Posted on 10/22/2009 10:15:41 AM PDT by AZ .44 MAG
Poll asks if Obama should be able to tell companies that took bailout money how much to pay executives.
Link only due to copyright.
A.) Yes. Employees don't deserve the lavish paychecks these failed companies are handing out.52.86%
B.) No. The White House shouldn't have the authority to dictate what businesses pay.24.12%
C.) Maybe. The employees don't deserve the paychecks, but I have reservations about the White House interfering.23.02%
Total Votes: 908
Poll here about halfway down on the right.
Related story: Administration plans big pay cuts at bailout firms
Do you think the Obama administration should be telling companies that took bailout funds how much to pay their top employees?
A.) Yes. Employees don't deserve the lavish paychecks these failed companies are handing out.52.85%
B.) No. The White House shouldn't have the authority to dictate what businesses pay.23.73%
C.) Maybe. The employees don't deserve the paychecks, but I have reservations about the White House interfering.23.42%
Total Votes: 948
Needs Freeping Bad
Forgot to ping you.
Voted; gotta say that the results to this point are frightening. So many people seem to be OK with tyranny.
im hard core conservative but if a company would have been bankrupt if they not got our tax money which i believe they all should have failed than yes they dont deserve any bonus. sorry but thats my pov.
Here we come to save the daaaayy!
/Mighty Mouse theme song
tyranny was the bailing out of the companies not taking away there pay that they would not have gotten if they would have folded
They didn’t have D) It wasn’t the taxpayer’s responsibility to bail any private company out and Hussein is over stepping his bounds with the entire stimulus package.
No. The White House shouldn't have the authority to dictate what businesses pay.24.39%C.)
Maybe. The employees don't deserve the paychecks, but I have reservations about the White House interfering.23.07%
Total Votes: 984
FReeped. “No” is getting killed. Bummer.
A rational poll would have the option of separating businesses that received tens of millions$ from the taxpayers, and those which didn't.
Apples and oranges.
It’s OK, I guess, when it’s someone else getting their paycheck slashed.
This country needs a swift kick in the ass.
52% yes. This country is doomed.
The owners should have the ability to influence pay. The problem with the recent takeovers is that effectively the government is the owner--it put in the money--but in order to favor its union constituents (GM) or to keep the debt markets afloat (AIG, banks) it avoided the formalities of bankruptcy and formal takeover via reissued equity. It took some equity, and it took a lot of non-voting preferred debt. If the mechanics of bankruptcy had been followed, we wouldn't be arguing about pay ceilings.
So, I want the government out of business, but I can see them having some involvement in policy when so much public money is involved. The problem is, the public money wasn't cleanly authorized, and normal business bankruptcy procedures weren't followed, so its a big god-awful mess. Further, with this crowd, you can't help but think they'd love to expand pay control from the companies they've bailed out to the rest of the economy. Maybe they'd even like to institute "comparable worth" payscales in the name of gender equity to please some of their wingnut constituents.
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I FREEPED. I put yes. ADo you think these guys deserve a bonus after running their companies into the ground and then begging the government to bail them out. I don’t know how you can live with youself thinking this is ok....
Hey, I know! Let’s ask the Supreme Court.
The most important question was left out.
D.) These companies should have been allowed to fail in the first place.
I agree with you in principle. With the political climate being what it is now I think Oblahblah will use this to set a precedent for grabbing more control of private business.
And I think the pollsters don't want B so that's where I voted.
Gee whiz! 58% for curbing bonuses, 25% no and 22% maybe. Amazing.
How do you think the Wise Latina would rule?
Tyranny??? ROTFLMAO. I think these bumbs deserve to be fired for incompetence...certainly not receiving bonus’. I want to work for you...in fact, I would love to be your financial planner. I lose 80 percent of your money and then next year you are going to give me 2000 dollars for the great job I did....sometimes you have to think before posting.
