President Obama to Announce New Boss Salary Restrictions for TARP-Receiving Companies

They thought they could control the banking industry’s behavior by giving the money without much thought about it. Then they see unpredicted behavior by the banking industry, namely the money being used for bonuses and junkets rather than credit, so now they impose additinoal rules to try and correct that problem. A dollar short and a day late. Then they’ll see other unpredicted problems and try to correct that. It’s just one wrong move after another because you can’t control peoples behavior. If they understood anything about economics and credit markets they could have avoided yet another gov. created mess.
What a joke

It appears that Mr. Obama is exibiting a very rare commody in politics “Common Sense” it is truly wonderful. This bailout to these corporations is akin to someone standing on a street corner with the sign “Need Help” and gets the money to put gas in his Hummer.

You go Mr. president. You can fool some for about 15 minutes. After that, you better know something.

If someone works hard, does a good job, they have a right to be rewarded. These criminals did a good heist. They robbed the Americans with efficiency that is unbelievable. Now they are splitting the loot and loaning it back to us. These criminals deserved the bonus, but these criminals should be treated as criminals, ie: cuffed, prosecuted, and jailed. The limiting of bonus is socialism pure and simple. It is a slap on the hands and again a loss of freedom with more government interference. Don’t cap bonuses! Prosecute, convict, and jail the criminals.

what a stupid populist, vengeful, short-sighted liberal idea. so – now we all own billions of dollars worth of companies where anyone talented enough to make more than what the government tells them they can make – will go somewhere eles (perhaps even europe). here’s an idea – since the congress has so screwed up the economy – let’s cap their salaries – beginning with daschels. it’s over.

clancy49, you’re absolutely right. Let’s not forget that this is just a bandaid because our esteemed intelligent leaders (Congress – of which Obama was a member at the time – and former President Bush) failed to foresee how godawful the Bailout was. You’d think that with as many shenanigans as they’ve all been up to, they would have been able to predict the banks’ misuse of the Bailout funds.
Never fear, old Honest Joe Taxpayer will keep turning his hard-earned money over to this band of merry mischief makers as fast as he can to try to keep the wheels on the bus.

itsover, Daschel is no longer a Senator, but this
still looks like a good idea. In fact lets cut their
salary for doing such a crappy job so far.

LongT, many Americans are not too bright, I agree. My question is whether you count yourself among those. If not, you should. Ron, you should as well. The reason why I say this is because you are only looking at part of the story. This is not about limiting bonuses and compensation as a rule for all of business, it is about companies looking for taxpayer bailout money for help because they were too irresponsible to accurately gauge risk or too irresponsible with their money to have sound practices. Companies who are looking for bailout money do not deserve bonuses or top pay, THEY FAILED. They really deserve to fail if we are going to look at it by the light of pure capitalism, but to help the economy we are bailing them out. It only follows that since they are borrowing taxpayer money, the taxpayers have the right to set conditions of the handouts/loans. Let us not forget that the first “socialist” bailout bill was encouraged and signed by George Bush, who before that was sending billions upon billions of your money to Iraq and paying huge sums of it to private security companies like Blackwater. For months know people have been trying to scare you with the term “spreading the wealth.” What is the alternative to that, keeping the wealth with Bush/Cheney cronies like Blackwater and Halliburton? Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and their kind always try to scare people with narrow minded reasoning; too bad there are 56 million Americans stupid enough to refuse to look at or fail to comprehend both sides of an issue. Too bad these idiots tend to be the most vocal and angry. Well, I guess I’d be angry too if I weren’t too bright.

I’m sorry, my previous post is not addressed to LongT but to Terrylee.

ItsOver: Give me a break! There are a lot of people out there with a lot of talent. You’ve bought into the entire rediculous theory that these OVERPAID crooks who have run these companies down into the ground are actually worth several million dollars a year. EVERYBODY CAN BE REPLACED and in the case of these guys, they can be replaced 30 or 40 times over at about 1/20th of the cost.

fine print: when does it go into effect? will the government amend existing contracts – or will the measure impact contracts on their renewal?

thain – not true. sorry. do you think daschel would drop his $2 million lobbying gig. unlikely.

