Bonus Outrage Resolved
If you read my post two days ago on the Wall Street Bonus Outrage you can imagine my relief at the President’s press conference yesterday.
You see, from all this hysteria about excessive Wall Street compensation, partially whipped up by Mr. Obama himself, I was really worried that the President might do something rash, such as, for example, restrict Wall Street compensation.
The new rules will not apply to firms that already have received government aid, will only apply in the future to the recipients of some kinds of help, will only restrict the compensation of a very small number of top executives (who collectively didn’t make much of a dent in the $18.4B that got everybody bent out of shape) and only requires that these few be paid in stock instead of cash, which is fairly typical anyway.
Whew. That was close. Turns out the President isn’t ignorant of how Wall Street works and isn’t a closet bomb-throwing socialist. He’s just a cynical politician willing to kick people when they are down to score political points. Thank god for that.
Economics | Frank Curmudgeon | 
February 5, 2009 9:48 am
Subscribe