Update: Wed., February 04, 2009
Obama Limits Bailed-out Bank CEO Pay To $500,000
Veiw Obama Press Conference
I fell asleep with my television on last night and woke up to CNN reporting on Claire McCaskill calling for a $400,000.00 compensation cap on bailout recipient pay. I was hardly inspired, in fact I was so irritated that I couldn’t go back to sleep. Instead I made coffee and I drafted my own dreamy, dream world plan for Wall Street.
First, these are the people who made bad decisions, gave themselves obscene bonuses despite devastatingly poor performance, laid off everyone around them and then handed the American taxpayers the tab. Now it seems that Washington is coming up with ideas and plans to make sure these individuals behave more responsibly in the future.
My question is: Why do they still have jobs? They made very bad decisions in the recent past, why legislate against willfully negligent, irresponsible, treasonous behavior when they should have been fired and then figuratively tared and feathered?
Since Americans are hellbent on spouting the virtues of capitalism then technically bailouts don’t exist, the death of a corporation is a cleansing act, the good filtered from the bad. Obviously, we can only tolerate capitalism when the greenbacks are flowing but when it comes to the harsh reality of being a capitalist it appears we don’t have the stomach to pull the trigger…so we’re really only situational capitalists.
If we don’t have the stomach to let them tank as part of a natural capitalistic process then at the very least we should have the good sense to filter the crap from the pool by firing the top executives. Then legislate against negligence, irresponsibility and idiocy without worrying about controlling specific idiots…idiots who have already demonstrated their unabashed willingness to defecate all over the American people. After that cap, not just pay but ALL compensation, confiscate the bonuses and call their conduct what it is: TREASON…even better HIGH TREASON!
Definition High Treason: Criminal disloyalty to one’s country.
Definition Treason : Oran’s Dictionary of the Law (1983) defines treason as: “…[a]…citizen’s actions to help a foreign government overthrow, make war against, or seriously injure the [parent nation].”
Traitor: a person who betrays (or is accused of betraying) their own nation, family, friends, ethnic group, religion, social class, or other group to which they may belong.
Huffington Post: Claire McCaskill on compensation cap
A Novel Spot 