The Republican Thread

[NorthSideSox72]

The idea that somehow the compensation packages of executives have pretty much any financial impact on the bottom line of these companies is a joke. GM as a company had revenue of $150 billion in 2008. Even if you want to use the extreme number of $100million, you are still talking about less than 1 tenth of 1 percent of the bottom line. The irony is that you can make a much, much better argument for the impact of the union negotiated wages having a much larger impact on the bottom lines of GM, and where is the outcry to limit their compensation, or to have the government take them over? Like I said, the perception is garbage.

This is just not at all correct.

 

First, for any company, saving 10's of millions of dollars is definitely meaningful. It means the ability to hire more people, or buy more equipment, or advertise more, etc. - so there really can be no question it has an impact. And that is far better for the economy than one guy getting that money. Is it a huge overall economic impact? No, but that shouldn't stop it from being made. Companies are made mostly of small spending/saving/investing decisions, and they all matter.

 

Second, you are arguing with thin air on the union thing - I siad before, repeatedly, that the union labor contracts have been part of the problem. Are you saying that these companies should only fix one problem, when they have many? That makes no sense.

 

Third, you say again that the perception is garbage, and yet you still didn't answer to my point on it, whcih I stand by. Showing other executives that taking massive risk means you may get bit in the ass, is definitely a good thing.

 

[StrangeSox]

Even if we say tens of millions of dollars (a few dozen jobs worth, maybe) doesn't impact the bottom line that much, it impacts the executive decisions.

 

What motivation did the "best and brightest" have to do anything but run up artificial or short-term gains for personal profit at the expense of long-term sustainability? They were going to walk away set for life regardless, and the more risk they took on and the better the profit looked that year, they better off they were.

[southsider2k5]

This is just not at all correct.

 

First, for any company, saving 10's of millions of dollars is definitely meaningful. It means the ability to hire more people, or buy more equipment, or advertise more, etc. - so there really can be no question it has an impact. And that is far better for the economy than one guy getting that money. Is it a huge overall economic impact? No, but that shouldn't stop it from being made. Companies are made mostly of small spending/saving/investing decisions, and they all matter.

 

Second, you are arguing with thin air on the union thing - I siad before, repeatedly, that the union labor contracts have been part of the problem. Are you saying that these companies should only fix one problem, when they have many? That makes no sense.

 

Third, you say again that the perception is garbage, and yet you still didn't answer to my point on it, whcih I stand by. Showing other executives that taking massive risk means you may get bit in the ass, is definitely a good thing.

 

Putting a band aid on a gashwound does nothing. The perception that executive compensation is the problem is garbage. It just isn't true. Especially when your labor costs are billions over other competitors. It is akin to the idiotic idea that disclosing compensation would somehow stop its growth. At the end of the day, all it means is that people who have no idea how to run a bank and auto companies, are going to end up running them. That is just genius.

 

http://www.thebigmoney.com/features/todays...ing-fat-cat-pay

 

The Wall Street Journal called the caps "a one-two punch at the pay culture of banks and Wall Street firms blamed for the financial crisis." Pay czar Kenneth Feinberg said Thursday the highest-earning execs at the seven bailed-out firms getting exceptional federal aid will have their cash salaries capped at $500,000, and the group's total pay level will be slashed in half. And the Fed and state regulators will also begin reviewing compensation packages as part of their oversight of financial firms. As harsh as the new pay rules seem, the Washington Post notes that Feinberg could have gone even further—had some of the executives he was to monitor stayed on the job. "At Bank of America (BAC), for instance, only 14 of the 25 highly paid executives remained by the time Feinberg announced his decision," the newspaper details.

[NorthSideSox72]

Even if we say tens of millions of dollars (a few dozen jobs worth, maybe) doesn't impact the bottom line that much, it impacts the executive decisions.

 

What motivation did the "best and brightest" have to do anything but run up artificial or short-term gains for personal profit at the expense of long-term sustainability? They were going to walk away set for life regardless, and the more risk they took on and the better the profit looked that year, they better off they were.

Exactly. I think its bizarre that I am getting hit from people on the right for saying these execs at companies still being bailed out deserve what they are getting, but then getting hit from people on the left when I say the gov't should leave the ones at companies NOT on the government dole alone. To me, that is 100% the key point here - if you want to go be a private company, then feel free to cut into your company's profits and give yourself a less than engaged workforce by paying your executives gobs and gobs of money even if they fail. But the minute I own you - as we all do right now if you were so inept that the taxpayers had to bail you out - then you have to live by my rules. And my rules say, you ain't getting paid big bonuses while you are using my money.

