me specifically what power grabs were made by Bush, how they were against the constitution, how they changed legislation passed by Congress, and how they exceeded powers exercised by Lincoln, Roosevelt and others since they were "the biggest Presidential power grab in our nation's history". Whoops, King George took habeas corpus. Guess he can just detain whoever he wants for as long as he wants and the Constitution be damned. www.oyez.org/cases/2000-2009/2007/2007_06_1195/So did King Abe. |
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Cambridge
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Post by Cambridge on Mar 25, 2009 10:47:43 GMT -5
Isn't just awesome that we are reduced to "your party disregards the constitutional more than mine" level of discussion?
EDIT - Should read Constitution not Constitutional.
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Boz
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Post by Boz on Mar 25, 2009 10:51:02 GMT -5
Neither party should disregard the constitutional. A good, brisk walk invigorates the soul. ;D (Just be careful of the man-eating roses, Mr. President.) |
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Cambridge
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Post by Cambridge on Mar 25, 2009 11:39:15 GMT -5
Neither party should disregard the constitutional. A good, brisk walk invigorates the soul. ;D (Just be careful of the man-eating roses, Mr. President.) Good catch. I believe Mr. Adams loved his constitutional. He walked something like 10 miles a day with his son before heading into the office. Maybe that's what these parties need. |
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Post by strummer8526 on Mar 25, 2009 13:03:36 GMT -5
Right. This has always happened. So it's not really appropriate to worry that it's especially awful for us now to be talking about "my party ignoring the Constitution more than yours." They've been doing this since the Alien and Sedition Acts. |
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TC
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Post by TC on Mar 25, 2009 15:18:44 GMT -5
www.nytimes.com/2009/03/25/opinion/25desantis.html?_r=1"I am mad at Attorney Generals for attempting to name bonus recipients and the CEO of AIG for not standing up for the bonus recipients anonymity, so I'm going to go ahead and destroy my anonymity by writing a NYT op-ed using my real name and tell everyone to go eff themselves, wave my giant sense of entitlement around, and give the money to my favorite charities rather than give it back" Mr. DeSantis' LinkedIn : www.linkedin.com/pub/a/401/b8b
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VelvetElvis
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Post by VelvetElvis on Mar 25, 2009 15:31:09 GMT -5
I KNEW I should have written that freakin' paper on Chemical Vapor Deposition of Iridium and Rhodium from Organometallic Precursors!
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EasyEd
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Post by EasyEd on Mar 25, 2009 15:35:22 GMT -5
How about telling me specifically what power grabs were made by Bush, how they were against the constitution, how they changed legislation passed by Congress, and how they exceeded powers exercised by Lincoln, Roosevelt and others since they were "the biggest Presidential power grab in our nation's history". Whoops, King George took habeas corpus. Guess he can just detain whoever he wants for as long as he wants and the Constitution be damned. www.oyez.org/cases/2000-2009/2007/2007_06_1195/Alright, so Congress passed the MCA. A Republican Congress following possibly the most hawkish, militaristic administration ever. Strummer, I realize the Supreme Court ruled against Bush on the GITMO prisoners and that becomes "the law of the land", but only after the fact. Bush certainly had precedence for what he did. During most of the wars we have been involved in, we have had prisoners of war jailed in this country and elsewhere and no one offered them access to the courts because they were classified as "enemy combatants". In fact, can you cite any time in the past where prisoners taken in a war were given access to our courts? Maybe there were occasions but I'm not aware of them. Also, you called the last administration the most hawkish, militaristic administration ever. Do you recall that Wilson got us into World War I? Or Roosevelt got us into World War II? Or Truman got us into the Korean War? Or that Kennedy got us into the Vietnam War? If you want to cite where Bush violated the constitution, the one where he really did is in going to war in Iraq without the Congress declaring war. The fact that Truman, Kennedy, George H. W. Bush and Clinton did the same thing does not alter the fact that George W. violated the constitution in the Iraq War. |
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Boz
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Post by Boz on Mar 25, 2009 15:46:27 GMT -5
Well, with regards to "giving it back," I have a difficult time arguing with this particular point:
"I simply believe that I at least deserve to dictate how my earnings are spent, and do not want to see them disappear back into the obscurity of A.I.G.’s or the federal government’s budget."
Seeing as how it's 2009, I'm pretty sure this year's another Congressional cost of living/pay raise though.....
Anyone outraged at that? Or do we feel they've earned it?
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