Such as Wall Street bonuses. The Guaranteed Bonuses are back. You know the bonuses that traders and other get regardless of performance.
Kenneth Feinberg, Obama Administration's "Pay Czar" is supposedly on the case. He is reviewing the compensation plans of seven companies that received two or more federal bailouts. Good luck with that.
Here is an idea: Ban the Practice of Guaranteed Bonuses. Financial conglomerates operate in a regulated industry (despite the incompetence/ignorance of the regulators). If we are going to do nothing to stop "too big to fail" financial conglomerates from getting even bigger than taxpayers need protections and banning the practice of guaranteed bonuses is one of them.
This what an a pay consultant said about the practice:
“Is Wall Street again going to overpromise, and then when the market turns down, we’ll have another set of pay problems?” asked Alan Johnson, a pay consultant who specializes in financial services.
What is happening right now is that Wall Street firms are fighting over "talent". They are trying to attract the best "talent" especially from weaker firms. Now, these firms have already shown a weaken for excesses as in the case of the mortgage craze there is nothing stopping these same firms from reverting back to their excessive ways when it comes to Guaranteed Bonuses.
H.R. 3269 ("Say on Pay"), which recently passed the House, defers to regulators in deciding whether Guaranteed Bonuses are bad. The Senate has not taken up H.R. 3269 maybe just maybe the Senate will break free from their masters on Wall Street and EXPLICITLY ban Guaranteed Bonuses. I am not holding my breath.
Say on Pay
This is pretty amazing considering how weak Say on Pay really is. It basically covers just a few financial institutions, which it is then deferred to regulators and the shareholder vote is non-binding.
I've heard alot of noise about all of these czars from the right and with this pay czar not doing much of anything...maybe it's time to take a look on what exactly is this czar structure really doing?
Sure, but don't get distracted by the noise
Fact is we have a weak ass piece of legislation passed in the house. Can the Senate show it has intestinal fortitude or courage to stand up to its masters on Wall Street. One step would be to ban guarantee bonuses by financial conglomerates or anyone that is regulated and put some real teeth in "Say on Pay".
Pay czar and the rest of czar can be investigated once we fix the rest of the messes.
RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.
RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.
lobbyist masters
It's pretty clear lobbyists are controlling government and they especially zero in on Congressional committee chairs and members.
Even worse, our lovely pundit MSM never focuses in on this...they just try to spin it as some sort of Populist thing....
Are there really that many stupid people in America buying into lobbyists manipulation and agenda? Or is it they are upset about what we are...and that outrage gets spun by the media into something else?
At the companies we own?
AIG and Chrysler come to mind. But why don't outfits like CALPERS and others get together on this -- oh, I forgot, the really good management will quit. The ones with client lists and relationships, and club memberships. Why not organize owners, create really good management training programs/ institutes, and begin weeding out the crooks and "too good to fail" management. Or they could admit that a million bucks a year and a company car are pretty good pay for an executive -- and don't forget the stock options, but with no resets. Either the company does well or you don't.
Frank T.
Frank T.
That is a good idea
but the system ensures incumbent management will stay in. Average holding period NYSE-listed stock is like 9 months so there is high turn over of stock particularly by institutional investors. So with such short holding periods there is really no incentive to care about the long-term viability of a company and no accountability of executives and boards because investors are not around long enough to care.
Second, CEO/Chairman control the entire nomination and proxy process. They have control over the governing process. I was expecting "say on pay" to have real teeth by giving shareholders a real say on at least compensation. I guess that was too much to expect.
RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.
RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.