The New Bailout Pay Rules: Making Wall Street Safe for Windfalls

[marmar]

from Too Much: A Commentary on Excess and Inequality:



Making Wall Street
Safe Again for Windfalls
Remember that $500,000 pay cap for bailed-out banking execs the White House announced in February? Under Treasury Secretary Geithner's new rules for bailout pay, that max has become a minimum.

June 15, 2009

By Sam Pizzigati


Early this past February, amid escalating public fury over $165 million in bonuses at bailed-out insurance giant AIG, President Obama announced a $500,000 cap on executive cash compensation at bailed-out firms getting “exceptional assistance.”

Congress, feeling that same fury, would soon toughen limits on executive pay even more. Lawmakers banned executives — at any firm in TARP, the showcase bailout initiative — from taking in bonus dollars that equaled more than a third of their total compensation.

And then executive pay proceeded to drop off the political radar screen — until last week when Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner unveiled the long-awaited new rules meant to clarify just how much executives can make when tax dollars are keeping their companies afloat.

Secretary Geithner’s answer: They can make plenty.

“We are not capping pay,” the secretary told reporters Wednesday. .........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.toomuchonline.org/articlenew_2009/june15a.html

[90-percent]

1. hmmm

soulds like Timmy's "Let them eat cake" moment!

-90% Jimmy

[bertman]

2. Let me see if I got this right. You "lead" your company to the brink of bankruptcy so you

have to be bailed out by the federal government aka taxpayers, so you deserve a BONUS for your "leadership".

Back in the good old days you would've gotten a pink slip.

This must be some of that Free Enterprise/Market Capitalism stuff I've been hearing about.