NEW YORK — Even before the Obama administration formally tightened executive compensation at bailed-out companies, the prospect of pay cuts had led some top employees to depart.
The administration had tasked Kenneth Feinberg, the Treasury Department’s special master on compensation, to evaluate the pay packages of 25 of the most highly compensated executives at each of seven firms receiving exceptionally large amounts of taxpayer assistance.
But Thursday, he ruled only on slightly more than three quarters of the pay packages that were to be under his purview. The balance reflected executives who have left since he began his work in June or will be gone by the end of the year.
Many executives were driven away by the uncertainty of working for companies closely overseen by Washington, opting instead for firms not under the microscope, including competitors that have already returned the bailout funds to the government, according to executives and supervisors at the companies.
“There’s no question people have left because of uncertainty of our ability to pay,” said an executive at one of the affected firms. “It’s a highly competitive market out there.”
You mean these people actually have the temerity to respond to financial disincentives? And not just stand there like a mule in a hailstorm and take their pummeling? It may seem perverse to talk about “top performers” in an era where the financial industry is writhing on the ground. But it’s no more perverse than having the federal government setting the salary packages of private individuals. It’s further proof that federal funding = federal control, and some people want no part of it.
But, you protest, they don’t deserve those big bonuses. To which the answer is a commonplace: Above a certain level, you don’t get what you deserve. You get what you negotiate. And that’s fine with me. If I want to be high in the world, I have to let those above me be high, too. No one’s going to turn those companies around unless you let them earn a market-rate salary. If you’re a federal czar who figures that any idiot can do the job, any idiot will.
Comment by donald on 10/23 @ 6:55 am #
I will say this. Not one of these companies told the Obama administration to go fuck themselves, we’ll see you in court. Not one. Each one of these companies thought that by sucking his dick, they’d be spared.
Now the problem is, any company that has any connection with government money is next. This was just the easy low hanging fruit. Now it gets interesting.
Comment by alppuccino on 10/23 @ 7:03 am #
Where will they find prospective CEO’s to take these people’s place?
Wait, where did they find that Car-Czar guy?
Comment by LTC John on 10/23 @ 7:03 am #
“It may seem perverse to talk about “top performers” in an era where the financial industry is writhing on the ground.”
But there are plenty of other sectors that use these folks – I happen to work for one of them. We ain’t all AIG our here in the commercial insurance world.
Comment by alppuccino on 10/23 @ 7:04 am #
‘people’s places’. They’re not all in the same place.
Comment by Darleen on 10/23 @ 7:05 am #
TSI
It should be noted that the timing of this, along with Obama’s loud braying about how evil these execs were/are for “getting so much when so many are suffering”, makes for quite the distraction from the Obamacrats continued effort to nationalize 1/6th of the economy via “health care”
Comment by Darleen on 10/23 @ 7:05 am #
TSI
It should be noted that the timing of this, along with Obama’s loud braying about how evil these execs were/are for “getting so much when so many are suffering”, makes for quite the distraction from the Obamacrats continued effort to nationalize 1/6th of the economy via “health care”
Comment by Darleen on 10/23 @ 7:05 am #
whoops… sorry about the double post (how did that happen?). Please delete as you see fit.
Comment by The Sanity Inspector on 10/23 @ 7:10 am #
No need, it bears repeating.
Comment by Joe on 10/23 @ 7:33 am #
Beggars can’t be choosers. Of course the feds will fuck things up, it is what they do when they try to run businesses. How did Truman do running the steel industry for a while? Not so well. That take over did not in itself cause the collaspe of the U.S. steel industry, but it sure as hell did not prevent it.
Of course talent will follow the money.
Comment by Joe on 10/23 @ 7:34 am #
And Darleen is right, if you liked government control of the financial and automobile industries, just wait till you get some good old government bend over and cough treatment–this will only hurt for a bit.
Comment by Joe on 10/23 @ 7:42 am #
Obama has his doubts about the constitution and economic freedom.
A taste of his college term paper.
