More Thoughts on Compensation

First, here is a link to a video of President Obama discussing the salary caps he ordered on firms (banks and auto industry so far) that receive bail-out money from the federal government.

But I have some more thoughts about this issue.  As I type this, lobbyists for every single business group (oops, I almost said industry group, but we really don't have much industry in this country, so...) are walking the halls of state legislatures and Congress, seeking more and more tax credits or breaks.  Their usual song is if we don't get more tax credits or breaks, we'll up and leave for another country.  Business lobbyists are whispering in the ears of city council members, mayors, and county executives, asking for incentives, heck, even cash, to keep their businesses from moving to another location which will be willing to offer them land, money, and God knows what else.  I would guess that nine times out of ten, these businesses will get what they are asking for.  Meanwhile, the rest of us, you know, the ones that don't have a lobbyist working the halls, whispering in ears, we get tax hikes to pay for the tax credits the businesses get.  And I am not talking about small businesses, I am talking about Boeing, Microsoft, Google, IBM...

Meanwhile the executives of those companies continue to pull in millions of dollars in compensation.  

So I would ask, aren't the tax credits and incentives that we give those companies similar to the cash the federal government is giving banks and the auto industry?  Shouldn't state governments, heck, even Congress, begin demanding that if the corporations want special favors then they have to give something back other than staying in some state for a few years then bailing anyway?  And, oh, does anyone every evaluate whether they are successful?  Millions in tax credits to Boeing and they are laying off, not retaining employees in Washington State.

Nope, I think it is time that we examine the whole cocoon that has woven around American corporations.  It's a myth that there is a free market.  Each and every company has become a, to use the crass term from the Reagan era, welfare queens, driving in their limos to the welfare office, which happens to be the legislative bodies, and asking for hand outs without having to make their business actually work.  We cut off women who weren't looking for work from welfare, I think it is time we cut off corporations that are not working for us.  We seek further restrictions on executive salaries (I frankly don't buy the hiring the best help, because they sure weren't doing a good job for the past few years, now were they?  Plus, where are the "smart ones" going to go anyway?), we increase their taxes, and we hold them to the fire on environmental and labor issues.  

Maybe we'll begin to have businesses that actually produce quality products and that succeed.