The Numbers Game

It’s all about the numbers. Yesterday President Obama’s Pay Czar Kenneth Feinberg (don’t get me started on the use of the word “czar”) told us that the top 25 executives at the seven huge U.S. corporations that are hanging on by their TARP bailouts, will receive 90% pay cuts....And 175 top executives at these same corporations will be hit with 50% pay cuts.

But wait....Twenty-five executives at 7 corporations? Let me do the math: 25x7=175. Hello? So the Czar has told us that his victims will be hit by 90% cuts and/or 50% cuts. Is it 50% or 90%?

If I ask, the Czar will laugh and tell me....”It’s the perks and bonuses you idiot”. Sorry Mr. Czar – in truth it’s just more disrespectful disinformation coming from a hack who has probably never been an executive, and has slithered into our lives without Congressional vetting or sanction. (The real Obama meaning of the word “Czar”).

But there’s more. What would you do if your pay was cut by 50 percent (let alone 90%)? Sell your house and your car? What would you do? Of course, you would be looking for another job, and you would leave your loser job as soon as you could. It’s not much different than firing the top 175 executives in the U.S. all in one day. One hundred and seventy-five Americans pay the price for the $575 trillion subprime heist.

And who will take on the enormous responsibilities at the loser TARP behemoth corporations for the pay packages now on offer? The average pay on Wall Street today - $300,000. So we’re looking for someone who is willing to take $200,000 with no prospect of anything more.

To run America’s seven heavy-weight corporations, a $200,000 pay package will attract a swarm from the lower 33 percent quartile on Wall Street. Mail clerks will apply. I was worried about a financial failure precipitating another crash. I could not have imagined that Obama’s “Pay Czar” would get the ball rolling.

Sad that responsibility for what happens next now rests squarely on the narrow shoulders of Mr. Obama’s Pay Czar. The President need not have shoved himself into this enormous mess. Former President Clinton will eventually get the credit he deserves for raping the regulatory safety net on Wall Street. The coming market collapse would have arrived without any help from today’s White House.

I believe it was Lenin who said something to the effect that the best way to destroy a nation is to decimate its currency. Mission accomplished.

Today we learn that the CFO of GM has quit....only 174 more trampled TARP executives to go!