Health care reform is almost (knock on wood) a done deal. Next up:
fixing the financial system. I’ll be writing a lot about financial
reform in the weeks ahead. Let me begin by asking a basic question:
What should reformers try to accomplish?
Just a
hunch, but I think credit scores are going to lose some of their
mythical aura over the next few years. The big boys walk away when it’s
in their interest. Why should anyone else feel obligated to be a sap?
This got discussed over at Balloon Juice a few weeks back, talking about executive bonus limits or eliminations, and I said at the time that I thought what we needed was not limits on bonuses but limits on severances.
If I make a sweet salary with a nice bonus, but I getstupid money if I do badly enough to get canned, you wanna bet how fast I start showing up to work in my pajamas and talking shit about the boss? SO FAST. It removes all incentive to do well when, if you gut and skullfuck the place and everyone in it, you make a ton of money once they shove you out the door.
Huge severance packages incentivize either total failure or the corporate practice of keeping stupid assholes around for ages because it’s too expensive to buy them out. I don’t get all that worked up about bonuses but “so and so who ruined a newspaper company got $4 million just to leave us alone forever” stories drive me up a tree.
A.
we need CEO reform. WALL STREET reform + banking. we need to chop of reaganism’s head off and put garlic in the mouth. and for extra measures. shoot it w/ a silver bullet and then maybe some holy water.