Comment by B Moe on 10/23 @ 7:56 am #
They are working themselves into an interesting dilemma. If they maintain these rock bottom salaries, they have almost no chance of attracting executives of the caliber they need to resurrect these companies. If they pay the higher salaries to attract new talent, they expose themselves to charges of hypocrisy.
I am betting they use the positions as political rewards, revert to the ridiculous salaries, the companies continue to bleed money, and only Fox News reports it. Because of the racism.
Comment by McGehee on 10/23 @ 7:57 am #
The Home Depot parking lot?
Comment by JHo on 10/23 @ 8:24 am #
Lovely way to rebuild production at a time when our survival quite literally depends on it.
Comment by LTC John on 10/23 @ 8:29 am #
#13 – veeerrry nice!
Comment by Pablo on 10/23 @ 8:39 am #
Hey, we’ve got an awesome manufacturing czar! What could go wrong?
Comment by Great Mencken's Ghost! on 10/23 @ 8:42 am #
So the man who collected a $1.4 million Nobel Peace Prize for increasing the amount of armed conflict in the world is cutting other people’s pay.
Seems fair to me.
Comment by Great Mencken's Ghost! on 10/23 @ 8:43 am #
“I will say this. Not one of these companies told the Obama administration to go fuck themselves, we’ll see you in court. Not one. Each one of these companies thought that by sucking his dick, they’d be spared.”
Hey, it worked for GE…
Comment by Pablo on 10/23 @ 8:55 am #
Nor did they tell Bush and Paulsen to go fuck themselves, which should be noted.
Comment by Vlad the Impala on 10/23 @ 9:10 am #
Perhaps they just weren’t sufficiently vigorous.
Maybe more practice is needed.
Comment by sdferr on 10/23 @ 9:25 am #
Speaking of disincentives, will Venezuelans be heading to Columbia for showers?
Oh, yes you do Hugo, on ice even.
Comment by JD on 10/23 @ 9:42 am #
They should shoot for the French model, shower every week or so.
Comment by Snowcone on 10/23 @ 9:48 am #
You mean these people actually have the temerity to respond to financial disincentives?
Sure…these overpaid accountants will find it easy to maintain their bloated salaries by becoming professional athletes and movie stars!
‘Cause that’s what kind of super humans they are.
Comment by Carin on 10/23 @ 9:51 am #
Snowcow never fails to bring the stupid to our discussion.
Comment by JD on 10/23 @ 10:09 am #
Snotnose is on one of its meth benders again, apparently.
Comment by SBP on 10/23 @ 10:15 am #
I’m wondering what’s going to happen to NippleNut when it becomes clear that all the shiny has worn off of Obama, as even his cheerleaders in the left-wing media are starting to notice.
Comment by Snowcone on 10/23 @ 10:17 am #
Snotnose is on one of its meth benders again, apparently.
Hehe, exactly how many jobs that pay $20 million or more a year do yo think there are?
How did Wall Street companies make most of their profits last quarter?
Borrow bailout money from the gummint at 0% interest…invest said funds in gummint bonds paying a 2.5% annual return.
Brilliant!
Raise your hand if you’d be willing do that “job” for, say, %500,000 a year.
Comment by SBP on 10/23 @ 10:21 am #
Why don’t you take your free government dole check and buy savings bonds, NippleNut?
Comment by SBP on 10/23 @ 10:26 am #
Oddly, since Obama’s JEEENIUSES took over this “anybody can do it” job at GM, their sales have dropped over 40%. The same article notes that Ford’s sales are down only 5%.
Comment by JD on 10/23 @ 10:29 am #
Yellowsnow – Step away from the crack-pipe.
Comment by The Sanity Inspector on 10/23 @ 10:32 am #
Sure…these overpaid accountants will find it easy to maintain their bloated salaries by becoming professional athletes and movie stars!
‘Cause that’s what kind of super humans they are.
And no worries if the government runs the industry into the ground. We’ll just fall back to Plan B, and make our nest eggs knitting Mexican wedding shirts on some hippie commune.
