VIDEO-- Barney Frank: This isn't "the Bush administration where they’re going to issue a signing statement"

By GottaLaff



I previously posted about Congress strengthening executive pay limits. Today on the Sunday talk shows, the White House expressed concerns:

The White House is concerned that the stringent limits “could prompt financial institutions to repay the government too quickly.” Financial firm lobbyists are also worried that they will lose personnel, “driving talented employees to companies that aren’t subject to the regulation or to overseas banks.”

Well Barney Frank isn't all that concerned. In fact, he's very much in favor of the caps, and good for him (see video). Many of us are relieved that Congress isn't too eager to budge on this one.

Here's a beautifully worded exclamation point to punctuate Barney Frank's statements, via the New Yorker:

Commenting on the issue of “executive compensation,” The New Yorker’s Hendrik Hertzberg recently wrote, “I have to say, I get a little dizzy with disgust whenever I hear that word used to describe some C.E.O.’s pay envelope. … What, exactly, are these people being ‘compensated’ for? Are they victims of crime? Or is it the long hours, the loneliness, the inability to spend time with their children—so much more terrible than the plight of a middle-aged immigrant mother working double shifts as an office cleaner?”

!

VIDEO-- Wall Street Madam: CEOs, Bankers Used Corporate Credit Cards for Sex

By GottLaff

Hey oversighters, who was overseeing this?

Wall street lawyers, investment bankers, CEOs and media executives often used corporate credit cards to pay for $2,000 an hour prostitutes, according to the madam who ran one of New York's biggest and most expensive escort services until it was busted last year.

But prosecutors in the Manhattan District Attorney's office chose not to pursue any of the corporate titans, says Kristin Davis, who pleaded guilty last year to charges of running a prostitution business that used more than a hundred women.

Can we take the word of a madam?

Davis provided ABC News with a print-out of her computerized client list, the same one she says that was offered to the district attorney.

The document shows Davis kept meticulous notes about her clients, their credit card numbers and mobile phone numbers.

And here we have a veritable orgy of names (pun intended):

Among the names the network says it confirmed:

* a vice president of NBC Universal (owned by General Electric)
* the part owner of a Major League Baseball team who "loves Kelsey"
* the CEO of one of the country's largest private equity firms who met "Cameron" at the Peninsula Hotel
* a major New York real estate developer who, according to the list, "will come to the door wearing women's panties"
* a partner at the Wall Street law firm Cravath Swaine Moore "looking for a party girl to come fully equipped" and spent a total of $20,000
* an investment banker from Lehman Brothers who saw "Kelsey and Keely together" and later saw "Aria and Skyler at the same time"
* an investment banker at JP Morgan Securities who "loves Brooke" and spent $41,600
* an investment banker at Goldman Sachs who "only wanted all-American girls" and spent $27,000
* a managing director from Merrill Lynch who saw "Lana" using the name "Nataly"
* a managing director from Deutsche Bank "who called about seeing Nataly again"

Kelsey seems to be on the A-List, as does that apparent CEO sentimental favorite, the ever-popular menage a trois:

Hey, financial institutions, give it back!

By GottaLaff

A few months ago, I was having a conversation in which I wondered aloud why the government couldn't cut outlandish bonuses, and/or temporarily and/or partially limit incomes of those greedy Big Biz types, given the dire state of the economy. I was sternly admonished, including being told that such a thing would be impossible.

I hung my head in shame and shuffled off to my room without supper. After all, as I've mentioned here previously, I admit to being woefully inept when it comes to discussing most things economic. So off I went, feeling like a fool.... until:

A day after President Barack Obama bashed bailed-out banks for giving huge bonuses, Sen. Claire McCaskill, (D-Mo.) proposed capping salaries for employees at companies accepting government funds.

“We must have our financial institutions survive but not with a culture that thinks it’s all right to kick the taxpayer in the shins,” she said in a Senate floor speech.

McCaskill introduced legislation that would forbid employees at firms collecting government funds from collecting more than the $400,000 salary made by the president of the United States, until the company no longer relies on money from the $700 billion government rescue fund. The cap would include not only salary but also bonuses and stock options.

“If any of them think it is a hardship to take the salary of the president of the United States, I dare them to say it out loud right now,” McCaskill said. [...]

Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) said he plans to “get back” billions of dollars worth of bonuses being paid out by financial services companies.

"I'm going to be urging — in fact, not urging but demanding — that the Treasury Department figure out some way to get this back," Dodd told reporters Thursday. "This is unacceptable.”

Thank you, Chris and Claire. I have been vindicated.

Carly Fiorina: Palin not qualified to run her old company

By GottaLaff

They're all over the place now, stumbling and bumbling for answers. This is pathetic:

Carly Fiorina, the former Hewlett-Packard CEO turned John McCain Victory chair, said Tuesday that Sarah Palin isn’t qualified to run her old company.

Appearing on a KTRS Radio show in St. Louis, Fiorina was asked by the host, “Do you think she has the experience to run a major company like Hewlett Packard?”

“No, I don’t,” Fiorina answered. “But that’s not what she’s running for. Running a corporation is a different set of things."

Wasn't being a CEO a qualifier for Bush? And Cheney? Weren't they going to be the grown-ups who could organize that mess of a Clinton government and get things in order? I thought so. Good job, guys.

Sarah Louise Palin is a gimmick. John Sidney McCain is completely out of touch and relies on Palin and Cindy to prop him up. They're Republicans. Now let's move beyond what was and elect what can be.

John Sidney McCain's impulsiveness: "A cause for concern"

By GottaLaff

Just now on CNN, Rick Sanchez was hearing from a reporter who rounded up several CEOs, executives, and recruiting experts, and asked them about John Sidney McCain, Sarah Louise Palin, and all that "executive experience" they like to bandy about. The results:

"Mixed on McCain."

He went with a gut decision, a whim, in picking Palin, they said. They went on to say that the last thing you want is a surprise.

Rick Sanchez then brought up, on his own, Bristol's out-of-wedlock teen pregnancy, and Sarah Lou's small town mayorship with all of its many of earmarks... and then described her as "someone not trying to stop waste of government money".

It is cause for concern, the reporter says. The chief executive of the U.S., the CEO, shouldn't go about it in this manner, say the CEOs, etc., that he talked to. Again, he said, it's cause for concern.

Rick: And they kept it a secret. He didn't want us at CNN to know about this. History will tell us whether it worked well, especially after the REAL vetting process results come in.

I do believe this is the first time I've ever appreciated Rick Sanchez.