Our economy runs on narcissism and abuse. The rich flatter themselves and the working stiffs flatter the rich, because they hope to become rich. That protects the rich from the rage of the under classes.

One thing that has been destroyed in this crisis is the notion that the rich are deserving. Now the whole financier class is seem to have been stupid, immoral, and self-indulgent. They gambled with other people’s money, and almost destroyed the world economy.

The collapse of confidence takes many forms and has many consequences. One that is not appreciated is the collapse in confidence in America as a meritocracy.

You are wrong on the law, wrong on the history, wrong on the history of the law, and wrong on the Constitution.

Paulson apparently learned his lesson from letting Lehman go.

The problem with James’s post is that it seems to assume that the government might have some way to say what compensation “should” be. Some countries have laws saying that executives can’t make more than Y times the minimum wage (or the average wage). There is simply no way that would fly here, and I just don’t see anything else meaningful that is politically viable.

But the real problem is the stupid justifications that investors have largely bought in to. The CEO of a massive bank is not an entrepreneur, and shouldn’t be compensated like the founded the company in his parent’s garage and built it into an empire. He’s a manager and his first job is supposed to keep the empire from crumbling, something that every incumbent CEO on Wall Street failed to do because it was much more financially rewarding to add more leverage and more risk without regard to what could go wrong.

Wake up, for heaven sake. Goldman Sachs and Lehrman Brothers are part owners in the Fed!

Regulating executive compensation for companies other than those receiving government assistance seems like socialism to me.

If shareholders don’t like the way a company pays its executives, they should not buy the shares of that company. This includes Institutional shareholders. We might all be better off if Pension Funds went back to buying more low risk assets such as bonds and T-bills. Sure, there wouldn’t be as much so-called economic “growth”, but there also wouldn’t be as much capital destruction. And maybe there would be less concern about China buying our debt.

It’s your position that is ridiculous. When will republicans get a clue?

Corporations are not people, they are property and can be bought and sold. Thus, that entire finding is not “legal” on the part of the Supreme Court. And so each and every statute at the state or federal level giving them a privilege or immununity over the people which was granted without the people’s direct consent (since the 9th Amendment even supercedes the 10th) is unconstitutional on their face. So about 80% of the laws in this country are not constitutional at this point.

But Congress should not be determining executive compensation, instead the disinterested shareholders should be determining such matters as owners of those companies. Congress has no business doing anthing but legislating that any and all executive compensation should be at the discretion of the owners, the disintereted shareholders. That would put the accountability where it belongs, and should never be bailing out private companies outside also the provsions of the Constitution through the formal bankruptcy process – which is then a matter of public record.

So Obama and Bush and those Congressional members who “granted” the Executive Office authority over these bailouts are nothing but treasonous traitors to the founding fathers, and our intended form of government. And treason actually carries the highest penalty of all. Remember Benedict Arnold, because each and every Congressional member that voted for those bailouts, including our current Commander in Chief and his predecessor, are nothing more than common criminals.