Obama To Force a Measly $500K on Banking Execs!

Where's Your $50M French Corporate Jet Now, Motherfucker!

The President has ordered that incompetently-managed banks who received federal bailout cash will have their compensations capped at $500K/year. This comes at a time when public support for the stimulus is tanking, and the Prez recognizes that seeing fat cats flying off to Vegas junkets pisses off the American public (as seen during his comments on AC360 last night). Obama inherited a huge bag of dogshit from the Bush administration with this bank bailout bonanza and accountability for this public money has been incredibly difficult for the media to get a handle on.

Great business leader, Lee Iacocca, took a dollar-a-year salary when Chrysler was about to go bankrupt to show shareholders and employees that he was serious about getting the company back on track. That attitude seems to have flown out the corporate boardroom window as the media continues to crank out stories of suits living it up on their outrageous "business expenses". So Obama's move is welcome, but Allahpundit suggests that it's all smoke and mirrors:

Read the fine print and you’ll see it’s not quite that simple. The cap only applies to companies that need “exceptional” assistance from TARP and contains an exception for stock options, provided they vest after taxpayers are fully repaid. (Non-exceptional TARP recipients can pay execs whatever they like so long as they disclose the amount.) Still, it’s a populist masterstroke, perfectly timed to bump Daschlepalooza and the cratering polls on the stimulus off the front page.

There's a strange meshing of private industry and public accountability going on with the banking sector, and no one in DC knows how to deal with it. That's probably something they should have thought back in September when people rushed to dump money in these banks to prevent a recession. That worked out so well for us (note: the stock market bombed today further into the 7000 territory and unemployment is up again).