The people who allowed the crisis to happen will naturally start to make a fuss about this. We're going to hear cries of socialism and the normal kicking and screaming but until they can act like real capitalists and make due with their own money, there's no other way.
The Obama administration plans to mandate new executive pay limits on Wednesday for government-assisted financial institutions in a new get-tough approach to bankers and Wall Street.Good old Larry Summers. He's probably already looking for creative new ways to help appease the Wall Street crowd as he did during the Clinton years. There's no need to throw them a bone quite yet.
"If the taxpayers are helping you, then you've got certain responsibilities to not be living high on the hog," President Barack Obama said in an interview Tuesday with "NBC Nightly News".
The president and members of Congress are weighing various proposals to restrict chief executives' compensation as one of the conditions of receiving help under the $700 billion financial bailout fund.
Obama did not reveal details of the administration's compensation caps. Administration officials have said that the restrictions would apply only to those firms receiving "exceptional assistance", such as the American International Group Inc., Citigroup Inc., and Detroit automakers.
But Obama's chief economic adviser, Larry Summers, has proposed that firms that want to pay executives above a certain threshold would have to compensate them with stock that could not be sold or liquidated until they pay back the government funds.
