|
tazzygirl -> RE: "Obscene bonuses to fat cat ban...ahhh...err Don't begrudge bonuses to bankers" (2/10/2010 7:00:39 PM)
|
Perhaps something else...
The White House insisted that Obama hasn’t changed his view of the Wall Street’s ways. White House aides argued that the president was not saying he didn’t begrudge the Wall Street bonuses -- but was rather speaking generally about success and wealth.
“The President has said countless times as he did in the interview that he doesn’t ‘begrudge’ the success of Americans, but he also expressed ‘shock’ at the size of bonuses and made clear that there are a number of steps that need to be taken to change the culture of Wall Street. A sentiment he has consistently expressed since long before he took office,” said Obama spokeswoman Jen Psaki.
White House aides offered the transcript from the Bloomberg interview as well as several examples of the president employing the exact same language in the past to back up the points.
..........
Financial services lobbyists and executives have been urging Obama to tone down his bank-bashing rhetoric, but one executive warned against reading Obama’s latest comments as a dramatic signal the president’s changed his position.
“I don’t think it’s being interpreted by financial services firms, or the two firms [JP Morgan and Goldman], as some wink and a nod,” said one official. “I think it’s a reflection of the complexity of the situation. I think his previous comments were overblown… and I think there’s going to probably be a tendency to over-interpret these comments as stepping back.”
According to the transcript provided by the White House, the reporter asked Obama, “Let’s talk bonuses for a minute: Lloyd Blankfein, $9 million; Jamie Dimon, $17 million. Now, granted, those were in stock and less than what some had expected. But are those numbers okay?”
Obama replied: “Well, look, first of all, I know both those guys. They're very savvy businessmen. And I, like most of the American people, don’t begrudge people success or wealth. That's part of the free market system. I do think that the compensation packages that we've seen over the last decade at least have not matched up always to performance. I think that shareholders oftentimes have not had any significant say in the pay structures for CEOs.”
In the Bloomberg interview, Obama acknowledged that Dimon’s $17 million bonus is “an extraordinary amount of money” in the eyes of average working Americans, but added that “there are some baseball players who are making more than that and don’t get to the World Series either, so I’m shocked by that as well.”
“I guess the main principle we want to promote is a simple principle of ‘say on pay,’ that shareholders have a chance to actually scrutinize what CEOs are getting paid. And I think that serves as a restraint and helps align performance with pay,” said Obama, who also called for more CEO pay and bonuses to be paid in stock, instead of cash, to link compensation to company performance.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0210/32795_Page3.html#ixzz0fC015A9D
|
|
|
|
