Wednesday, February 04, 2009

Dear Mr. Reda: FUCK YOU! Love, America

Lying in bed last night with Hiya Beautiful and nursing my head cold, I stumbled on an article about President Obama's new regulations to help try and get our economy out of the toilet. The biggest thing that caught my eye was regulating the amount of pay executives get to a maximum of $500,000.

Not surprising really, given that these companies chose to take TAXPAYER money to help them out. But then I see this quote:

“That is pretty draconian — $500,000 is not a lot of money, particularly if there is no bonus,” said James F. Reda, founder and managing director of James F. Reda & Associates, a compensation consulting firm. “And you know these companies that are in trouble are not going to pay much of an annual dividend.”

Mr. Reda said only a handful of big companies pay chief executives and other senior executives $500,000 or less in total compensation. He said such limits would make it hard for the companies to recruit and keep executives, most of whom could earn more money at other firms.

“It would be really tough to get people to staff” companies that are forced to impose these limits, he said. “I don’t think this will work.”
Mr. Reda -- I have to say first off that $500,000 is A LOT OF MONEY. It's not just upper middle class or middle-class income (especially since these folks are dealing with being laid off, so they've probably dropped an income level or two) -- this is what I'd like to call "RICH MOTHERFUCKER" money. If your salary could pay for my house two times over, with cash to spare, you're a RICH MOTHERFUCKER.

Secondly. no one put a gun to these executives heads to come crying to Congress begging for bailouts. They should not be surprised that strings are attached to this cash. Hell, when I go into the bank for a loan, there's strings attached (such has having enough liquidity to show we could cover part of the loan, having a job, etc.).

These companies (several of which are also doing just fine and not in trouble, unlike the big boys), are borrowing from THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. And the American people are having a hard time covering their basic bills thanks to both rising costs for basics and getting laid off. To say that the General Motors CEO should still earn $14.4 million while everyone else is hurting pisses everyone off.

This is the ultimate example of greed and a lack of touch with reality. It screams "I got mine so fuck you." And that attitude isn't going to endear any of these executives to anyone. And like it or not, once you take the money from the government -- which is ultimately from US -- you will answer to us. And right now, we're pissed about the multi-millions executives are earning while we are freaking out about whether or not we'll have a job at the end of the month.

Most of the time I'm a pretty peaceful person. But damn, if there was ever a time for the underclass to rise up and slay the rich, shit like this would be the trigger point.

3 comments:

K. said...

"If your salary could pay for my house two times over, with cash to spare, you're a RICH MOTHERFUCKER."

I love you, you know.

Anonymous said...

To be fair, at $500,000, you're going to have a problem acquiring and retaining top notch executive talent. Seriously. If you're among the best in the world, you can get millions of dollars and interesting work just about anywhere you want. So why work for less under strict and occasionally foolish government limits?

Of course, given that it's the "top notch" executive talent that got us into this clusterfuck, it's hard to feel much sympathy. The system is so profoundly broken that both the brilliant and the idiots ended up at that pay scale, and it's extremely difficult to distinguish between them.

On the up side, if you figure out how to distinguish between them, I am quite confident that there are brilliant people with great ideas to rescue these companies who are lower on the totem pole and would love to work for a "mere" $500,000. We just need to identify them.

Viv said...

Alan: I have no sympathy for these morons that got us into this mess (and that includes the fucktards that were there before the new CEOs took over). If they were doing fine, then I could defend the multimillion salaries and bonuses.

BUT they haven't. They're now coming hat in hand to us, the American public for a bailout. And in this economy, where there are many people we know getting laid off, unable to pay mortgages and other tales of woe, to say that they should accept and take these multimillion bonuses is lunacy.

And really, as long as they're paying the loans off back to us, they should be able to live with these conditions, since they're not just answering to their investors, but the American people.