 

[StrangeSox]

The idea that we should facilitate massive wealth redistribution from all taxpayers to a few wealthy executives who made poor decisions for years is garbage.

 

ss2k5, where is all of this awesome Wall Street talent going to go if they aren't paid tens or hundreds of millions of dollars for creating massive economic bubbles but not wealth? What other market or sector is going to invite them in to run their businesses into the ground?

Edited October 23, 2009 by StrangeSox

[StrangeSox]

Exactly. I think its bizarre that I am getting hit from people on the right for saying these execs at companies still being bailed out deserve what they are getting, but then getting hit from people on the left when I say the gov't should leave the ones at companies NOT on the government dole alone. To me, that is 100% the key point here - if you want to go be a private company, then feel free to cut into your company's profits and give yourself a less than engaged workforce by paying your executives gobs and gobs of money even if they fail. But the minute I own you - as we all do right now if you were so inept that the taxpayers had to bail you out - then you have to live by my rules. And my rules say, you ain't getting paid big bonuses while you are using my money.

 

I also think something needs to be done to prevent private companies from becoming "too big to fail" again, otherwise we're stuck in the same mess of needing to bailout companies who paid executives more money than they can spend in a lifetime to run the economy into the ground.

 

Or we throw out the idea of "too big to fail" and watch what happens when AIG, Lehman, GM, Chrysler, BoA, Citi, etc. all fail within a few months.

[NorthSideSox72]

Putting a band aid on a gashwound does nothing. The perception that executive compensation is the problem is garbage. It just isn't true. Especially when your labor costs are billions over other competitors. It is akin to the idiotic idea that disclosing compensation would somehow stop its growth. At the end of the day, all it means is that people who have no idea how to run a bank and auto companies, are going to end up running them. That is just genius.

 

http://www.thebigmoney.com/features/todays...ing-fat-cat-pay

Executive compensation being what it is is a definite problem, for all the reasons I mentioned. The quote you put here agrees, by the way.

 

You seem to think there is some nice, fat trauma bandage that will fix everything at these companies that were bailed out. That would be nice, wouldn't it? Unfortunately, its not reality, pretty much for any business. There is a LOT wrong there, and paying executives huge money regardless of success or failure is one of those problems. If you can't see that, then I can't help you, and this discussion goes nowhere.

 

[NorthSideSox72]

I also think something needs to be done to prevent private companies from becoming "too big to fail" again, otherwise we're stuck in the same mess of needing to bailout companies who paid executives more money than they can spend in a lifetime to run the economy into the ground.

 

Or we throw out the idea of "too big to fail" and watch what happens when AIG, Lehman, GM, Chrysler, BoA, Citi, etc. all fail within a few months.

I am on board with that in general, but there is a real problem with that in the banking and investment sector, specifically. People WANT their banks and their investors to be stable and solid, and to many people, that means big. There is a mismatch there between what people want from THEIR bank, and what they want BANKS to be. And I am not sure how to reconcile them.

 

[StrangeSox]

Repeal grahm-leach-bailey and reinstitute the Glass-Steagall act, for starters. Oh and lets actually regulate OTC derivatives.

[NorthSideSox72]

The idea that we should facilitate massive wealth redistribution from all taxpayers to a few wealthy executives who made poor decisions for years is garbage.

 

ss2k5, where is all of this awesome Wall Street talent going to go if they aren't paid tens or hundreds of millions of dollars for creating massive economic bubbles but not wealth? What other market or sector is going to invite them in to run their businesses into the ground?

The talent argument is bogus anyway. For everyone $25M exec at a big firm, there is a $5M exec who would love to take that job, and is probably just as likely to do well at it. And so on down the line at ANY company - for every high paid exec, there is a pool of people fighting to be next, and usually, one of them can be just as good, just as the guy IN that job was the other guy at one time.

 

My tax money is going to pay these schmoes, and the way I see it, I now sit on their board. What is particularly funny to me about this is, I see the same people taking the exact stance I do when government agencies waste money, and yet they seem to be fine with it when its a formerly private company that we now own.

 

[NorthSideSox72]

Repeal grahm-leach-bailey and reinstitute the Glass-Steagall act, for starters. Oh and lets actually regulate OTC derivatives.

Being worked on, and I'm glad to see that SS2K5 and I have gotten you programmed into understanding the differentiation there.

