More on Executive Pay Canard

Last night, my wife commented to me that she was pleased to see that our man President Obama was finally going to put some limits on the CEO pay issue for bankermen that take our children's money to cover their gambling debts. I said that it would indeed be a good thing, but we should wait and see what lies in the fine print. This morning we have it, in a report on Bloomberg entitled, "Goldman, JP Morgan won't feel the effects of executive salary caps." The report states,

The rules, created in response to growing public anger about the record bonuses the financial industry doled out last year, will apply only to top executives at companies that need “exceptional” assistance in the future. The limits aren’t retroactive, meaning firms that have already taken government money won’t be subject to the restrictions unless they have to come back for more.

Well, there it is, in black and white. A cap for those who take even more of the kiddies money, only in "da future" -- bankermen love that phrase. There is a wonderful picture of Obama giving a speech with Tim Geithner leering from behind. One can almost sense the bankerman's hand behind Mr. Obama's jacket, pulling the strings as Mr. Obama speaks. I feel sorry for Barack, he is certainly a good man, who will in no way be able to handle the snakes he is in bed with.

Pay Caps for Shooting Craps

There is so much attention being paid to how much big banks pay their key players. Bloomberg is reporting this AM that our man President Obama is ordering that those big banks and firms that take our children's money limit their executive pay to $500,000. Now I am not for greed in any form, though I believe it is a cancer that can only be cut out of the body politic rather than a demon to be exorcised from otherwise good people, but this whole issue seems like a complete red herring. The larger question is that those banks that take our children's money to maintain their walk of the undead for a few months more be forced to open their vaults and their books to the light of day. Taking the public's money must accompany rebuilding the public trust by a thorough truth telling of all of the nonsense that these institutions have been up to and a thorough revealing of all of the worthless paper they are holding off the books. These banks must then be forbidden from engaging in any more of these stupid schemes in the future. Executive pay is nothing but a PR concern to keep the public from focusing on the real issue: that these banks are insolvent, but are being allowed to hide the truth by our government and to stumble on for an indefinite period into the future. Truth will out, sooner or later, and the amount of pain that results is proportional to the length of the charade now underfoot.