Comment by Carin on 10/23 @ 10:32 am #
I find it amusing that snowcow, in attempting to belittle “overpaid” executives brings up the most vacuous, overpaid members of our society.
Comment by Lamontyoubigdummy on 10/23 @ 10:36 am #
“Hehe, exactly how many jobs that pay $20 million or more a year do yo think there are?”
More than a few.
Tell ya what you big ‘ol class warrior. You go get an MBA. Then get a Masters in finance. Then go out and run a couple of companies you’ve invested all your money in.
Take them from absolutely nothing to Fortune 500 status, AM Best A+ rating.
Then call Korn Ferry, send them your resume, and they’ll hook you up with a $20mil a year job.
And I’ll buy stock in your company.
Creating thousands of new jobs.
Welcome to America shitcone.
The line to get in forms to the right.
Comment by Snowcone on 10/23 @ 10:39 am #
brings up the most vacuous, overpaid members of our society
It’s hard to become a pro athlete just because you joined the right societies at Yale, Carin.
And nothing is stopping you from heading to Hollywood and join the hundreds of thousands of hopefuls trying to make it in Hollywood.
Comment by Squid on 10/23 @ 10:45 am #
We criticize the actions of the well-connected Ivy Leaguers who are running the country into the ground from their lofty perches in Treasury and the Fed. Snowy “rebuts” our arguments by making fun of well-connected Ivy Leaguers.
That’s…well, that’s just so special I can’t put it into words.
Comment by SBP on 10/23 @ 10:46 am #
That’s funny, NippleNut, given that Presentdent Loser is a Harvard grad himself, with no other apparent accomplishments or skills other than reading a teleprompter.
Comment by JD on 10/23 @ 10:48 am #
Alphie’s schtick is no less tiresome today than when it first crawled out from under its rock.
Comment by Charles on 10/23 @ 10:57 am #
When the government owns the means of production… there’s a name for that, I think…
Comment by Snowcone on 10/23 @ 11:00 am #
When the government owns the means of production
Wall Street produces something?
Do tell!
Comment by Squid on 10/23 @ 11:00 am #
…and what’s more, the quoted article directly states that these guys are being poached by firms who aren’t (yet) under Obama’s thumb.
How does one get from “these guys are going to other firms in the industry” to “these guys are going to Hollywood?”
Furthermore, Snowy the Wise notes that these firms are taking money from the Feds at 0% and buying Treasuries at 3%, as though it’s the financial industry’s fault that Washington is so fuckheaded. News flash, Snowy: when the rules are fucked up, it’s stupid to blame the players on the field. Maybe the blame should be pointed toward the League’s commissioner. Just sayin’, is all.
But thanks, Snowy, for bringing up how stupid our policymakers are. We can always use the reminder.
Comment by Charles on 10/23 @ 11:06 am #
And thanks for noting it Pablo. We now live in a country where, if someone just under the President comes knocking on the door of your business saying, “The future of the country depends on you doing exactly as I say,” the response, from behind the still closed door, should be, “Uh, Dave’s not here.”
Comment by Lamontyoubigdummy on 10/23 @ 11:09 am #
“Wall Street produces something?
Do tell!”
Woah, woah, woah.
Hold on.
Nobody’s that dumb.
Nobody.
Not even Snowcone.
It’s… unpossible.
Jeff? Is that you fucking around with us?
Comment by swink on 10/23 @ 11:10 am #
I hear they are not requiring the same sacrifice from Goldman-Sachs, who is raking in money. Because maybe uh, these people give heaps of money to the O Campaign. I don’t know, why don’t some of you who know about things like that check it out. Just sayin’
Comment by JD on 10/23 @ 11:31 am #
#39 is remarkable, even for alphie/sniffles/parsnip/Neville/snotnose/monkeyboy. Balloon-fence grade estupido.
Comment by Carin on 10/23 @ 12:07 pm #
It’s hard to become a pro athlete just because you joined the right societies at Yale, Carin.
And nothing is stopping you from heading to Hollywood and join the hundreds of thousands of hopefuls trying to make it in Hollywood.
yea, Hollywood is society’s great equalizer. Only the best and brightest get ahead.