First step in reducing the number of people from the private sector willing to manage these banks. Then the gov’t can fill the void with gov’t appointed managers. While we’re at it, let’s just have the feds take over EVERYTHING! On second thought, let’s not.
I’m NOT defending the poor management practices of these banks – I’m just not that crazy about having so much fed sayso and control of our nations financial institutions.

My goodness. Look what happens when you sleep with the Devil!

I totally agree with capping their salaries. WE (the taxpayers) are now their BOSS. They failed to run the company properly and we’ve had to bail them out. They absolutely can’t continue to go on making the salaries they are making when they’ve run the company into the ground. A normal taxpayer would have been FIRED for this kind of performance. They are lucky that they’re only getting a pay cut (which, by the way, the partners in the company I work for are taking in order to keep the company going and not having to lay anyone off at the moment).
And bonuses should be cut out entirely. (Ours are…along with a pwage freeze.) What are they getting bonuses for? Bad performance? So what if some employees decide to leave if they don’t get their bonuses? They couldn’t have been doing a very good job anyway for their company to be in the shape it’s in. There are literally MILLIONS of like- or better-qualified unemployed people out there who can do these jobs better.
ENOUGH ALREADY!

While I’m not on board with providing corporate welfare to badly-run companies, I am equally if not more opposed to more government intervention in the private sector and into the banking system.
You want banks to operate with the thrilling efficiency of the postal service, the financial solvency of social security, the unparalleled effectiveness of Medicare, etc.
Maybe we can just appoint a few tax cheats to watch over the books and all will be well. Go back to sleep, people.
You get the government you deserve.

Good to see that Citibank management was able to plunder some of the TARP in time by generously granting themselves shares worth nearly up to $2M in January. Many of them cashed-in already – see insider trading data for details.

And, while we’re at it, why not a cap (or pay reduction) in government employees, particularly SENATORS and REPRESENTATIVES? They are WAY overpaid for the job they do. Put your stimulus money where your mouth is and take a pay cut. Plus do they pay anything towards their unbelievable health benefits? If not, let’s get that fixed right now. Most tax-paying citizens pay an amount towards their employee health benefits. Time for the government to start doing so, also.

Don’t like it huh TOUGH where were you whiners when the economy was starting to tank? Oh I remember still supporting the Bush administraions plans and letting the deregulation chips fall where they may, well this is it, time to pay the fiddler. Sorry capping execs paychecks is the right thing to do for THIS situation. Can you say GROSS negligence for the people who touted these Credit defalt swaps and walked away with BILLIONS after they got them to deregulate betting on the stock market This was made a felony back in the day for a very good reason and it was changed because of GREED. The past admin only listened to it’s lobbists. This New one is trying to deal with the aftermath get over yourselves these plans create jobs IN the Private sector. I’am curious though if the ice pack is melting and we have already some nice Ice-cutter style ships why go to a new drawing board for a bigger ship? any comments on that?

“…a cap (or pay reduction) in government employees, particularly SENATORS and REPRESENTATIVES? They are WAY overpaid for the job they do.” -judyb -
That would be great, except when this is mentioned, our dear congressmen always rationalize the need for high compensation so they are not vulnerable to bribes and corruption by lobbyists. So… how well is THIS working out?!? Hmmm?

You get the government you deserve!!!

$500,000.00!!!! you have got to be kidding me i am a taxpayer and having to have my government bail them out they shouldn’t get a dime over $250,000.00 as a base salary and maybe if they are lucky i’d give them some contract perks based on profit and business practices/ethics. Freakin Obama needs to get his head out of the sand and smell the smog and do what is right “for the People”

Any company who doesn’t like public scrutiny should NOT apply for taxpayers money.

obama’s new creed: rich = evil

Washington is always a day late and a dollar short. Banks already got their hundreds and hundreds of billions.

I wounder why the cap it at 500.000, funny though because Obama’s pay is 450.000! he can not make it lower than his pay, and guess what we are paying both salaries…………..The Tax Payers……

I fear this will never pass, but it should. It’s not right to give the banks money every time they cry but make the auto workers suffer– they can’t even afford the cars they make. And yes, we do get the government we deserve— and we deserve better. We deserve a government that works for us and listens to us. It’s only been a few weeks, let’s see what these new guys and gals can do. If we don’t like it, if we’re worse off in 2010 (Congress) or 2012, they’ll be shown the door. But at least Obama’s trying to do something.