FWIW, I didn't agree with the bailing out part either.
Oops. Thats 52% for curbing bonuses not 58%.
Minds well say “yes” that the government can set your wage. It’s the next step.
the question
Do you think the Obama administration should be telling companies that took bailout funds how much to pay their top employees?
A.) Yes. Employees don’t deserve the lavish paychecks these failed companies are handing out. 52.03%
B.) No. The White House shouldn’t have the authority to dictate what businesses pay. 25.12%
C.) Maybe. The employees don’t deserve the paychecks, but I have reservations about the White House interfering. 22.85%
Total Votes: 1011
The government does set my wage...
D.) These companies should have been allowed to fail in the first place.
That would have been the best solution in my opinion. The government shouldn't pick and choose favorite businesses to coddle. When they do we end up with Amtrak.
That works well. /sarc
Not just anyone else!
Just the delusional who a) overvalue their worth and b) are in a position to steal others blind, and c) fall all over themselves to steal taxpayer money when going under.
If these clowns are so smart, and worth so much, why couldn't they figure out that when the government gets a nose in the door, you are doomed, independence-wise?
Street smart folks have figured that out!
The poll is calculated to dilute the ‘no’ vote and concentrate the ‘yes’ vote.
Well, there is some saying about getting in bed with the devil.
If your not employed by the government, go ahead, I'm listening...
If a company took the funds knowing up front that the goverment would be dictating wages, then yes, I would say the government does have that right.
BUT, much more importantly, the government has the somber obligation to the taxpayers to turn the company into a success. That means not blindly using revenge tactics for political purposes, but getting the best people running the company and paying them what the free market demands.
And what of a Government that:
Feds threatened to oust BofA execs over Merrill deal
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2368065/posts
Government regulators threatened to remove top Bank of America executives if they backed out of a buyout of failing brokerage giant Merrill Lynch, and offered to provide taxpayer funds to compensate for Merrill’s poor performance, according to company records obtained by The Washington Times.
You see I am not so convinced that these companies were all crawling on the knee’s with hands out.
From my post yesterday:http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2367779/posts?page=91#91
I have thought we could take congress back, we will be able to check the power.
But, this is the first blatant exercise of the 0bama dictatorship. There is the 0bama administration, the cabinet and then there is the Czars.
As the czars begin to wield their new found power we will soon realize what we must do. What we MUST do.
It disturbs me there are posters to FR on this very thread that celebrate in glee at this announcement. I caution them in so much as they first came for the Jews...
Posted by tcrlaf on another thread. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2367779/posts?page=45#45 Tcrlaf, obviously I found this profound.
“Industrialists were visited by state auditors who had strict orders to examine the balance sheets and all bookkeeping entries of the company or individual businessmen for the preceding two, three, or more years until some error or false entry was found,” explains Reimann. “The slightest formal mistake was punished with tremendous penalties. A fine of millions of marks was imposed for a single bookkeeping error.”
Reimann quotes from a businessman’s letter: “You have no idea how far state control goes and how much power the Nazi representatives have over our work. The worst of it is that they are so ignorant. These Nazi radicals think of nothing except ‘distributing the wealth.’ Some businessmen have even started studying Marxist theories, so that they will have a better understanding of the present economic system.
“While state representatives are busily engaged in investigating and interfering, our agents and salesmen are handicapped because they never know whether or not a sale at a higher price will mean denunciation as a ‘profiteer’ or ‘saboteur,’ followed by a prison sentence. You cannot imagine how taxation has increased. Yet everyone is afraid to complain. Everywhere there is a growing undercurrent of bitterness. Everyone has his doubts about the system, unless he is very young, very stupid, or is bound to it by the privileges he enjoys.
“There are terrible times coming.
If only I had succeeded in smuggling out $10,000 or even $5,000, I would leave Germany with my family. Business friends of mine are convinced that it will be the turn of the ‘white Jews’ (which means us, Aryan businessmen) after the Jews have been expropriated. The difference between this and the Russian system is much less than you think, despite the fact that we are still independent businessmen.”
