Since Republicans and business leaders have such antipathy toward the collective bargaining rights of union members, I wonder how they would feel if government decided, that for the better good, the bargaining rights of CEOs and senior executives to negotiate their compensation packages and working conditions should be limited or eliminated?
Oh wait, that question has already been answered, hasn’t it:
President Obama has proposed capping compensation for executives at banks that take taxpayer bailout money at $500,000. Republicans hate the idea — a position puts them uncomfortably on the side of people currently about as popular as child-porn producers and subprime mortgage brokers. […]
“What executives have done is troubling, but it’s equally troubling to have government telling shareholders how much they can pay the executives,” said Sen. Mel Martinez (R-FL).
Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) said that he is “one of the chief defenders of Obama on the Republican side” for the president’s efforts to reach across the aisle. But, said Inhofe, “as I was listening to him make those statements I thought, is this still America? Do we really tell people how to run [a business], and who to pay and how much to pay?”
Some of the CEO’s who helped tank the world’s economy were not very happy with the idea of limiting their right to negotiate the highest pay for themselves they possibly could despite their outright incompetence, either:
AIG boss Robert Benmosche today voiced frustration with the Obama administration’s crackdown on executive pay at companies that have received government bailouts, but in an internal letter to employees obtained by ABC News, he said he would continue to lead the insurance giant.
For those people who believe unions are the primary reason that our economy is in a downward spiral, let me ask them the following questions: Who made the decisions at major corporations to (1) assume undue risks in order to feather their own pockets despite the damage their actions caused the world’s economies?;
Based on the firm’s 2009 revenue of $45.2 billion, the estimate means derivatives may have provided $11.3 billion to $15.8 billion of revenue last year.
Chief Financial Officer David Viniar told members of the FCIC in a July 1 hearing that Goldman Sachs doesn’t keep separate records on derivatives because they are “integrated” into the firm’s cash trading business. Derivatives are contracts whose value is derived from assets such as stocks, bonds, currencies or commodities, or events such as changes in interest rates or the weather.
Goldman Sachs, which is the fifth-biggest U.S. bank by assets, reported $11.8 billion in revenue from trading fixed- income, currencies and commodities in the first half of the year and $3.57 billion from trading equities in the same period. Combined, the two categories accounted for 71 percent of the firm’s $21.6 billion in net revenue.
Lawmakers appointed the 10-member FCIC in July 2009 to investigate the causes of the worst U.S. financial crisis since the Great Depression.
The lesson here is that Boeing executives, just like most of the rest of corporate and political America, were incredibly bad at pricing moral hazard and tail risk. Outsourcing is a bit like taking collateral from your repo operation and investing it in subprime credit. Most of the time, you make a small amount of money — and then, occasionally and unpredictably, you lose an absolute fortune. Boeing was picking up pennies in front of a steamroller, and ended up getting crushed.
(3), and who made the decisions to produce inferior products that no one wanted to buy resulting in a government bailout that saved their bacon and kept their companies from going out of business?
“The government-sponsored bankruptcy reduced GM’s obligations and helped it become profitable in a below-average U.S. auto market. Before entering bankruptcy on June 1, 2009, GM had $54.4 billion in debt and owed an additional $20 billion to a retiree health-care trust managed by the United Auto Workers. GM had $88 billion in losses from the end of 2004 until going into bankruptcy.
GM now owes $15.6 billion in debt and preferred stock and $9.4 billion in underfunded retiree obligations. The company has made $4.77 billion in the first three quarters of this year. The old General Motors Corp. hadn’t made so much in the first nine months of a year since 1999 when it earned $5.75 billion.”
Is it the unions and their members or the people who managed those companies, the very people who received billions in salaries, bonuses and deferred compensation while crashing the economy and helping to eliminate good middle class jobs in America that would have strengthened our nation’s social and economic fabric, who should lose their right to bargain over compensation, working conditions, etc.?
Just asking.
