Do you think the government should be allowed to take back the money?

I have wondered why the shareholders do not file suit. I think they might be able to take it back. Alternatively, if the firm went into bankruptcy, the judge can definitely take it back.

Since giving the bonuses was clearly mismanagement, I think they should be subject to return.

Especially because they were, in this case, and in many others “performance” bonuses.

You need to pay the talented really well or they will go work someplace else.

Oh, wait, they fucked up. Toss them in jail. Let the dude who got caught with a joint out to make room for them.

They did pay them really well. Then they let gave them a bonus, some bailout money and let them fly on a private jet to hold their breaths and not answer questions.

Yes, definately.

Yes. And shareholders need to step up and exert more influence.

Complex question, because it isn’t just the exutives and the shareholders, it’s also the board of directors who hired these guys and the moral climate that allowed so much hurtful stuff to happen. I find it highly ironic that Bush ran on a morality platform about sexual peckadillos, but sponsored and believed in an immorality that was far more serious, and is hurting people all over the world.

I hope he has some sense of repsonsibility about this, and is sitting in his ranch, guilty as hell about what he has done. But I seriously doubt it.

Anyway, the executive pay is purely a symbolic issue. Getting money back from them isn’t even a drop in the bucket. More like a molecule or something.

The real issue is systematic ignoring of ethical behavior, no sense of responsibility, and, of course, our favorite: greed. Well, that’s happened, and we can’t put the genie back in the bottle. It has caused massive distrust of our current economic system, and that lack of confidence is further killing us.

Obama needs to lead all of us to the understanding that government should play a strong role in making sure business practices do not get out of hand. Regulation is not a dirty word. It is clear that business can not regulate itself. The market does not regulate itself very well. If we want some stability, we have to introduce more socialistic practices: higher taxes, more social programs, collective ownership of some major economic institutions, like banks and insurance and investment companies.

Capitalism, as tried in the US, is broke and can’t be fixed. Conservatives will lie and say that it can be, but they just want to feed their greed even more, and don’t care about the consequences to ordinary people. It goes way beyond shareholders and their so-called responsibilities. It goes to the basic assumptions our economy has been based on. They don’t work. They don’t work. They must be fixed. We have to learn that collective protection is a good thing, not bad.

@daloon – But I believe that the action of holding those who wronged us, the execs, the boards that afforded them the perks and so on, accountable will be a big step in starting the process of building confidence in the government and the industry again.

Of course it’s a denominal pittance when compared to what has been lost and is being borrowed. But the intrinsic value lies in the action. It lies in the tax payers seeing these bastards being held accountable. Even if they had to give back their perks they are going to live the rest of their lives better than the majority of the people who got stuck with their check. But like you said, it’s about time those people stopped getting away with it, then whining about how hard they have it every april 15th.

Anyone should be allowed a refund if their investors aren’t spending the money the way they should be. Bailouts are ridiculous anyway. I must leave it at that.

@Bri_L: it’s not even about the taxpayers seeing the crooked executives held accountable. It’s about the other executives seeing them held accountable, so that they don’t do the same thing.

@cwilbur – I would say it’s about both. And I just saw a news report that the same executives are buying up foreclosures for pennies on the dollar. Foreclosures that are partly because of poor decision on the borrowers side but also because of preditory lending.