I have to tell you that there is a humorous irony with President Obama’s pronouncement that companies that want a government subsidy courtesy of the egregious and ill-advised $700 billion TARP bail out (and presumably companies who choose to feed at the taxpayer trough if/when Obama’s latest boondoggle "stimulus" package is signed) will have to limit the compensation of their top execs to 500k annually.
For those of us that oppose the bailouts, past, present and future — this is delicious. As far as I am concerned, the more disincentives we can provide for private companies to accept bail-outs the better.
To those who supported the taxpayer bailout of Wall Street, some good friends of the FR, well I suppose you think Obama’s decree is outrageous, because you think it is okay for private companies to get taxpayer subsidies.
Here is the problem. Normally, I shouldn’t CARE about what the CEO of Citibank makes. That should be a private matter — I guess if I were a stockholder, I might have some interest. But not really as long as my dividends are high.
But now we all have to care, because we are all "forced investors" (as taxpayers) in these companies.
This was predictable. You get get "partial" entanglement of government into private sector businesses. The directives and mandates will grow over time.
I am imagining James Taggert in Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged scratching his head, as a company President, not understanding how this could happen to him. "I just took the free money? Why do I have to cut my pay?"