Most Popular
1. Banking Crisis is Stocks Bull Market Buying Opportunity - Nadeem_Walayat
2.The Crypto Signal for the Precious Metals Market - P_Radomski_CFA
3. One Possible Outcome to a New World Order - Raymond_Matison
4.Nvidia Blow Off Top - Flying High like the Phoenix too Close to the Sun - Nadeem_Walayat
5. Apple AAPL Stock Trend and Earnings Analysis - Nadeem_Walayat
6.AI, Stocks, and Gold Stocks – Connected After All - P_Radomski_CFA
7.Stock Market CHEAT SHEET - - Nadeem_Walayat
8.US Debt Ceiling Crisis Smoke and Mirrors Circus - Nadeem_Walayat
9.Silver Price May Explode - Avi_Gilburt
10.More US Banks Could Collapse -- A Lot More- EWI
Last 7 days
US Presidential Election Cycle and Recessions - 18th Mar 24
US Recession Already Happened in 2022! - 18th Mar 24
AI can now remember everything you say - 18th Mar 24
Bitcoin Crypto Mania 2024 - MicroStrategy MSTR Blow off Top! - 14th Mar 24
Bitcoin Gravy Train Trend Forecast 2024 - 11th Mar 24
Gold and the Long-Term Inflation Cycle - 11th Mar 24
Fed’s Next Intertest Rate Move might not align with popular consensus - 11th Mar 24
Two Reasons The Fed Manipulates Interest Rates - 11th Mar 24
US Dollar Trend 2024 - 9th Mar 2024
The Bond Trade and Interest Rates - 9th Mar 2024
Investors Don’t Believe the Gold Rally, Still Prefer General Stocks - 9th Mar 2024
Paper Gold Vs. Real Gold: It's Important to Know the Difference - 9th Mar 2024
Stocks: What This "Record Extreme" Indicator May Be Signaling - 9th Mar 2024
My 3 Favorite Trade Setups - Elliott Wave Course - 9th Mar 2024
Bitcoin Crypto Bubble Mania! - 4th Mar 2024
US Interest Rates - When WIll the Fed Pivot - 1st Mar 2024
S&P Stock Market Real Earnings Yield - 29th Feb 2024
US Unemployment is a Fake Statistic - 29th Feb 2024
U.S. financial market’s “Weimar phase” impact to your fiat and digital assets - 29th Feb 2024
What a Breakdown in Silver Mining Stocks! What an Opportunity! - 29th Feb 2024
Why AI will Soon become SA - Synthetic Intelligence - The Machine Learning Megatrend - 29th Feb 2024
Keep Calm and Carry on Buying Quantum AI Tech Stocks - 19th Feb 24

Market Oracle FREE Newsletter

How to Protect your Wealth by Investing in AI Tech Stocks

Obama's Pay Czar to Set Pay of Bailed out Corporations

Politics / Credit Crisis Bailouts Jun 10, 2009 - 12:49 PM GMT

By: Mike_Shedlock

Politics

Will the Obama administration's meddling in the affairs of business ever end? That's what I am asking as I read Treasury to name pay czar on Wednesday.


The Obama administration on Wednesday will name a 'pay czar' with power to reject compensation plans at companies receiving "exceptional" government aid, an administration official said on Wednesday.

The administration will also call for "say-on-pay" legislation that would give the Securities and Exchange Commission authority to require public companies to hold nonbinding shareholder votes each year on executive pay, the official said.

The pay czar, or "special master," will review compensation structures for the top 100 salaried employees of firms receiving exceptional assistance, the official said.

Obama Tells American Businesses to Drop Dead

Kevin Hassett at Bloomberg writes Obama Tells American Businesses to Drop Dead.

I’ve finally figured out the Obama economic strategy. President Barack Obama and his team have been having so much fun wielding dictatorial power while rescuing “failed” firms, that they have developed a scheme to gain the same power over every business. The plan is to enact policies that are so anticompetitive that every firm needs a bailout.

Once that happens, their new pay czar Kenneth Feinberg can set the wage for everybody and Rahm Emanuel can stack the boards of all of our companies with his political cronies.

Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer came to Washington to announce what Microsoft would do if Obama’s multinational tax policy is enacted.

“It makes U.S. jobs more expensive,” Ballmer said, “We’re better off taking lots of people and moving them out of the U.S.” If Microsoft, perhaps our most competitive company, has to abandon the U.S. in order to continue to thrive, who exactly is going to stay?

Hassett is talking about Obama’s proposal to end the deferral of multinational taxation.

I have a simple suggestion. Instead of taxing American businesses to death in the United States, why don't we eliminate corporate income taxes in the US altogether? That way, businesses would not have an incentive to hide profits, waste money inventing schemes to defer profits, and most importantly businesses would not leave the US to do it. Indeed, having the lowest taxes instead of the highest would encourage business to locate in the US. Wouldn't that be a good thing?

Interestingly, I already wrote about the "Drop Dead" idea in relation to healthcare and Kennedy's plan to partially pay for it by raising taxes on businesses. Let's review Kennedy's Healthcare Bill Will Increase Expenses, Decrease Employment and Encourage Outsourcing.

Something Is Severely Broken

Something is indeed broken and Kennedy's bill sure is not going to fix it.

“America Health Choices Act” is a horrible piece of legislation that does nothing to reduce costs but instead increases them on businesses. A better name for it would be "Delayed Recovery And Outsourcing Encouragement Program" or DRAOEP.

I tried to come up with a name that would equate to DROPDEAD (because that is what Kennedy's plan says to businesses) but could not quite make it.

Instead of reducing taxes on businesses, Kennedy's plan will increase them. I listed 10 consequences of Kennedy's healthcare plan, and none of them were any good.

In general: The bill has a negative effect on hiring, a negative effect on business expansion, a negative effect on corporate profits, and it promotes outsourcing. Moreover, it will delay the recovery of the stock market and it puts the brunt of the burden on businesses that cannot outsource.

Moreover, his handouts to GM and Chrysler, giving preferential treatment to unions will have a detrimental effect on the bond market. His meddling in the bankruptcy settlement of the automakers was blatantly illegal, but he will get away with it anyway.

If Obama wanted to meddle in something that needed meddling he should fire Geithner, audit the Fed, and try and figure out how to dismantle both the Fed and FDIC as detailed in Eight Step Program to Improve Fed's Image.

Instead Obama is meddling in everything else. If you think any of Obama's schemes are going to help the recovery, think again.

By Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List

Mike Shedlock / Mish is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management . Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction.

Visit Sitka Pacific's Account Management Page to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific.

I do weekly podcasts every Thursday on HoweStreet and a brief 7 minute segment on Saturday on CKNW AM 980 in Vancouver.

When not writing about stocks or the economy I spends a great deal of time on photography and in the garden. I have over 80 magazine and book cover credits. Some of my Wisconsin and gardening images can be seen at MichaelShedlock.com .

© 2009 Mike Shedlock, All Rights Reserved

Mike Shedlock Archive

© 2005-2022 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication.


Post Comment

Only logged in users are allowed to post comments. Register/ Log in