Summary
3. A 'disgorgement' recovery from profligate CEOs: $40 billion. Until several weeks ago, top executives were collecting massive paychecks while they told the rest of us that "everything is fine." CEOs gorged themselves and have now taken the money and run. The four biggest investment banks on Wall Street shelled out $3 billion in bonuses last year. One of them, Lehman Brothers, has gone under. Another, Bear Stearns, was bailed out earlier this year. To help pay for recovery, we should seek the payback of executive compensation inappropriately extracted in the years before the Wall Street meltdown.
Many Americans oppose the bailout because they believe that Wall Street CEOs and fund managers will be financially rewarded for their reckless behavior. Americans also fear that Wall Street profiteers will make money from the bailout, just as slick operators made millions "fixing" the Savings and Loan bailout.Placing limits on CEO pay would remove the key incentive that has driven the short-term "casino" mentality in Corporate America. The bailout bill left this incentive largely in place, with a provision that gave the determination of what's "excessive" in executive pay to Treasury Secretary [Henry Paulson], a former Wall Street wheeler-dealer who madehundreds of millions of dollars as an investment bank CEO.See the full content of this document
Extract
Responding to Main Street
The grassroots blowback against the Bush Administration's Wall Street bailout is rooted in a deep distrust. Americans certainly do recognize the need to act on our current crisis. But they detest the idea that ordinary taxpayers should bear the brunt of bailing out the kingpins of Wall Street. We believe the program we outline below can far better address the root causes of our financial collapse.
Fund a Green Stimulus for the Real Econo...See the full content of this document
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