Cavuto Schools O’Reilly On Obamanomics: There Is No Free Market

http://www.radioviceonline.com ^ | October 23, 2009 | Jim Vicevich

[Biggirl]

Neil Cavuto and Bill O'Reilly in a cat fight over executive pay. Conficto gato or cat fight in Spanish.

Too much. Neil Cavuto from FBN (which if you do not have ….DEMAND IT … tried desperately to explain to Bill O’Reilly, why controlling the pay of even those companies taking bailout money, is just a bad idea. It’s a slippery slope. O’Reilly, at his populist best, scoffs. But there is a turning point about midway through. The money line … Bill, there is no free market. Watch all the way through and he will convince you too.

[Biggirl]

From this cat loving lady.:)=^..^=

[KarlInOhio]

Limit the pay of bloviating Fox News commentators.

[SoldierDad]

I watched part of this - Cavuto let BOR have it right between the eyes - unfortunately BOR is too arrogant to actually have noticed he got schooled.

[TruthBeforeAll]

I am not in support of limiting the pay of any company in the free market. But I could care less whether these wallstreet firms that were bailed out get hammered. In fact, for the good of those firms that made wise decisions and did things right, the TARP firms should get hammered.

[kempster]

He looked like a deer in the headlights at the end of the interview.

[TexasFreeper2009]

The problem is these firms shouldn’t have been bailed out to begin with. All of them so of been allowed to fail.

But that is water under the bridge. Going forward the rule should be that if ANY company is to big to fail, then it should be broken up into smaller companies using antitrust laws. No company in any industry should be allowed to be so big that the government HAS to bail it out if it starts to fail.

[SoldierDad]

I think he was in shock that Cavuto would dare question him.

[Gondring]

"It's a Cookbook, Bill!"

Great line as the clip closes. Yep...the Administration wants "To Serve Man"...

(Sorry for the Damon Knight/Twilight Zone spoiler, but it's nearly 60 years old. :-)

[Gondring]

Let me guess...you didn’t watch the clip before posting...

[clintonh8r]

Not surprising that BOR is OK with the gov't dictating pay. He isn't a conservative. Government control over compensation in private enterprise, regardless of the circumstances is not a conservative position.

[paulycy]

Not surprising that BOR is OK with the gov't dictating pay. He isn't a conservative.

BOR's a control freak regardless of political bent. And I don't think he's a true conservative either. He's kinda bend-with-the-wind which he prefers to call Traditional.

Maybe where he's from it is.

[BubbaBasher]

I couldn’t believe Charles Krauthammer thought it was OK too. He said that last night on Fox News Special Report.

[Always Right]

"It's a Cookbook, Bill!" Great line as the clip closes. Yep...the Administration wants "To Serve Man"...

Classic line, I was going to comment on that too.

[slackerjack]

O’Reilly is very clever but he is not smart. Watching the exchange it was painfully obvious that BOR did not understand the full raminfications or end game. Like Cavuto was playing chess and BOR was playing checkers. Cavuto said that slashing the pay impedes a free market system; other firms that were not bailed out have no incentive to keep paying high salaries. They can lower their pay, because there is no fear that the employee will make more at the bailed out firm.
Cavuto said it’s a slippery slope. First its the Wall Street and Car companies, then who knows? I wonder what O’Reilly would say if Obama bailed out GE/ NBC and slashed their compensation. He would be getting a call from Murdoch that his contract is going to be rewritten.

[SonOfDarkSkies]

I don't agree with Cavuto to the extent that his point is that limited executive pay at firms like GM will automatically give GM a cost advantage which will drive down exec salaries everywhere.

• First of all, exec salaries are a small part of product cost so the market or sales determinant is still going to be product quality unless primary product costs are reduced for GM and Chrysler ONLY (and that just isn't the case).

• Secondly, since execs can just as easily be compensated with stock options, the pay of non-restricted salary companies is a function of performance and GM, at a disadvantage of hiring workers and execs, should suffer the most (and is in fact already suffering the most).

  An additional point here...companies like Ford could conceivably be taken private and turned into partnerships wherein the execs and management are only paid draws against the partnership interest which varies according to performance (like law firms or accounting firms).

  This would put the comp issue beyond the reach of the government unless the gov't decides to go after lawyers and partnership comp as well, and that compounds the problem considerably.

• Thirdly, as this all applies to financial firms, the limit on compensation will have no effect on firms outside those restricted because the otherwise highly paid execs, traders and investment bankers (those who actually create the wealth) will either start or join partnerships wherein their compensation is ownership...or bail the U.S. entirely and head for countries and economies that are thriving. Just a note about partnerships.

  You can't limit the growth of wealth in a partnership that owns equity because to do so the gov't would essentially be saying to the partnership and the equities (companies) it owns that there is a fixed limit to their success (i.e. a company can only grow so much, or so fast, or succeed but just a certain percentage each year).

  Such a limit on success, difficult as it would be to enforce, would kill the American economy...and we would all have to move to another country to earn a living OR join the underground economy that would spring up as it did in all communist countries.

[Always Right]

I couldn’t believe Charles Krauthammer thought it was OK too.

A little bit shocking, but the real crime was when they government bailed them out and essentially became their owner. Once they consented to government ownership, setting salaries is pretty much expected.

[paulycy]

Like Cavuto was playing chess and BOR was playing checkers.

Bingo. ;0)

[MinuteGal]

"Cavuto Schools O'Reilly on Obamanomics...."

No one can "school" the closet fascist, O'Reilly. His is the final word, the final decision, the final answer, the final solution.

He made my blood boil again last night with his sly remarks and innuendos. After playing the clip of Vice-President Cheney's refutation of Obama's Afghanistan lies and distortions, O'Reilly was right there starting off with the remark...."now if what Cheney is saying is true....."

I about threw a shoe into my TV set. But BOR is full of these sly little bon mots, mostly against conservatism. Start paying closer attention to all his little asides and "final words" which close a topic and are not subject to refutation or correction by a guest.

....and hold on to your shoes.

Leni

P.S....see my tag line and be informed about this man.

[clintonh8r]

Nope...there were no conditions placed on accepting the funds. This was all done after the fact. And then the gov't had the chutzpah to say it had the right to decline repayment.

The extreme result could be that anyone who has some some of tax subsidy (mortgage interest deduction, claiming dependents, student loans, etc.) would be an excuse to control your income. If you think that's far-fetched, who could have imagined 10 years ago thing that have happened in the last 9 months?

[SonOfDarkSkies]

Unless I am mistaken, Cavuto's point was that merely limiting the pay of TARP recipients would, in and of itself, put such firms at an economic advantage such that said cost advantage alone (not the regulation of comp at other firms) would force other NON TARP firms to reduce pay to hold costs down and stay competitive.

That's specious reasoning and just doesn't hold water.