The Vampire Economy-Doing Business Under Fascism-Gunther Reimann, 1939
Voted; gotta say that the results to this point are frightening. So many people seem to be OK with tyranny.
Lending intitutions typically insert a wide variety of negative covenants in a loan document with a borrower, many deal with limitations on compensation and dividends. I’ll bet many of these banks have covenants in their documents relatiing to the payment of compensation to borrower’s officers so long as the loan is unpaid. I do not see that it’s tyranical that the US does the same with these bank borrowers.
God! i hope this doesn’t make me a liberal...er progressive.
This should not be happening but then the bailouts should not have happened and when they did happen the idiot execs who took their companies down the chute should have been cashiered for incompetence. Instead most of them were retained and are being rewarded for furthering their incompetence. Many of these idiots were obama butt boys to boot.
The crap about attracting good executives in defense of not penalizing them sounds like the same reasoning being pushed around the GOP for running our failed candidates again—”they’re the best, most experienced”. Are these 25 the only qualified executives out there? I thought that the best executives got to be the best by taking on challenges and risks. Is there nobody out there who is willing to “work” to save these companies and take a deferred larger compensation based on a successful outcome? Most of the real pay the 25 execs are losing is being shifted to company stocks that they must retain for 2-3 years; in other words it directly links their compensation to their success in reviving the companies. If the board of directors mandated this would anyone be complaining? Unless there are any conservatives with the nads to challenge it in court it is going to happen so wasting time bitching about it will come to nothing.
As much as I hate BO, the democrat party and this Nazi takeover, this appears to be a diversion from the really important battles such as crap and pay and obamacare. The timing is just too coincidental.
Folks that replied, wise up. The gov has no constitutional right to regulate salaries NOR does the gov have a constitutional right to bail out free enterprise companies HOWEVER, if the gov is going to use tax money to bail out business then they have the right to regulate pay. I am a free enterprise proponent. Our free enterprise allows us to become sucessful if we choose to BUT it also allows us to fail if we choose to. Greed and mismanagement caused these failures and the gov has no place in this matter. READ the survey and look at how it,s worded. I voted yes based on its wording and you would do wist to do the same.
I agree with you. The more Obama sticks it to them, the less likely any taxpayer money will be used to bail out companies in the future. The will use bankruptcy to restructure. Not use tax payers as an unlimited piggy bank.
“If these clowns are so smart, and worth so much, why couldn’t they figure out that when the government gets a nose in the door, you are doomed, independence-wise?”
As a matter of reality, yes, that’s the way it works. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Or at least, we don’t have to agree with it when it happens. If we don’t stand firm on not letting government claim power that no one’s ever given them just because they hand out money, all is lost. Eventually, that is. Federalism is already dead largely thanks to the bucks passed out, especially since the New Deal. With the bailouts as precedent, literally nothing in the economy is safe.
Just because these companies would have failed without the money does not make this a good thing. Not economically, and cetainly not morally. If the fat cats didn’t know how to steer the ship so as to avoid the rocks, you can’t bet the feds are utterly hopeless. How much you wanna bet whose pay is to be cut and by how much was an arbitrary decision? Three things were considered, I bet:
1) Who is most “to blame” for the mess. Since that can’t be determined specifically, since it was so widespread (and not just within the companies themselves, but across several industries), it’s like throwing darts at a board.
2) What will save money? Ah, yes, “benefits” and “bonuses,” because they are side things anyway, and also because only fat cats get them, and most importantly because regular folks don’t like it. But there are a million ways to save money. What about “workers” salaries? What about selling off assets? But none of those things involve trips to fancy resorts. Nevermind that keeping the talent—even talent that recently fumbled, enough of them fumbled that there aren’t enough left over who know what they’re doing—happy is useful, if you want to go on doing business. The People like seeing fat cats squirm, which brings us to...
