I was going to write about the markets today but a couple of pieces in the Strait Times convinced me otherwise.

The most important news was tucked away on page A6. Quoting Bloomberg, Associated Press and France-Presse, the ST article header read:

“US govt to tighten control over executive pay: Report”.

I did a double take - surely not so early in his presidency? I had expected Obama to make this move given his past legislative history. See attached Bloomberg report. But, I had expected it later in the term - as his policies exacerbated the recession, he’d use the excessive pay issue as a foreign adventure - throwing a popular issue to distract from his failures.

Instead we have the issue raised now: if the New York Times report is to believed, the Fed Reserve would oversea executive compensation not just for the companies taking government funds but for all banks, Wall Street firms,’and possibly’ other companies’ (!!).

This is a measure I may have expected from the Rudd government (Australian Labour Prime Minister) but in the US, the home of capitalism and individual rights? It seemed like a story right out of Atlas Shrugged. If the report is accurate, the US is losing whatever semblance it has of being a free-enterprise country; it is rapidly becoming a socialistic state; it is moving away from a country where reward is determined by the owners of capital to one dependent on the ‘aristocracy of pull’.

Scary.

My question to the Republican Senators is this: are you going to ensure to this piece of nonsense ends up in the dustbin where it belongs or are you going to cave-in and horse-trade?

curbing-executive-pay-2009-03-24.PDF

Refer this blog post to a friend or colleague…