The Heritage Foundation - Leadership for America

October 22, 2009 PheistyBlog » Blog Archive » Going Galt writes:

[...] Economics professor Alex Tabarrok on Obama’s Pay Czar’s idiotic move to cut bailed-out companies’ executives’ pay.  (Yes, I said idiotic.): “There is no way this will work as advertised. If the administration actually follows through, most of these executives will quit and get higher paying jobs elsewhere. Executives not directly affected by the pay cuts will also quit when they see their prospects for future salary gains have been cut. Chaos will be created at these firms as top people leave in droves. Will the administration then order people back to work?” [Heritage Foundation] [...]

October 22, 2009 Ted R., Hanahan(Charleston), SC writes:

I have wondered for the last 10-20 years why top-level execs haven’t packed a “bug-out bag”, professionally speaking, and headed for the financial hills. The greatest damage to the Obama/Big Government juggernaut is for the producers to literally step back, give Obama his logical outcome, and have the entire economic process grind to a halt. Who will be blamed when no factories are running, no taxes paid, no food on the shelves, no gas in the tanks? Of course - those evil, grubbing capitalists - who won’t even be there anymore, ostensibly making all those ill-gotten gains. When the “czars” move in to run these industries and businesses, there will be absolute financial and economic chaos which will bring this whole sorry mess to its ultimate conclusion. The sooner the better. Then we can get back to work and do it right once more.

October 22, 2009 Freedom of Speech TX writes:

I do not feel sorry for executives who already are millionaires, especially those companies that were saved “from themselves” by the taxpayer.

That being said, I would caution that people do not fall for the “class warfare” message.
Obama and his admin know there is no sympathy in these times for people who get a salary of 1 million instead of 30 million. On the surface, it is ludicrous.

The danger of this is that a “hybrid capitalism/socialism system” immediately re-invents America if enforced across all industries. Who determines what and how much is fair? Does an actor who gets $20 million for making a movie fall into this category? What intrinsic worth is a movie?

You can’t have capitalism for some groups and not others.

As for the article’s comment about “these executives working somewhere else”, there is truth to that - as long as government does not set pay caps across the entire economy.

Then there will not be any place to run.

October 22, 2009 Bobbie Jay writes:

WHAT TAX PAYERS ASSISTANCE? THE GOVERNMENT BRIBE? how come fanny and freddy AREN’T being disciplined? how come acorn is still active? How come OUR MONEY IS BEING STOLEN FOR GOVERNMENT CORRUPTION FRAUD AND DISHONESTY SERVING THE PUBLIC?
WHAT ABOUT THE COST OF ALL THOSE CZARS WHO HOLD NO ACCOUNTABILITY.

The government has no right interfering in the profits or pay of employees in the private sector. These industries were BRIBED! And if they weren’t bribed Obama wouldn’t have been able to use the choice words “tax payers assistance.” Obama pays government workers with our money. There are more positions that are over paid at government’s forced expense to the tax payers then those working and providing for themselves without infringing on the tax payers. He’s stilling our ability to live without government.

October 22, 2009 Bobbie Jay writes:

i meant “stealing…”

October 22, 2009 Ron Derry NH writes:

I feel sorry for Obama as his style of fascism doesn’t use the court system we have, the constitution we have or the respect we had for individual contracts and business law.

I was and will continue to think that the stimulus was poorly conceived and that natural business practices would have been better suited for a correction to these companies. Government intervention is usually an attempt to control the damage already created by government mandated intervention. I respect our court system and would have allowed them to make the right decisions for these companies and we wouldn’t be suffering through this Marxist take over of everything American.

It frightens me when our president recreates a deal after the fact and basically steals previously earned pay from people who did not cause the calamity that was formed mostly by reckless legislation from previous years. This president is acting more like an illegitimate tyrant than a leader of a great nation.

The housing bubble and subsequent collapse was caused by Legislative mandates and financial laws put in place to inflate the housing worth to reap more economic leverage from the masses. Increasing spending and credit was a plan from the government not these executives, they are just caught in the riptide of Obama’s mass blaming using pin the tail on the donkey while he set’s up a Marxist rescue of hapless America.

Like other socialist regimes he needs enemies, diversions and acts of righteous indignation against an easy foe to act as though he has a plan. He is reactionary at best, devious at worst and impossible if he continues this rampage against the American system and its people.

October 22, 2009 iamse7en writes:

Seems Heritage has changed their tune on TARP. I know Paulson/Geithner has changed their plan several times, but was it necessary in the first place?

NO.

The solution, Paulson argued, was to approve TARP and use $700 billion to buy the toxic assets. Instead of buying up toxic assets, the TARP money was used to partially nationalize the banking industry.

TARP didn’t do what was SO NECESSARY to prevent a ‘collapse.’ Was it necessary to appropriate $700 billion to buy toxic assets? In hindsight, we can see the answer is No, because the money wasn’t used that way

I love Heritage, but I remember them supporting TARP from the outset, and I disagreed.

October 23, 2009 AntiObamaBlog.com » Obama Government Cuts Pay of Private Citizens Up To 90% writes:

[...] The Heritage Foundation: At Marginal Revolution George Mason University economics professor Alex Tabarrok comments on Obama [...]

October 23, 2009 Wait, They’re Angry About What? writes:

[...] have government money. Some conservatives immediately jumped in to say that the cuts would be an average of 90%. The news today is that executives are leaving these firms because they can’t accept the pay [...]

November 13, 2009 TARP Enables Big Labor Crony Capitalism Again | Conservative Principles Now writes:

[...] is far past time to end [...]