Editor's Note: Thursday’s American Morning feedback was dominated by reaction to the Obama administration’s announcement cutting executive pay for the seven largest companies receiving bailout funds. Most angrily questioned the reasoning behind keeping or rewarding “incompetent” personnel who had created the financial chaos. Others were skeptical that the cuts were “real,” as any decreased compensation would be offset by increased stock, so executives would be simply be swapping forms of financial pay.
- Dan: Your guest this morning was talking about if you cut the salaries of the top personnel in these bailed out companies, then the top folks might leave, therefore, the company would go downhill. Is this guy an idiot or what? If the top personnel would have been doing their job in the first place, then we, as tax-payers, wouldn't have had to bail them out. So, I guess [their leaving] wouldn't hurt the company that much.
- Jerry: If the people getting large bonuses were as good as we're being told they are my question is: how did they lose or invest in products that lost billions of dollars while drawing large paydays? Time for them to suffer some; and since I'm a taxpayer, and I own part of the banks they work for, I don't see where they're earning their money.
- Bill: The worry that cutting exec salaries at the big banks will cause top execs to leave is not a bad thing. All the damage was done to the economy on their watch. They were either complicit or not watching the store. Either way, they were shown as being incompetent. How could getting rid of them be a bad thing?! In fact, they should be prosecuted for malfeasance. What should be regulated is someone else hiring them to possibly do it again somewhere else.
- Valerie: I think all this pay cut for Wall Street execs is mostly political smoke and mirrors. If the execs are going to get their cash portion of their pay cut, but receive additional stock, then their overall compensation is still the same. How is that a pay cut?
What do you think of the Obama administration’s proposed executive compensation pay cut plan?