Obama caps executive pay for companies receiving bailout: Do you support this government intervention?

Hello:

I believe this question is misleading. The $500,000.00 is a cap on their, executives bonuses. I believe their salaries, example: 38 Million per year, cut by 50% to 19 million is his, obasma initial request, (hopefully it will stand as an order and not a request). Answer me this: Who in the hell is worth a salary of 38 muillion dollars. This company that pays this singular salary must generate at least 38 million dollars to pay the salary of a single employee. Is there something wrong with this picture. The trashed company begins with this singular salary. Bye: Adam Troy

This sounds more than fair to me. Those CEO's do not deserve much after helping to run our country into the ground.

to be frank the executives of these bailed out companies fucked up and they should be happy with whatever the government decides to pay them and no matter how little the government pays them its still too much!

Further, I do not think the government should have bailed anyone out!

There has to be regulations. If we would have had more regulations in place for financial industry we would not be in this mess.

Neither would we be in this mess if the libs had not browbeat the mortgage lenders into loaning money to people too financially ignorant to know they could not afford to pay the money back...

Actually, the bigger problem was not that loans were made to people who couldn't afford the loans - which is true - the bigger problem is that those loans were sold around until they were worthless. They were sold at prices higher than what they were worth, and became just paper instruments, and not real real estate loans. In what I am calling a "real real estate loan", you can call the broker or bank and say, "you know, I'm having a little trouble meeting my payment this month... can you lower it to just interest for a couple of months?" and they can say yes, and then the loan doesn't default. These paper instruments were traded all over the place until there was no one behind them except groups of investors who knew nothing about them except that their broker said, "I can get you a deal on a loan that will make you X%". No one was home, there was no longer a bank behind them. That was what killed the mortgage biz, not little homeowners who had a financial problem. And, yes, they were sold loans they could not afford, just so that some guy or gal could make $1,000 on the commission. That was also irresponsible. Our economy is no longer a simple deal where you can just say, "Oh, it's bad because those poor people should not have bought those houses."

I understand all that; however, had the mortgage providers not been coerced into funding loans people could not afford, there wouldn't have been all those sub-prime mortgages to wrap into little bundles of worthless documents! Many of the loans were a liability BEFORE they were ever packaged up and sold.

My thoughts exactly

If you're in trouble financially, be glad you still have a job. Think about those who you laid off to keep yours. When you get the company back on its feet, perhaps your directors will make any losses up to you. Some execs have already denied additional comps until their firm gets healthy again. Don't wait on the government...show your mettle!

Let's be for real, every one is going through, some way or the other. let's all set back and think of how we can help our leaders in the government, I appreciate all the help they have to give. let them give as much as they can, for they all had a part in putting us in this mess. let them all know that we are suspicions of all of them.
Lets tell them that we have reservations about every thing they say and do, don't think of the money as bailout money, think of it as the money the government owns you. and they put our way of life in jeopardy. Let's not be unintelligent / stupid. the word intervention means= involvement, intrusion, intercession and interference ETC...
I don't care how you slice it, the government is always going to be in your business, so wake up and smell the coffee.

obama will not keep to that it's just more hot air.he's a born liar,that's why william ayers trained him for this challange.

Ignorant. Barky is ignorant and has not even run a hot dog stand. Timothy "Tax Cheat" Geithner is about as big an idiot as they get. He is now in charge of the IRS too, and he didn't even know how to run Turbo Tax, and tried to write off summer camp for his kids. The idiots in Barky's cabinet, is atrocious, ludicrous and beyond the pale. They should stay out of business and especially keep people like Frank, Rangel and Dodd away from the money. Due some due diligence and you'll see just have vastly corrupt this administrations is. Historical, and far, far worse than anything that Bush had. Don’t take my word for it, or drink the kool-aid, go out and read it for yourself. Neo Marxist, that is what they are. Barky, sorry to say, but you are a failure, and it wont get any better in the next 50 days I'm pretty sure. No experience. No Class. No Clue. CBS and NBC suck, and we got stuck.

Well, better than the previous 8 years!!!

Ament to that. I am so glad we are moving on.

If I give my kid money to fail him out of a situation, I want to know how it's being spent. It's a different story if he earns or works for the money. In my opinion, Ford didn't take the money because they didn't want to have to answer to the government.

and the door has been opened,,wow didnt think i would see this in my life time.The Oracle in the Matrix movie said it best,,,do you take the cookie?

If the goverment gives anyone money, it only means debt to us in the future and for our future family. How dare they drive us all into this mess. How dare they hurt everyone!

In 2007, when the top management of Lehman Brothers should have known that they were going down in flames, the top 10 ignoble management thieves were paid an average of $208 million each. That is over 2 billion dollars. In 2008 when they knew for sure that their stewardship had led the firm into unimaginable disaster the rascals did even better to the tune of $209 million each. Another cool 2 billion plus. They then ducked out of sight and let Bank of America take over their sunk ship in order to saddle taxpayers with their excesses. Since when has such incompetence been so richly rewarded? I think the government should find a way to get some, if not all, of that hijacked money back. Where are the RICO laws when we really need them? If this does not qualify as racketeering what does?
We are running around moaning about $7.7 billion in pork ina $410 billion appropriations bill. At least we get something for all that pork, wheter it's worth it or not. All we get from these brigands is more bills for additional $30 billion or so. There are lots of competent people who will galdly take $500,000 to do a creditable job that these rogues could not produce. Yes, lets tar and feather them and make sure we forever more hold them up for public ridicule. Yes, Rush Limbaugh nobody should be allowed to screw us to get so rich and we're mad as heck and want retribution.

