Obama pushes bill to rein in lavish CEO pay

Fri Apr 11, 2008 9:41am EDT
INDIANAPOLIS (Reuters) -

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama will push on Friday for passage of a bill to put the huge pay packages of some U.S. corporate executives under greater scrutiny.

The Illinois senator has introduced "say-on-pay" legislation that would give investors more of a voice in setting executive compensation packages.

"We've seen what happens when CEOs are paid for doing a job no matter how bad a job they're doing. We can't afford to postpone reform any longer," Obama said in prepared remarks for delivery later on Friday.

"That's why Washington needs to act immediately to pass this legislation."
Amid fears the U.S. economy may be in recession, many U.S. voters are anxious about a weakening job market, the mortgage crisis and higher gasoline prices.

At the same time, many are also expressing outrage over big pay packages given to executives of some of the companies at the center of the financial and mortgage crises, such as Bear Stearns Cos Inc and Countrywide Financial Corp.

Obama is vying with Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York for the Democratic nomination to run for president. The winner will face Republican Sen. John McCain in November's election.

Clinton supports the "say-on-pay" bill.

In his home state of Arizona last week, McCain added his voice to those expressing concern about the vast compensation earned by executives when their firms performed disastrously and most shareholders lost millions of dollars.

"I think it is outrageous when someone who is the head of Bear Stearns cashes in millions and millions of dollars in stocks," McCain told reporters on Saturday.

"I think it is unconscionable when the guy who is the head of Countrywide and his co-conspirators make huge amounts of money when Americans face the threat of losing their homes."

(Reporting by Caren Bohan; Editing by John O'Callaghan)

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Liberals are people that will believe anything twice.

Hooray for Obama. It's about time some logic was applied to executive salaries. The current state of executive pay is lucrative beyond reason. I believe executives should be well compensated, if they are doing a good job, but the millions that some get while the company is crumbling is ludicrous. Good pay for a good job, but if not, termination with no parachute, just like all the workers that get the ax in downsizing.

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Life is good, the water is sweet. The ground keeps moving beneath my feet.

And when the Movers & Shakers of industry just finally throw up their hands in frustration, and defeat, then walk away ... how will the O'Bama's of the world get things done?

Vi

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Liberals are people that will believe anything twice.

Are you asleep or what? seems like they have been doing just that for years now, actually spiked under Bush, your Buddy. They've been closing down and offshoring jobs quite frequently actually, so that would be old news. The greedmongers that control the coporations have no social conscience. If they can save a nickle, they'll shitcan a whole bunch of workers and go right on with their multimillion dollar jobs. It's not enough to make a fair profit, they want to make a great profit at the expence of everything else. Profit is king and everything else is sacrificed, Capitalism at its finest.

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Life is good, the water is sweet. The ground keeps moving beneath my feet.

Great... those guys definitely don't need all that money especially if doing cutthroat or immoral business practices. If they're doing a great job at running the company... they will be rewarded a proper retirement, ViRedd, whatchu' smoking to support these guys? We all know if they throw up their hands and walk away, someone new will just replace them, someone perhaps that deserved that job and will strive to run the business successfully at risk of losing a nice fat retirement... the world moves on.

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If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you.

I'll report back when the lights of NYC go dim.

Its nice to see a move towards ending corruption, but I won't be holding my breath on this.

Again ... who owns the corporations?

Who sets the salarys and signs the employment contracts for the CEOs that you all hate so much?

Med ... how is your retirement income generated?

Vi

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Liberals are people that will believe anything twice.

Look, I never said profit was bad. It's the excess profit I'm about. I mean how much do you need when everything else is put on the back burner for the almighty dollar, (not so almighty now though). Multimillion dollar salaries are way over the top. No-one is worth that unless they actually own the company. If these criminal corporate entities would hold the line on executive salaries and give back to the workers and the communities, plus reduce excess emmissions, I'd be all for them. I mean why should the biggest asshole get all the money. They actually get paid more for cutting jobs, cutting salaries, shipping jobs overseas, and taking shortcuts with the environment. They figure out that it would be cheaper to take the fines than to fix the problems, so they just keep on polluting. The corporation that is granted status as a person is a very bad citizen overall.

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Life is good, the water is sweet. The ground keeps moving beneath my feet.

so whose got directions to the hidden city? they have got that cloke machine figured out by now right? =]=]=]

unless i'm working a government job... how does the government have any right to say i can't make as much money as i can???


just wait until everyone just ssays fuck it... you think theres too many foreign products currently? just wait... the feds keep imposing so many ridiculous regulations and just plain red tape bullshit and just make it less appealing for Americans to want to achieve any sort of success...

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Lumberjack's personal - my new grow journal (check it out!)

i'll cut you yo

member of pagc

Hey Ian, welcome to America, land of the "Free". I guess we should all blame the government for our lack of success eh? Just keep using that excuse, government is bad, makes me poor etc. etc.......

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Life is good, the water is sweet. The ground keeps moving beneath my feet.