Treasury to order bailed-out firms to slash pay

Sounds rough, but it's fair. We own these companies now, and our government can certainly call the compensation shots.

If these executives were so good, and they need incentive to continue in their position, then why did we have to bail out these companies financially? Seems like the smart thing to do is to cut ties with the people that drove these companies into bankruptcy. Yes, they're bankrupt. We only propped them up with loans temporarily.

These companies need to be held accountable for our investment, and they do need to compensate their executives more in line with the realities of our country at the present time. They should offer stock options, as these would be incentive enough to work very hard and to help upright the listing ship(s) at AIG, GM, Chrysler, et al.

ONCE BURNED, TWICE LEARNED should be our government's motto regarding these companies that are top-heavy with pseudo-intellectual losers. No more bailouts. No more loans. No more tax incentives. No more preferred interest rates.

It's time to cull the herds, say goodbye to the excess fat on the payrolls, and keep costs down until we can recoup our monies from these irresponsible companies.

If you listen to those who are screaming, "How dare the Treasury Department cut the million dollar salaries of these guys!" they claim that these guys are so good and so fantastic at what they do that they must get a salary over a 100 times greater than the average working stiff or they will take their valuable skills and go elsewhere. All I can say to that is, "Scotty, beam me up!"

"a 100 times greater than the average working stiff or they will take their valuable skills and go elsewhere"

Trust me, pay plus compensation plus perks adds up to a FUCK LOAD more than a paltry "100 times"...

I think the last published statistic was something on the order of 300% the average salary.

I'm not neccessarily in favor of the government doing this either, however, one has to realize that the compensation these people receive is typically decided by "compensation committees" that consist of members of the board and outside consultants.

Unfortunatley these committee members generally tend to be CEO's and executives of other companies and well, "one hand washes the other" and so that one executive can get a great salary bump, he makes sure that the guy he's making compensation decisions for gets a good bump, and thus the incestuous nepotistic salary cycle begins.

If the general share holder were to realize that these salaries affect the net profits, and therefore the price of the shares they hold and also the dividends they'd receive on those shares, AND, they got to vote on the compensation the executives received, I'm sure we'd not ever have gotten to this point.

It's the fact that the share holders very rarely if ever get to have a say on executive compensation makes the incredibly huge salaries these ineffectual assholes have awarded themselves so galling.

It's been so galling that these incompetant ass hats get to drive a good company into the ground and get to jump ship with 'golden parachutes' of tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars.

Quite frankly the executive "class" has done this to themselves. The US people have gotten tired of taking it up the ass so that a very few at the top can reap the profits, send their jobs over seas, and make us pay for their mistakes.

OF COURSE this would eventually result in a popularist movement to have things changed. How stupid could you be to NOT see something like this coming.

Quite frankly the 'executive class' is lucky they haven't been lynched en mass at this point, but I wouldn't neccessarily rule out the possibility that thousands of out of work people whos jobs went over seas and have had their homes foreclosed on and their retirement savings evaporate get together and enact a bit of 'mob justice' at some point in the near future...