This latest government scam has created some unusual battlefield alliances out here on the front lines!
Maybe this is the year everyone gets mad enough to vote, and vote non-incumbent. I’m considering it.
Fishman is a big Chuckie Schumer contributor. Natch.
An asteroid visible to the naked eye could be headed for New York City and I would STILL think giving someone about a trillion dollars with no strings attached is a bad idea.
I find it no surprise Washington Mutual was willing to pay some huge money to try to get someone to rescue them as a last-ditch effort 3 weeks ago.
I don't get it. Were people expecting a CEO to take $100,000 for such a a massive responsibility?
Things were spiralling out of control; with the crisis last Thursday, Washington's Mutual's fate was sealed. But the contract had already been signed.
Stories like this are going to eventually lead to a limit to how much money an individual can earn from a company. I think it stinks, but there’s allot of emotion at work here, and it is being played by the dems and liberals to the hilt. Of course stories like the one of WaMu’s CEO doesn’t make it easier to make the case for CEO pay being the free choice of a company.
What’s bad is this is going to be the gateway of the government being able to set the salaries for just about anyone, based on public opinion. A very slippery slope.
I’m somewhat outraged that bankers gaining from the taxpayer-funded bailout are retaining elite financial benefits. What’s even more outragous is that the multitude of government elected officials in the house and Senate that are a major influence in this lending frenzy are not being brought up on charges. As I keep saying, the same people that ultimately caused this are now trying to solve it with OUR money.
For the record, WaMu was a thrift, not a bank. Thrifts have been poorly regulated and managed even since before the bad old days of the RTC bail-out. I’d can’t prove this, but I’d be willing to bet that thrifts have been proportionately larger contributors to the RATs than have commercial banks.
Every time I propose my simple market-friendly solution to the problem of obscenely high executive pay, I am accused of being a socialist. Yet my solution is the most capitalist solution of any that I’ve heard of, and in fact, is more capitalist than the current system.
All you’ve got to do is force public companies to put the question of how much the top management should get paid to the shareholders. The only reason they are getting these outrageous pay packages that bear no relationship to what they actually contribute is that they name their own salary since they are in control of the company, and the shareholders are not. Shareholder control of a corporation is the linchpin of the capitalist system. If you separate managerial control from ownership, you are naturally going to have these problems.
And my solution does not involve any more regulation than we already have. The corporate laws already specify what matters must be put to a vote of the shareholders and what can be done by management without shareholder approval. Corporate governance is something that already is regulated, and in fact, corporations themselves would not even exist but for laws that allow them to be created. The only problem with the current laws is that they were written to be management friendly instead of shareholder friendly. But that is easily fixed, if we had politicians who were worth a plug nickel, instead of politicians who always punt on every issue so that the courts can sort it out.
Ron Paul should be cheering.
If the bailout takes place, conservatives will desert the repubs.
Why would anyone be upset at the compensation of this guy of all people. He certainly did not bannkrupt the company in 3 weeks. Why would any conservative or really anyone else object to him being paid what his contract called for.
If you were signing with an unstable company wouldn’t you want a signing bonus to leave your prior position? Would you want severance in case the company does not last?
Millions are angry because they don’t have a clue about the problem, and neither does the press that controls them.
“but don’t cry for fishman. analysts say he’s eligible for $11.6 million severance. and he can keep his $7.5 million signing bonus.”
they say that in-breeding takes place in far-away places in the mountains.
in this current “crisis”, one doesn’t have to look very far to see people wearing their pants very low with the attendant crack showing. (it’s no wonder they chased the “mafia” into the ground, so hatefully; they detested the competition.)
IMHO
Best bank robbing job in history, one upped Jessy James.
Don’t get me started....
This precipitated an excellent question...
WAMU was worth $200 billion, but was transferred for $20 billion
What happened to the other $180 billion?
Assets can not be destroyed. They can be transferred, cashed out, hidden...
Without answering that question, any solution is meaningless.
Nothing can guaranteed that the crisis won't be repeated more than the search and recapture of assets, wherever in the world they are, and prosecution of the criminals.
There must be thousands of them.
Traders, CEOs, mortgage providers, multiple mortgage scammers, the whole lot...
I think execs should be paid on performance. If they EARN big bucks for the company then good for them, they should be paid some percentage but if they lose, they get canned, no pay beyond minimum wage, no severance package, only the retirement that was actually put in.
LOL, they are angry that someone changed the PIN number to the ATM that doubled as their house. They think they have a constitutional right to $5 lattes, granite counter tops and big screen TVs.