 

[StrangeSox]

Being worked on, and I'm glad to see that SS2K5 and I have gotten you programmed into understanding the differentiation there.

You guys, Frontline, and Planet Money.

[southsider2k5]

The idea that we should facilitate massive wealth redistribution from all taxpayers to a few wealthy executives who made poor decisions for years is garbage.

 

ss2k5, where is all of this awesome Wall Street talent going to go if they aren't paid tens or hundreds of millions of dollars for creating massive economic bubbles but not wealth? What other market or sector is going to invite them in to run their businesses into the ground?

 

Everyone is missing the really big picture here. Cutting compensation for executives isn't going to change risk taking behavior. There I said it.

 

As long as their performance is tied to stock price by shareholders, stock price is the only thing that matters. Whether they are being paid $500k or $500m, they are still going to take risks to pump up the stock price, especially if other companies in the same industry are out performing by taking bigger risks. The government is even buying into this by firing executives at underperforming companies.

 

And as for the last line, they are obviously being hired somewhere, because they sure wouldn't be quitting a place like BOA if they didn't have another job lined up.

[southsider2k5]

Executive compensation being what it is is a definite problem, for all the reasons I mentioned. The quote you put here agrees, by the way.

 

You seem to think there is some nice, fat trauma bandage that will fix everything at these companies that were bailed out. That would be nice, wouldn't it? Unfortunately, its not reality, pretty much for any business. There is a LOT wrong there, and paying executives huge money regardless of success or failure is one of those problems. If you can't see that, then I can't help you, and this discussion goes nowhere.

 

And yet by penalizing certain banks, draining their talent, and making them less desirable to work for, the government is concentrating more and more money into the biggest banks. Everything the federal government is doing here is contra to the actual problems at hand. They seem to want to pass this problem off as a few people making too much money, which is so not the big problem here.

[NorthSideSox72]

And yet by penalizing certain banks, draining their talent, and making them less desirable to work for, the government is concentrating more and more money into the biggest banks. Everything the federal government is doing here is contra to the actual problems at hand. They seem to want to pass this problem off as a few people making too much money, which is so not the big problem here.

Its one of many problems, and it does the opposite of what you are saying, because it incentivizes people to work at smaller, independent banks.

 

We just won't agree here.

 

[southsider2k5]

I LMAO this morning at the NBC 5 crawl.

 

They were running this exactly...

 

What is Barack Obama's most annoying habit? Beating his wife at tennis.

 

The problem? Because the length of the crawl was too long, at first only "beating his wife" showed up.

[NorthSideSox72]

I LMAO this morning at the NBC 5 crawl.

 

They were running this exactly...

 

What is Barack Obama's most annoying habit? Beating his wife at tennis.

 

The problem? Because the length of the crawl was too long, at first only "beating his wife" showed up.

Reminds me of the greatest newspaper headline ever. From the New York Post, when Bobby Brown died... "Bobby Beats Whitney to Death"

 

[mr_genius]

Reminds me of the greatest newspaper headline ever. From the New York Post, when Bobby Brown died... "Bobby Beats Whitney to Death"

 

he's dead?

[bmags]

he's dead?

s***, i quoted wrong person.

 

NSS, that's my favorite too.

[bmags]

he's dead?

 

edit: and then I double posted.

 

A successful post.

Edited October 24, 2009 by bmags

[Balta1701]

 

Heh-heh

[mr_genius]

 

lol

[southsider2k5]

http://www.nypost.com/p/pagesix/anchors_si...BnpH2jCseGGrJLL

 

Anchors sink on 'Jeopardy'

 

Last Updated: 5:23 AM, October 27, 2009

 

Posted: 1:14 AM, October 26, 2009

CNN should consider banning its anchors from appearing on "Celebrity Jeopardy" after the humiliating defeats of Wolf Blitzer and Soledad O'Brien. Wolf was blitzed last month, coming in last with minus-$4,600, behind comic Andy Richter, a past winner who racked up $68,000 for charity. "Desperate Housewives" star Dana Delany came in second. This month, it was O'Brien's turn against NBA legend Kareem Abdul Jabbarand Michael McKean, of "Spinal Tap," "Laverne & Shirley" and "Saturday Night Live." McKean, a previous winner, ended with $24,800, followed by Abdul Jabbar with $8,800 and O'Brien with $6,200. A CNN insider defended the journalists: "They are reporters, not trivia experts. And the buzzer is complicated. It's not activated until Alex [Trebek] finishes the last syllable of the question. If you hit the button too soon, nothing happens."

