Inside the stimulus bill there are 11 pages of rules about executive pay. Predictably, there are complaints:
A common argument from executives against reining in huge Wall Street bonuses is that it would cause the most talented to flee to hedge funds and private equity groups. The free market, they say, should dictate pay levels.
I really wonder about that “most talented” statement. The smartest people I’ve known have been motivated more by the job than by the cash. And anyway, how much money does a CEO need?
I wonder about that “most talented” statement because how talented can they be if their banks and firms are about to fail if they don’t get bailout money?
I don’t think talent has anything to do with it; if your entire reason for doing the job is to make an obscene amount of money, with not a care to what happens to the bank that pays you, you’re not an asset to the bank at all. No matter how good you are at what you do, that’s not what the bank, or the nation, needs you to be doing.
For more entertaining ranting on this subject, see Daily Kos
Sorry, that was unclear. That should have read “For additional entertaining ranting”. No value judgement was intended.
It’s like the Mob; “nice little bank you have here; shame if something happened to it.” The fact that the protection racketeers have already broken the place up into bits doesn’t seem to be getting across.
Waldman’s rant is entertaining indeed.