How about capping the pay of our elected political leaders at the average household income for US citizens? Their poor performance on just about every issue has done more to hurt the country than the CEOs….

hey jenny rome -
do you think anyone should make any money? it’s seems a lot of these posts are about rich ceo’s, executives, people who work on wall street, anyone who is a manager. my point is there is a lot of divisveness and wholesale hate. how come no one seems to mind watching sports figures makes millions? there is nothing wrong or illegal about being rich last i checked. but – if i check tomorrow – there might be.

It will be impossible to restore any confidence in the financial system until the slime and stench of the greed driven, unpricipled, unethical Wall Street CEO’s and Bankers has been cleaned up. These men and women must be prosecuted, jailed and prevented from ever holding any resposible position in the future. Rewarding them with outrageous salaries, is to preserve the current non transparent system. These Greed driven Bastards just love the current non regulated methods of doing business, it allows them to be as dishonest as they can be.

Socialism, pure and simple. This country will never recover.

What about limiting Congressional pay and lobbying income? They have a 16% ratings approval and are responsible for the mess we’re in today?

Gringo sez: fine print: when does it go into effect? will the government amend existing contracts – or will the measure impact contracts on their renewal?
More to the point: Does Congress even have the Constitutional authority to unilaterally void private-sector contracts in cases where no crime is alleged?
Those of you who say “Yes” should keep in mind Pastor Niemoller’s warning. (Google it.)

Re “It’s not right to give the banks money every time they cry but make the auto workers suffer– they can’t even afford the cars they make. ”
Hie thee to Google, fool, and get educated. You just embarrassed yourself.

I would like to see a list of every CEO involved and their current salary.
This all sounds good and just but I can’t correctly grasp how much this plan will screw the screw-balls.
HOORAY FOR OBAMA

It’s about time someone put an amount of $ CEO’s
can earn when it concerns tax payers money. The nerve of those jack asses, it’s just mind boggling.
Greed begets greed, and that’s what CEO’s are all about. How many millions, or billions of dollars does one person need?
Oh and I just love how the right goes on about
President Obama being a socialist, I guess when
when Wall street is profiting it’s all good but when
the market is down they go begging for a bailout by tax payer money, hmm socialist?

I seem to remember Barney Frank’s buddy who ran Freddie Mac got paid a tremendous bonus in 2005 becuase he made all those great loans to people buying houses.
Unfortunately, he didn’t pay any attention whether they could pay the loans back or not, but that is irrelevant.
It’s still all George Bush’s fault.

so, RyanC, where do you teach??
my favorite new bumpersticker:
if you voted for obama, thank a teacher

Since the economy is not doing well, the members of the Congress should be trying to economize. In additoin to giving back the $4,000 raise, they could give up the private jets that the tax payers are paying for.

If a president can cap salary for executives receiving aid from the government who have failed their companies, why can’t a guaranteed for a base livig wage for every american of 15-17+ dollars per hour be implemented and tax incentives for corporation will be included to guarantee the new base wage structure for all tax payers…The extra disposable income can really stimulate the economy. Why isn’t this explored more?

I agree with this cap and am tired of the CEO’s claiming they need the compensation packages to keep good employees. Well in this economy why are we rewarding people that are not doing their jobs and where are they going to go, who is hiring. Maybe if they where laid off like the employees at the bottom of the pay scales their company would better understand what they have done to the America economy.
Companies need to lay off more top exec
utives and save more jobs at the bottom. You can’t keeping laying off at the bottom without getting rid of some at the top. Besides a few executives going will free up way more money in any company. Maybe the ones that messed up a company need to be the let go faster than the poor guy at the bottom doing his job.

The bailout is backwards, it should be going to the people that are supporting these “institutions”, the people that are actually working hard for the money. The banks get their cut in interest. It is their fault for lending to people and educating them on the fact instead of taking advantage of them for a quota.