No nepotism in Hollywood. No. Sir. E.
Comment by JD on 10/23 @ 12:12 pm #
I sometimes wonder if snotnose/alphie has to write “Breathe in” on one hand and “Breathe out” on the other. Just in case it forgets what to do.
Comment by donald on 10/23 @ 12:13 pm #
Sorry pablo bush and paulsen too.
Comment by TheGeezer on 10/23 @ 12:47 pm #
Here’s a nice twist on the paycut order. Heh.
Comment by geoffb on 10/23 @ 1:08 pm #
How it ends for the Obama czar dream team when reality finally comes around to to bite them.
Comment by JHo on 10/23 @ 1:21 pm #
Maybe it will occur to snowjob that if we had a just and responsive government that laws would make sense and would then be applied and enforced. Instead, once you leave the private sector we have overspending, graft, corruption, political payoffs, runaway lobbies, loopholes and earmarks as far as the eye can see.
Of course, we also have the alliance of corrupt government and corrupt banking, plus that lovely Federal Reserve and treasury complicity that make it all work so nice and clean like.
Maybe these things will occur to snowblind. And it will grow a mind and become a real liberal in the classical sense.
Comment by luagha on 10/23 @ 1:23 pm #
If you think someone is being paid too much for their work, the proper answer is to start a company that does it for half the price. Do it and the world will beat a path to your door. Why doesn’t anyone start a financial firm that pays the top guys only 50 million instead of 100 million, undercuts everyone else on service, and put the others out of business?
Comment by Noel on 10/23 @ 2:15 pm #
The Guv says it cost New York a billion in lost state income tax. What Would Mao Do?
Comment by JD on 10/23 @ 2:26 pm #
It is kind of funny to watch a Dem Gov complain when a Dem President is trying to take action that will cost a state lots of tax dollars.
Comment by B Moe on 10/23 @ 2:35 pm #
Kill a couple million people?
Comment by Squid on 10/23 @ 3:20 pm #
But Mao always tried to kill the productive, independent people. New York is losing such people so quickly that were Mao governing it today, he’d have to settle for killing a bunch of everyday joes, and that sort of thing can cause unrest.
I think the only answer is for Paterson and Obama to identify another Enemy of the People, since there are no productive people left. Perhaps they can go after the Dittoheads…
Comment by SBP on 10/23 @ 3:58 pm #
Why doesn’t anyone start a financial firm that pays the top guys only 50 million instead of 100 million, undercuts everyone else on service, and put the others out of business?
Because that would be actual work.
Much easier to steal.
Easier still to elect people to steal for you.
Along with most of his fellow travelers, NippleNut is simply too lazy to steal.
Comment by Rusty on 10/23 @ 3:58 pm #
41.Comment by Charles on 10/23 @ 11:06 am #
Nor did they tell Bush and Paulsen to go fuck themselves, which should be noted.
And thanks for noting it Pablo. We now live in a country where, if someone just under the President comes knocking on the door of your business saying, “The future of the country depends on you doing exactly as I say,” the response, from behind the still closed door, should be, “Uh, Dave’s not here.”
You might want to reread that very carefully and then ask for it to be deleted, because the future of this county depends on every business making as much profit as the market will bear.
Comment by dicentra on 10/23 @ 4:54 pm #
A taste of his college term paper.
I just found out that Obama’s “Jumping in Pools” thesis is a hoax.
Rush got sucked in, Medved got sucked in.
We all got sucked in. The prose was so self-contradictory that it sounded exactly like what comes out of the Ivies.
Comment by dicentra on 10/23 @ 4:55 pm #
What Would Mao Do?
What would Scooby do? [seen on a bumper sticker]
Comment by dicentra on 10/23 @ 5:00 pm #
If you think someone is being paid too much for their work
There is such a thing as salary inflation among the CEOs. It’s the same phenomenon as you see in pro sports and Hollywood.
You look at the average salary for the position, you say, “hey, this person is above average,” so you give them an above-average salary.
And the average just keeps getting higher and higher.
