Fat cat pay - Then and now ( Another FDR failure )

It's unprecedented for the nation to be outraged about corporate pay, right? Not exactly: In the 1930s, as the Depression gripped the nation, furor about compensation rose to fever pitch, and Washington applied shears to salaries.

In an article soon to be published in the University of Richmond Law Review, Harwell Wells, an assistant professor of law at Temple University, says the decade exposed "deep tensions" about the issue.

A big difference between then and now is that the 1930s fury was directed not at financial institutions but rather at "excessive" payers among industrial and consumer companies -- like Bethlehem Steel, American Tobacco, and GM.

Similarly, when the government moved in 1933 to both provide financial aid to certain key industries and put a ceiling on salaries within them, it was railroad, shipping, and air transport companies (fledglings then) that got both the help and the hurt.

Look up your state and find out how much money was given for hot air.....Our government is something we should all be interested in for our own protection...Educate the clueless and let’s clean out the sewer that is this Administration and the US Congress.

http://watchdog.org/2009/11/17/your-guide-to-the-stimulus-district-by-phantom-district/

Back in the 1930’s at least the CEOs and CFOs still understood that they worked for their stockholders. Now I’m not so sure: they arrange compensation packages without meaningful ties to shareholder value then manage on their own behalf, rather than in the interests of the stockholders.

People have a right to be outraged, but it’s the stockholders that should fix it, not the government. The only possible beneficial role the government might play would be to introduce regulations that lets shareholders who hold stock indirectly through pension funds and mutual funds have a meaningful say in corporate governance (in proportion to their ownership stake)—the problem is that managers vote majorities of the stock in most corporations, and they vote on behalf of management, not the shareholders whose interests they are supposedly looking out for (mostly I think out of slovenly, unreflective thought about their fiduciary role and emotional identification with fellow-top-managers, not actual corruption).

Hmm. How do you like the ring of "No man can be worth $100 million a year"

I don't like it...
Sounds too much like a maximum wage. (My point; If we have a minimum wage and a maximum wage we do not have capitalism any longer)
But the article is from cnn - need I say more?

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.