You want MY MONEY , and it is OUR MONEY, play by the rules are get fired, for stealing

Not enough. Make all paycaps retroactive to when the business failed.
Make companies sell all jets; repay all monies for retreats; repay all monies paid to support television ads/shows. Cap all salaries at 500,000.00 until these money hungry people in charge show their fiscal respondsibility. When all monies borrowed from the government are paid back, then restrictions should be eased up slowly.
If I ran my small company the way these companies have would the government feel sorry for me? No. My CPA just told me to increase my quarterly payments for next year because my taxes are going up!

they want our money they need to do the right thing and do what the President ask them to do!

AMEN

personally i think we should pull everyone of these guy out of their baord rooms and put a bullet in the back of their heads as a statement. we cant do that so capping is the least.

You need to live in a third world country. Where were you the last eight years???

what was i doing the last 8 years? watching our own modern Taft, the bush administration and private ceo's strip mine america and create taminy hall on an epic scale..thus the recession we are in now. and what does living in a third world nation have to do with anything? i forgot in third world nations they take ceo's out and shoot them or cap executive pay?

They went begging for a Bail Out from the Government and got it, Now They have to use it for what it was meant for and not Raises and Bonuses.

The top person in any company is responsible for promoting those directly below them and so the responsibility trickles down . If the top gun hired a loser and they in turn hired losers and so on , then they either take the loss themselves or they take what they get by those who bail them out .

I think a $500,000 cap is WAY to much.... Why reward these incompetent executives of the financial institutions for putting the company in such a state that they need to get bail-out money in the first place or did they know the government would bail them out while they were having their fun flying around the world using up gas like it was water.. Frankly I don't see how the stockholders could let them get by with their spending or should I say the wasting of so much money. They don't deserve anything. Let them try living on 8 bucks an hour without any government help for a year. Bet they would commit suicide in a few weeks. Don't just take the air out of their golden parachutes, take away the parachutes.. Give them a taste of what most of the hard working Americans face every day... the reality of not knowing if they will even have a job tomorrow or if their family will be able to eat because of rising food prices and no raises to meet the demands. This bail-out money should have been given to those who needed it the most not to some financial institution who stood by and let these over paid do-nothing executives spent frivolously.

This entire intervention by the Feds (Bush, Obama, and the idiots we send to congress) are the reason for the deflation. Government interference=socialism which breeds a lack of drive. Who will work hard if the reward is taken away? The main reason most elected officials run for office is for $$$. Not only kickbacks for favors, but to establish themselves as part of the good ole boy network. If an audit of each elected official's financial and personal history were conducted, they would have to clear the prisons to make room for the real criminals. And we should include the press corps in this house cleaning as well.
Does anyone really think any of the companies being bailed out will be able to attract investers when the majority partner are the crooks in DC? Say goodbye to private interprise and the great american dream. Say hello to mediocre performance.

These are just a way to appease those who want capitalism to fail and the governement run everything. If taking government money is the determining factor. Let's take all of our elected officials and make their pay and benefits match those of thier constituents. If the average median income per capita in your state or district is $39,000.00 then that is what the Senators or Representatives should be paid. Maybe then they would not be so ready to go along with administrations who sign trade treaties and do nothing about our manufacturing jobs going somewhere else. The President should also be paid accordingly. And make mandatory jail time in Gitmo for those who take money from lobbyist.

As far as I am concerned they are getting more than they earned !! If you fail at your job you should be fired!

should be laid on congress and the senate they just voted them selves a new raise go figure duh.....................

He needs to do what he said he would do. Now he needs to start on pork and perks and PACS that put Congress in the same category as CEO's.

Ah, just another step on the path to socialism. Of course the government has no say in the salaries. Part of the success and failure of each company is its ability to hire and fire executives at will to find the best fit to run the company. The stockholders will rise up and object to the money being paid if its excessive. Nope, no way.

If a company is given hard-earned taxpayer money, then there should definitely be restrictions in place. One of the major reasons these companies are in trouble in the first place is the excessive salaries, bonuses, etc. that the executives are paying themselves. Don't ask for government money if you aren't willing to abide by restrictions.

As far as government intrusion goes -- giving them taxpayer money is government intrusion, so if they don't like the restrictions, then give the money back!

You got it.

Not needed... The place of government is NOt in the private sector.. Let companies Fail...things will recover on their own. AIG is only being bailed out because that is where All the govenment officals have their Benefits and pension funds... research it... it is TRUE. Put the people in govenment on the Social Security program, and you will see many things change to the Better. The new congress gave themselves a $93,000. raise right off the bat. Google what bills are sitting out there that were waiting for obama to get into office. Democrats have been in charge since 2006, so hard to blame Bush's folks for what didn't get done..

This is a no-brainer in my book. OF COURSE it is too lenient. They should be fired and forced to live on the lowest unemployment rate for a while.

Necessary. Further, when company leaders don't accomplish goals, they should be fired. As a CPA and a former auditor of gov't contractors, I would plan audits by the gov't, not private CPA firms. WE should have a contract with provisions for regular oversight.