"A failure to act, and act now, will turn crisis into a catastrophe and guarantee a longer recession, a less robust recovery, and a more uncertain future," Obama said in his prepared remarks.That's the problem with life, it's always so uncertain.
His executive pay cap plan, accomplished once again by fiat, limits the pay of the corpulent, greedy, evil, disgusting, filthy rich and probably Republican corporate execs to only 500K per annun if their company takes extraordinary amounts of bailout funds going forward.
Conservatives are supposed to be opposed to this. OK. Government tentacles crawling into the payroll offices of private American businesses is a frightening notion. Corporations are often given tax breaks to locate in communities without demands for profitability or pay. But this bunch should have gotten the message long ago and just stopped paying themselves anything as did the leaders at Chevy and Chrysler. Then the complaints stop.
Instead they've given Obama another foot in the door towards destroying capitalism as we know it under the populist guise of legislating morality, which never works but feels so good when applied, and will only lead to more mommy-party punishment:
More severe executive compensation rules could be on the way. House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) said a consensus is building for empowering the Federal Reserve to manage systemic risk in the financial system, including by limiting compensation awarded for excessively risky behavior.That's choice meat, considering Frank's comments about Fannie back in the summer of '08:
He might as well have been talking about Mr. Bubble. Yet we keep wanting to believe the lie--that somehow the government can eliminate all risk in life. That's what Katrina was all about, that's why some believe Bush blew the Twin Towers, and that's why Obama thinks a trillion dollar pork plan will save America or that the sin of greed can be eliminated with a piece of paper.
MORE 2/4/09
Someone just reminded me of the Maxine Waters socialism moment last Spring when the Dems were using similar demagoguery to threaten pay caps and windfall profits taxes on oil companies. Oh for the good old days of windfall profits.
1 comment:
While it should go without saying that even a legitimate President’s “ordered” $500,000 pay cap is an unenforceable intrusion into the private sector, as if that weren’t enough, Obama LACKS EVEN OSTENSIBLE AUTHORITY to issue the order UNTIL HE OVERCOMES “RES IPSA LOQUITUR” BY SUPPLYING HIS LONG FORM BIRTH CERTIFICATE AND PROVING HIS ELIGIBILITY TO BE PRESIDENT UNDER ARTICLE 2 OF THE US CONSTITUTION.
Post a Comment