October 21, 2009

Couldn't See That Coming!

In a previous post -- long previous -- I warned that if the federal government began trading ownership of companies for TARP funds, it would open the door to full-blow wage and price controls.

Well guess what the Treasury Department announced today:

Under the plan, which will be announced in the next few days by the Treasury Department, the seven companies that received the most assistance will have to cut the cash payouts to their 25 best-paid executives by an average of about 90 percent from last year. For many of the executives, the cash they would have received will be replaced by stock that they will be restricted from selling immediately.

And for the 25 best-paid executives, the total compensation, which includes bonuses, will drop, on average, by about 50 percent.

Surprise, surprise on the Jungle Cruise tonight.

Say... I wonder what will be the response of the top executives at "Citigroup, Bank of America, the American International Group, General Motors, Chrysler and the financing arms of the two automakers" to getting a 90% pay cut and a 50% compensation cut. Any possibility they might simply resign -- and take an equivalent job at Ford, IBM, Coca-Cola, Lockheed Martin -- or Toyota, Samsung, or PDVSA (Venezuela's state-owned oil company)?

Any executive seeking more than $25,000 in special perks -- like country club memberships, private planes, limousines or company issued cars -- will have to apply to the government for permission.

This sort of "progressive" jackassery is the signature mode of "thought" found among ex-Yippie wannabe-revolutionaries -- those who cite Chairman Mao as one of their two favorite philosophers: It's facile, simplistic, superficial, symbolic, and pumped to the gills with unintended, unanticipated consequences. Then when the Left gets its wish -- and everything goes to hell in high water so quickly, Democrats are still in office and vulnerable to the vote -- they blink and stare, lose their majorities, and whine that bad things always happen to them. (It's all Bush's fault -- and Fox News.)

To quote the one good line from an otherwise wretched television show, "Son... bad things happen to you because you're a dumbass."

The pay restrictions illustrate the humbling downfall of the once-proud giants, now wards of the state whose leaders’ compensation is being set by a Washington paymaster. They also show how Washington in the last year has become increasingly powerful in setting corporate policies as more companies turned to the government for money to survive.

The compensation schedules set by Kenneth R. Feinberg, the special master at Treasury handling compensation issues, comes as many other banks that received smaller but significant taxpayer assistance in the last year have been reporting huge year-end bonuses, setting off a new round of recrimination in Washington about the bailout of Wall Street.

Hm. What if -- now I know this is a wild and crazy thought -- what if some of these companies hired new people to fix the mess created by the earlier team? What if those "huge year-end bonsuses" were paid to the new guys, after they turned around the companies and led them back to profitiability?

I guess it doesn't matter: No matter what the new guys were promised for giving up safe jobs elsewhere to come to the rescue of a shaky company, I reckon the government will nevertheless slash those bonuses or eliminate them entirely, chop the salary down to far less than those turn-around heroes made at the jobs they left... and in general, scare away any other genius who might save some tottering financial giant in the future.

It seems the administration of Barack H. Obama passionately believes in that age-old adage: No good deed goes unpunished.

What could possibly go wrong?

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, October 21, 2009, at the time of 4:03 PM

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» Could See This Coming! from Big Lizards
In the companion piece to this post, Couldn't See That Coming!, we noted that the United States Department of the Treasury, run by tax evader Timothy Geithner, has decided to institute wage controls at those companies that accepted large amounts... [Read More]

Tracked on October 23, 2009 2:33 AM

» オバマ王、金融企業重役の給料及びボーナス激減を命令 from In the Strawberry Field
やっぱりねえ〜。さすがファシストオバマ。こういうことになるだろうとは予測していたのだがやっぱりきたか。先日財務庁は、今年の始め政府から救済金を受け取った金融企業の重役たちの給料を９割減、ボーナスを５割減させる予定だと発表した。これについてはミスター苺が色々書いているのでここでもリンクを張っておこう。 今年の三月、カカシはとんだ茶番劇、オバマ王と民主党議会のAIG幹部ボーナス批判は偽善の固まり！というタイトルで下記のように書いた。 AIG幹部へのボーナス自体は腹が立つが、議会のこの「怒り」は単なる茶番... [Read More]

Tracked on October 25, 2009 1:08 AM

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The following hissed in response by: Sachi

The above hissed in response by: Sachi at October 22, 2009 9:24 AM

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