Surprise! Caps on Executive Pay in Bailout Bill Were Meaningless

[Hannah Bell]

http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/beat_the_press_archive?month=10&year=2008&base_name=surprise_caps_on_executive_pay#comments

Surprise! Caps on Executive Pay in Bailout Bill Were Meaningless

The WSJ reports that Neel Kashkari, the bailout czar, told a group of Wall Street executives that the restrictions on executive compensation in the bailout bill really don't mean anything. Of course anyone who bothered to look at the bill already knew that the compensation restrictions were meaningless before the bill passed.


tolja so.

[aquart]

1. Yeah, we knew.

Unfortunately, primaries are over and we can't break any gutless, cowardly Democratic heads.

[lib2DaBone]

2. Bush and his Buddies are going to get all of that money...

None of that money is going to "trickle" down to anywhere. The Dems got stampeded (again) and voted for this piece of crap. I called my CONgress person, my Sen, I posted here on DU... no one would listen. The really sad part, the DiFazio/Kaptur Plan was PERFECT, dead on-target to save the crises. It would have cost vrtually nothing and it would have done everything we wanted it to do. Again, no one would listen. I know what you mean "Tolja so". What's that they say about beating your head against the wall? "It feels better when you quit."

[LeftHander]

4. I scrape the bottom of yachts.....and suck out bilges...

I am going to be RICH!

Trickle ON ME!!!

[magellan]

3. Kashkari, bailout czar? Bwaaaaahahaha!

He's 35 years old and has only been out of business school for SIX years (he started at NASA, then changed careers). He worked at Goldman Sachs in San Francisco as a specialist in IT security, and followed Paulson to the Treasury Dept in 2006!!

Here's what he is: "I'm a free-market Republican."—Kashkari, at an American Enterprise Institute conference, Sept. 19, 2008

[newtothegame]

5. Corporate pigs n/t

[Selatius]

6. Fucking morons running Capitol Hill. Sad to say it's the Dems who dropped the ball on this issue.

Truly sad.

[VP505]

10. No kidding,

I don't know if they let themselves get snookered again or they went along just to say they did SOMETHING so they could get on with their time away from Washington..

[DailyGrind51]

13. Once we succeed in dumping Republicans in Congress, we can start working on their Democratic

collaborators!

[Leopolds Ghost]

23. Dropped the ball? What about all the Dem voters/bloggers who supported this?

What about all the commentators who continue to bitch and moan about how we are a "capitalist free market nation"?

Who voted to make this a "capitalist nation" (by their definition) instead of a Democracy?

[Zhade]

28. THEY. WERE. WRONG.

NT!

[Hannah Bell]

7. kick

[leftofthedial]

8. all the "oversight" in the bailout is meaningless.

I tried to tell you when the idiots in congress passed it.

This just bankrolls more of the same that got us into this mess in the first place.

By then, king george will be playing golf in Paraguay and the CEO/thieves will be who knows where.

[ulysses]

9. perfect name for the job, though.

[Leopolds Ghost]

24. Yeah, the blogs need to publicize Mr. Kneel Cash-carry BEFORE Election Day.

[Elidor]

11. I read that as Neel Kash'n'carry

I can't even be surprised that we're getting screwed again.

[bvar22]

12. Color me surprised........not.

Democratic Party Centrists sell out Working Americans again.

NONE of them can say, "Gee, who could have imagined this?"
They KNEW.
They SIGNED.
They took our children's money.


What will it take?
Those expecting REAL change in 2009 will be sadly disappointed.
Never-the Less, it is critical that we get Obama and as many Dems elected as possible.

I wonder what the excuse will be when the Dems have a 60 vote majority?
The Republicans NEVER needed a 60 vote majority to ram through their anti-Worker agenda.



The Democratic Party is a BIG TENT, but there is NO ROOM for those
who advance the agenda of THE RICH (Corporate Owners) at the EXPENSE of LABOR and the POOR.

[Greyhound]

19. Nothing "centrist" about them, they are reich-wing corporatists that

are uncomfortable with the religious wackos that took over the republik party and outright fifth columnists.

Fuck the future, fuck the poor, fuck any and everybody, my retirement is in jeopardy. What's center about that?

[Forkboy]

14. Thank God it passed!

[Hannah Bell]

15. kick

[Neshanic]

16. There is an out with a time frame catch I believe, if I read it correctly.

[gravity]

17. Executive compensation caps would have made the bill ineffective

If you were a CEO and had a golden parachute, you have no incentive to use the program to save your dying financial institution. You can do what's best for the shareholders and give up all your pay, or do what is in your own interest. This would just result in more bank failures.

Having lax executive cap restrictions is a necessary evil in the bill. It might no be 100% just, but it is necessary for it to have any meat to save the economy from collapsing. I wasn't surprise that they made it lax.

[Hannah Bell]

18. robbers sometimes give stuff to poor people, too. we lock them up regardless.

[Zhade]

30. You're STILL supporting this madness? How's the view under all that sand?

NT!

[OneGrassRoot]

20. Here's a link to where you can digg the Kashkari tape story:

http://digg.com/business_finance/Tape_Blows_Cover_On_True_Treasury_Intentions

[Hannah Bell]

21. kick

[Leopolds Ghost]

26. Shouldn't this be on Youtube?

[MadHound]

22. But. . . but. . . but. . . I though the bailout would fix it all.

Once again we're experiencing the blowback from allowing Bushco to stampede us over a cliff. And like his other gifts(the War, Patriot Act) this one will keep giving.

[Zhade]

31. It really gets old being right, doesn't it?

And people here ignoring those of us who KEEP being right - infuriating.

[MonteLukast]

25. Hmmm... a "signing statement", perhaps?

[Zhade]

27. Gee, those of us who were right about the bailout keep being right.

I wish those here who were WRONG WRONG WRONG - THANKS A LOT FOR PUSHING IT, YOU ASSHOLES - had been right instead...

[yodoobo]

29. I figured. I can imagine hundreds of ways to avoid it

All the way from setting up trusts, to wholly owned foreign subsidiaries that funnel payments.