3) Political expediency. Executives are too small, and their potential support is too weak or too upset with the bailouts to defend them. Meanwhile, the masses either don’t care or reflexively don’t like them.
Will this stop mismanagment in the future? Will it “change the corporate culture”? Not one whit. Not in the right direction, anyway. Politically, perhaps, it was worth the effort. But what’s that worth to us?
“HOWEVER, if the gov is going to use tax money to bail out business then they have the right to regulate pay”
That does not follow. It is traditional, given the human nature and the power of money. But it is by no means a good thing, and we by no means have to go along with it. It, in my opinion, finally killed federalism, after the Civil War wounded it. It, if you let it, will destroy free enterprise.
Think about it. SCOTUS long ago ruled that the federal government can regulate food grown on a man’s private farm on his own property for his own consumption. It did so on the thinnest justification from the interstate commerce clause. Because the farmer’s having consumed his own food, through a series of causes and effects, could conceivably impact commerce across state lines, fine, have at it, G-men.
What portion of private enterprise is as sealed off from government money as was the farmer’s plot sealed off from interstate commerce? Not much. And what about indirect chains of largess? How many degrees of seperation are there between your job amd some entity that received government funds?
The flesh is weak; money is strong. People, however noble, will not turn it down often. Indeed, they haven’t. It’s a historical fact. The federal budget deficit multiplied itself THREE TIMES OVER from last year to this. That extra trillion or so dollars went somewhere. Where did it go? Into private hands, eventually.
You can’t say the bailouts were any different. That “they knew what they were getting into”. Maybe they did, but the principle is the same for you and me. Just so happens we’re small potatoes, and the government doesn’t care much about us. However, through that sam chain of cause and effect, eventually messing with the fat cats will impact us.
Moreover, if you’ll recall, money passed out by the Fed and by TARP wasn’t exactly accepted with strings attached. There were no strings at all, as I recall, with the Fed. There were some with TARP, but the relationship was kept mostly open-ended. Why? So the government could do what it wanted when it decided. It has that power because the companies, and people like you, allow it.
“The crap about attracting good executives in defense of not penalizing them sounds like the same reasoning being pushed around the GOP for running our failed candidates again...”
The point about alienating talent is not that no one better would ever step in, nor that these particular executives are any good persay. It’s about the possibility that cutting pay will alienate good people, and it’s about the fact that, no doubt, the government barely gave the issue any attention. It’s also about the precedent it sets, and the “chilling effect,” if you will, it could have on people not directly involved.
Bottom line, if you don’t trust the companies to manage setting executive pay properly, why on earth do you trust the federal government? What do the feds know about it? Worried about their investment though they may be, why do they think they can run things better? Is it because of the swell job they’ve done with everything else?
“Greed and mismanagement caused these failures and the gov has no place in this matter. READ the survey and look at how it,s worded. I voted yes based on its wording and you would do wist to do the same.”
I don’t know what you mean to establish by a close reading of the question. What’s at issue is whether the Obama administration should be telling companies what to pay their executives. You say earlier in the post that they have a right to do so, yet later on you say “the gov has no place in this matter”. Since the question asks if they SHOULD, not whether they can, I agree with you, say they have no place, and answer NO!
47+ yes 30+ no when I voted. People are so ignorant. It’s scary.
You should have stopped there. One was done so the other could be done. The sad thing is that so many people are cheering the gov't on toward tyranny. By the time the gov't comes for them...guess what?!
“If a company took the funds knowing up front that the goverment would be dictating wages, then yes, I would say the government does have that right.”
They’re not stopping at companies that took TARP money. Have you heard what the Fed is up to? They’ll get away with regulating pay at other companies, too, largely because no one will stand in their way in this instance. It will never stop. I’m not saying reversing your attitude will help, materially. But what happened to standing athwart History yelling “Stop!”
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