Buffalo Business Daily

Agree or disagree: the Boards of Directors of newly nationalized companies should get to decide CEO bonuses?

"...it should be up to the board of directors of a private corporation to set the compensation of an executive. It shouldn’t be Congress’ role." - Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., Sept. 21, 2008 http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?parm1=5&docID=news-000002956704

Public Comments

1. The problem here is the board is often filled with the CEO'S lackeys. If working class people were running the government, rather than wealthy Plutocrats, we would not be in the current predicament that threatens to engulf us, and we would have avoided many of the pitfalls that have trapped us in the past. We would never have experienced a Viet Nam War, there would have been no invasion and occupation of Iraq; and we would have socialized health care and decent schools like other industrialized nations, rather than tax cuts for the rich and massive corporate welfare. There is a huge difference between a government of the people and corporate ‘for profit’ governance. America would be a much better place without corporate rule, and unquestionably the world would be better off and much safer. I am not sure what the solution is to the dilemma we have created for ourselves through detachment, indifference and apathy. I do know, however, that doing the same thing over and over will assure a similar result to what we have gotten in the past. At some point we must acknowledge the illegitimacy of the political process, and see it for the prostitution and the sham that it is. It is incapable of producing just results or the change we need in order to become a Democracy. There are no easy ways out of the morass we have created. It may be that another tea party similar to the one enacted at Boston Harbor over two hundred years ago is the only cure for what ails us. I survive on the hope that eventually enough good people will arrive at a similar conclusion, and that we will effect change directly in the streets of America. That is what I would call participatory Democracy, and it would be a thing of beauty to behold.
2. No, not when they are bailed out by the public. If they want publican bailouts, there should be conditions to get it. As a matter of fact, those boards and the CEO should get the boot. They nearly wrecked our economy and should not be left in place.
3. Agree. Why does congress need to be involved witha private company again? i thought that swhat made it a priivate company. otherwise wouldnt it be a government entity?
4. If they need my tax dollars to bail them out, they give up the right to hand out billions to CEO's.
5. That's a tough one....we should never want government deciding what our compensation should be in a non-government job. That just doesn't seem very 'American'. However, these CEOs that were fired or let go and took away with them 50-150 MILLION dollars....that doesn't seem very American, either. Especially when many of their employees are having to scrape by. I still don't think it should be determined by government.
6. So what if it is up to a board... What makes you think they are not going to still take care of their boy when it comes bonus time? That chit aint gonna change anything. If you want it to change, you are going to have to add in a law to regulate it, that's the only way you are going to stop it. Look, I'm a good husband but put me in a whore house with a bottle of Jack Daniels... and I may fold under pressure!
7. I agree to some extent, the board is there to run the company, not congress. However, since it is government/taxpayer money, congress should have some oversight.