I don’t loose sleep over the increasing disparity between the CEO and the people in the mail room. That’s a leftist measuring stick that doesn’t mean anything by itself.
But these salaries can’t keep rising forever, especially not in this recession. The extra overhead cost does get passed down to the consumer (like taxes do), so the inflated salaries can affect the larger economy.
Pingback by Meow, Tse-Tung! » Cold Fury on 10/23 @ 5:05 pm #
[...] We must ask ourselves: What Would Mao Do? [...]
Comment by B Moe on 10/23 @ 5:09 pm #
But it was discovered as false, and admitted as such in less than a day, unlike those quotes of Limbaugh, Palin, etc.
Comment by dicentra on 10/23 @ 5:17 pm #
But it was discovered as false, and admitted as such in less than a day
Just so. And any time the thing surfaces in the future, we will be quick to note that it’s fake.
My comment in Leeden’s correction post:
In that same thread, a Lefty disparages us for falling for it, but then someone spanks him, noting that “It seemed to be plausible to the defenders of Teh One on the previous thread. They had no problem with the words or defending them, nor with attributing them to Teh One.”
The world has been beyond parody for several years now.
Poor, poor Dave Burge.
Comment by JHo on 10/23 @ 5:33 pm #
You always lend the right touch to a thread, dicentra. Well done.
Comment by Rusty on 10/23 @ 5:37 pm #
#60
In every economy both good and bad, some people will do well and some people will do poorly. Markets work that way. When the government, someone just under the president, ‘comes knocking at your door’, it intends to take something away from you.
Comment by dicentra on 10/23 @ 6:11 pm #
Markets work that way.
So do centralized planned economies. So does every society. Humanity has the nasty habit of stratifying itself into the privileged and the not-so-much.
You always lend the right touch to a thread, dicentra.
On account of I’m touched. Tetched. Whatevs.
Comment by B Moe on 10/23 @ 6:19 pm #
Beyond parody. Beyond serious. Beyond reason.
Leahy does lend credence to slippery slope arguments, if world-class buffoons sre capable of that.
Comment by cynn on 10/23 @ 7:00 pm #
These guys have negotiated mythological amounts, and that’s just pretend is replaced with reality.
Comment by SDN on 10/23 @ 7:35 pm #
dicentra, the market has a marvelously self-correcting way to handle that kind of salary creep: someone with a long term view cuts his salary in half and cuts prices to match. The competition has to match it or go under.
Of course, in the system we actually have, the rent-seekers get their bought politicians / bureaucrats to prevent that competitor from ever starting.
Comment by cynn on 10/23 @ 7:37 pm #
This is disgusting. It would be an admission that everything is up for grabs.
Comment by Pablo on 10/23 @ 8:02 pm #
Huh. So we did. It was all too plausible once you’ve heard this sort of thing come out of the horse’s ass.
I wonder if the hoaxer might have been Bill Ayers. He seems mischievous these days.
Comment by cynn on 10/23 @ 8:14 pm #
You guys are the most depressing, economically militant assholes I have encountered in many a moon. Well done.
Comment by B Moe on 10/23 @ 8:16 pm #
Economically militant?
Comment by cynn on 10/23 @ 8:19 pm #
Yes, you’re parsimonious even in your nastiness.
Comment by Pablo on 10/23 @ 8:26 pm #
Thanks, cynn!
Comment by cynn on 10/23 @ 8:33 pm #
It’s all about the word-a-day calendar. It’s totally increased my credibility.
Comment by guinsPen on 10/23 @ 8:40 pm #
Economically militant?
Rhymes wit*hic, “Fetch me another Gin Gimlet.”
Comment by guinsPen on 10/23 @ 8:42 pm #
I prefer persnickitey.
Comment by McGehee on 10/23 @ 8:58 pm #
I’ll try to be more generous with my nastiness from now on.
Comment by Hankey Pelosi on 10/23 @ 8:59 pm #
I prefer Preludin.
Comment by dicentra on 10/24 @ 12:52 am #
It would be an admission that everything is up for grabs.
We’re all Chicago now.
