I'm not quite following the contention here. Is this saying:

"Who is Barney Frank to comment on 'too much pay' when it is clear that he is under no such scrutiny"?

If this is the contention (and I confess that I may be mistaken); perhaps it may be more useful to turn his own techniques of scrutiny on himself. Perhaps a one for one comparison of pay over performance between Frank and a CEO that he has taken aim at?

Just a suggestion. Usually I get a lot of value from these posts. This time around I'm less clear about how the goal is reached. If at all my interpretation of the goal is correct, ofcourse.

and how by much the dollar increases in value."

You're playing with fire here.

Egg on face.

But, LCJ, does this mean that he isn't an experienced businessman? :->

Com'on, Vidyohs, why purposefully omit the 'w' from Barney Fwanks's name. I mean, just because the guy looks and talks sort of like Elmer Fudd doesn't mean…

How well they protect the country,

How well they enforce control at the borders,

and limit their staff size to less than 100 people.

They should be compensated based on how much they reduce the deficit;

how well they stimulate economic growth;

and how by much the dollar increases in value.

I think these are good performance standards.

What a nightmarish conundrum for all of us this is.

The decision to get into certain businesses is top down in these companies. It was Stan O'Neil's decision to make Merrill the 800 pound gorilla of subprime, not some random trader's on the CMO desk. the talented trader, banker, equity analyst had nothing to do with that decision and added value to the firm – just not enough to overcome Stan's bad decisions.

What people who say "where will they go?" or who assume that everyone at the institution is equally responsible for catastrophic failures don't understand is that people who produce ALWAYS have a bid. Like any corporation, there are plenty of talentless hacks who received their promotion by playing politics. If you don't compensate the producers, those talentless hacks are all the company will be left with. The talented people will leave to start their own shops, be lured away by other shops or just retire. This is already happening.

Incidentally, Goldman is chock full of talent. They have very smart guys working for them and there's a reason Goldman creates as many products as it does and why its people have their fingers in every pie. What Goldman is an absolute EXPERT in is nurturing political ties that allow the SEC and the Fed to look the other way as they manipulate the market with impunity, but that's a story for another time….

What surprises me is that nobody talks about the 170billion dollar those top investment banks received through AIG from their buddies Hank & Timmy?
Any chance of that money coming back before the 100million dollar pay cheques roll in again?

Incumbency is so bad that the murderer himself is getting a call from the reaper and hangs on. Ted's beginning to look like "weekend at bernie's", where the dead guy was propped up.

Word inside Goldman Sachs right now is that everyone is constantly entertaining other offers and management is terrified of key staffers leaving at any moment.

What is commonly known about laundering is the process, placement (put it in a government recognized institution), layering (multiple transactions to obfuscate the origin), and integration (with recognized business).

What is not commonly known about money laundering is that moving cash into a business is just as hard as moving cash out of a business.

Congress critters are some of the best money launderers the world has ever seen. They want the cash that other money launderers are trying to rid themselves of.

Who is better than a congressman on the take to pass money laundering legislation while filling their coffers.

Baptists and bootleggers indeed.

I wish folks who said this would remember that it isn't just those who voted for it who must suffer it.

Frank almost certainly represents his constituency well. If he were turned out of office, it wouldn't be long until a near-clone replaced him. Democracy will be an important component of any well-functioning political system, so the problem of Constitution-shredding office holders will not go away. That is why the strength of the other components of the constitutional republic like separation of powers and decentralization is vital. It is the slow (or rather punctuated) erosion of those institutions that is the real problem.

AIG and Goldman and Bear Stearns are absolutely chock full o'talent. Can't lose any of those indispensible nations.

Disastrous? DISASTROUS? The friggin' Obama administration bailed them out, thus RELIEVING and REWARDING them for those decisions.

Why doesn't any reporter understand that?

This is a Dictatorship of the Won. Get used to it.

The part that has me puzzled is that all this is going to paid-for by taxing the rich. How will there be any rich?