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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (373175)	3/9/2008 6:02:06 AM
From: tejek	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 1578161

"On a global scale, U.S. CEOs earn considerably more money on average than their peers abroad, and about 600 times more than the average U.S. worker, up from just 40 times in 1980, according to academic studies of executive pay." Congressional panel rips subprime CEOs' lavish pay Fri Mar 7, 2008 6:11pm EST By Kevin Drawbaugh WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The fat compensation packages of three U.S. CEOs whose companies are being hammered by the widening mortgage crisis came under harsh criticism on Friday at a congressional hearing on executive pay. In the last two quarters of 2007 alone, the three executives' firms lost more than $20 billion on investments in subprime and other risky mortgages, said the House of Representatives Oversight and Government Operations Committee. Yet the three took home fortunes in 2007 -- $120 million for Countrywide Financial Corp CEO Angelo Mozilo; a $161 million retirement package for ex-Merrill Lynch CEO Stanley O'Neal; and $39.5 million in stock, options, bonus and perks for former Citigroup CEO Charles Prince. "The mortgage crisis is having enormous repercussions. Families are losing their homes ... Thousands are losing their jobs. It seems like everybody is hurting, except for the CEOs who had the most responsibility," said California Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman, committee chairman. In a hearing room packed with bank lobbyists and lawyers, Waxman said, "I have no problem with paying for success. But it looks like when you're a CEO you get paid for failure." Mozilo, O'Neal and Prince told Waxman's panel that they earned their compensation. They conceded misjudgments in the subprime debacle, while one Republican lawmaker blasted the hearing as "a sanctimonious search for scapegoats." Virginia Rep. Tom Davis said, "Punishing individual corporate executives with public floggings like this may be a politically satisfying ritual -- like an island tribe sacrificing a virgin to a grumbling volcano. "But in the end, it won't answer the questions ... about corporate responsibility and economic stability." Continued... View article on single pagePrevious Page 1 \| 2 \| 3 Next Page reuters.com

To: TimF who wrote (373175)	3/9/2008 8:02:57 AM
From: Road Walker	Respond to of 1578161

Its not just an issue of the efficiency which the government or private sector spends its money, but also an issue of the costs imposed on others. The government raises its money with very complex tax laws that impose a much greater third party cost, than most ways the private sector raises money. If taxes where very low and extremely simple than the dead weight loss wouldn't be a significant consideration, and you could just compare the efficiency of each (which would still often be higher in the private sector, but not in every case). Never said every case... in fact I said the opposite.