Wherefore didst thou doubt before?
Comment by geoffb on 10/24 @ 1:49 am #
dicentra, you may like this discussion at Belmont Club.
Comment by Rusty on 10/24 @ 6:09 am #
72.Comment by cynn on 10/23 @ 8:14 pm #
You guys are the most depressing, economically militant assholes I have encountered in many a moon. Well done.
If I thought you knew anything about economics I’d ask you to expalain that, but we all know better.
Comment by Rusty on 10/24 @ 6:13 am #
#66
Yes, but free markets tend to correct more rapidly with less social fallout.
Comment by Rusty on 10/24 @ 6:17 am #
I wonder how much a CEO of a labor union makes and what the perks are………………
CEO compensation does support other jobs. Not to mention killer retirement portfolios.
Comment by B Moe on 10/24 @ 6:30 am #
Your word for the day: Irony.
Comment by B Moe on 10/24 @ 7:17 am #
More Ironies.
Did you know GE owned NBC and MSNBC, by the way? Yup. Olbermann, Matthews and Maddow are shills for GE.
Comment by SDN on 10/24 @ 7:58 am #
cynn, everything IS up for grabs. The whole point of laws is to move the grabbing process AWAY from “Mother Nature, red of tooth and claw” as the way things are done. Left as the beasts your side says we evolved from, it is no more intrinsically evil to steal from widows and orphans than for a lion to stalk a birthing zebra to eat the newborn colt.
It is when we override our evolved instincts that civilization is forged. And the mechanism that seems to have the best historical track record is the Judeo-Christian tradition. There is a reason why slavery persists in lands controlled by Islam: the religion encourages men to be slaves to God. If slavery to God is an ideal, then slavery must not be bad.
Christianity is different. C.S. Lewis put it best in The Screwtape Letters: “We want followers who will become slaves. God wants servants who will become sons.” (paraphrased)
Comment by donald on 10/24 @ 9:12 am #
Um, I want to revisit my agreement on Bush in regard to the bail outs. I was at a crappy football field and struggle with my text thing. It was a terrible decision, but in fairness he did see themn as short term loans that would be paid back with interest. It was a terrible, terrible decision, but it was not without successful precedent in the 70’s with Chrysler, and though it was a terrible abrogation of the constitution, it was not meant as a means (On Bush’s) part to inicte a marxist revolution which I think is the goal of the current chicago thug whore in the whitehouse at this time. I can’t fathom, though I’m real capable of being wrong, that the goal of George Bush was to buy companies and dictate what executives, and by extension, everybody down the food chain what they can make.
Pingback by A Tale of the Speaker of House of Representatives and the Senate Judiciary Chairman, Both of the United States, and the United States Constitution: Sworn to Protect and Uphold. [JHoward] on 10/24 @ 9:17 am #
[...] h/t B Moe. Posted by JHoward @ 9:17 am | Trackback SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: “A Tale of the Speaker of House of Representatives and the Senate Judiciary Chairman, Both of the United States, and the United States Constitution: Sworn to Protect and Uphold. [JHoward]“, url: “http://proteinwisdom.com/?p=15438″ }); [...]
Comment by sdferr on 10/24 @ 9:31 am #
“It is when we override our evolved instincts that civilization is forged.”
We are the “out of nature”! Nonsense.
Comment by SDN on 10/24 @ 3:51 pm #
sdferr, I see the assertion. What makes it nonsense?
Comment by sdferr on 10/24 @ 4:00 pm #
I just think it nonsensical to assert we are outside of nature or overmastering a-naturally our “evolved instincts”, whatever those may be, is all. Granted, you and I will have a great deal of work to do coming to consensus on the meaning of nature, but I think we can probably do that.
Comment by cynn on 10/24 @ 6:54 pm #
SDN: Interesting. Nobody’s informed me that your trippy interpretation is now the law. So do you actually assert that we must make people into christians?? I won’t go further.
Comment by Rusty on 10/25 @ 7:22 am #
#94
Not even anywhere near the target. Boorstiens,”The Creators” read that and get back to us.