I am not a fan of government intervention like that as it looks like a knee jerk reaction rather than a well thought out response that comes from consultation with these corporate welfare bums.
What a great quote in this story that is emblematic of the sense of entitlement to masses some of money for creating a lot of paper wealth that has simply disappeared. What was it US$600 billion that has just evaporated as there were no assets behind the paper wealth?
""We've always been a society where extraordinary work led to extraordinary payouts," said Alexander Cwirko-Godycki, research manager at Equilar Inc., an executive compensation research firm."
I wonder if Cwirko-Godycki means these guys:
Last Recorded CEO Compensation (US$) – Broken Companies
Merrill Lynch $29,000,000
Bear Stearns 40,000,000
Lehman Bros 34,000,000
Fannie M $14,000,000
Freddie M $18,000,000
AIG $15,000,000
Ford $23,000,000
GM 23,000,000
Source: Executive Paywatch Database
Just like a society can get breed a group of lazy, indolent people who believe that welfare is their right and demand it be given even to able bodied people who can't be bother to work, so has this sense of entitlement become part of the mantra of these corporate executives receiving compensation beyond any value they created.
Governments in the western world reacted to this by simply cutting them off the dole.
There used to be in corporate compensation some acknowledgment of the ratio of the top salaries to the lowest salary levels of the knowledge workers in the business but this has been shamelessly abandoned by these corporate welfare bums.
I don't care how much mayonnaise you use on this topic, you can't make chicken salad out of chicken crap!