 

 

CNN should consider banning its anchors from appearing on "Celebrity Jeopardy" after the humiliating defeats of Wolf Blitzer and Soledad O'Brien. Wolf was blitzed last month, coming in last with minus-$4,600, behind comic Andy Richter, a past winner who racked up $68,000 for charity. "Desperate Housewives" star Dana Delany came in second. This month, it was O'Brien's turn against NBA legend Kareem Abdul Jabbar and Michael McKean, of "Spinal Tap," "Laverne & Shirley" and "Saturday Night Live." McKean, a previous winner, ended with $24,800, followed by Abdul Jabbar with $8,800 and O'Brien with $6,200. A CNN insider defended the journalists: "They are reporters, not trivia experts. And the buzzer is complicated. It's not activated until Alex [Trebek] finishes the last syllable of the question. If you hit the button too soon, nothing happens."

[southsider2k5]

It never takes long for things to balance out, does it?

 

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/jeff-poor/200...ty-promo-msnbc-

 

Maddow’s Hypocrisy: Fox Not a 'Normal News Channel' Due to Tea Party Promo; MSNBC Promoted Health Care Rallies Weeks Earlier

Photo of Jeff Poor.

By Jeff Poor (Bio | Archive)

October 24, 2009 - 02:02 ET

 

Big shock here - MSNBC's Rachel Maddow agrees with the White House, which is the Fox News Channel is not really a news organization.

 

Sarcasm aside, on her Oct. 23 MSNBC program, Maddow attempted to justify the Obama administration's tack over recent months with Fox News. She laid out a series of events over the past few days that indicated an escalation of the feud between Fox News and the White House, specifically an effort to exclude Fox News from the White House pool.

 

"Well yesterday the White House said that Fox would not be among the networks invited to interview Ken Feinberg in one of these round-robin pool interviews and the other networks came to Fox's defense," Maddow reported. "They said they would bow out of interviewing Mr. Feinberg's themselves unless Fox was included, so Fox was included."

 

Fox may have won a small victory according to Maddow, but that wasn't proof in her view that Fox News is technically a news organization.

 

"Fox has since been trumpeting this as a victory over the White House and as evidence the media sees Fox as a news station even if the White House doesn't," Maddow said. "Fox is right, in that the media generally does treat Fox as a news station, even as the White House says they're not. Is Fox a news station? The answer to that is unrelated to the question of whether and which Fox hosts and correspondents express their opinion about the news. It's is possible to express that opinion about the news and still cover the news responsibly."

 

And that's where Maddow laid out exactly what a news organization is. According to Maddow, since Fox News promoted its coverage of April 15 "Tea Party" protests, it could no longer define itself as a news organization in the sense MSNBC does.

 

"Expressing an opinion about the news does not negate one's status as a news reporter or as a correspondent or as a news anchor," Maddow said. "The expression of opinion about the news is not the difference between Fox and the rest of the news media. The difference between Fox and news is that Fox is now actively organizing and promoting a protest movement against the U.S. government."

 

Oh really? If Maddow's rule applies in an absolute sense, that would mean MSNBC is not a news as well. Flashback to Oct. 7: Both Maddow and her MSNBC colleague, "Countdown" host Keith Olbermann, engaged in their own brand of AstroTurf. They encouraged free health care clinics to be held in the states of six Democratic senators that are not in lockstep with the left-wing agenda on health care reform as a ploy to turn up the heat on those senators to support a so-called public health care option (emphasis added).

 

"[Keith Olbermann's] specifically talking about a technique that would increase political pressure on six senate Democrats who are key to allowing a vote on health reform," Maddow said on her Oct. 7 broadcast. "The proposal, as Keith said, is to hold massive free health clinics weekly in the capital cities of the states represented by these key six Democratic senators. Sens. Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Sen. Max Baucus of Montana, Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada."

[Rex Kickass]

It never takes long for things to balance out, does it?

 

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/jeff-poor/200...ty-promo-msnbc-

 

If I understand the article, Maddow and Olbermann, both commentators advocated a specific type of protest - but didn't do anything at all other than say its a good idea? How on earth is that equivalent to Fox News Tea Parties in April and Glenn Beck's 9/12 rally?

 

I'm no fan of MSNBC (although I do like Rachel Maddow - and think she's actually a pretty entertaining host on TV and radio) but this is kind of a desperate ploy at saying "See, they all do it."