Barney Frank: Ed Whitacre Is Overpaid, But What Are You Gonna Do?
It’s been over ten days since GM’s Bob Lutz took to the local papers to complain that GM’s executives are “way, way, way underpaid,” and its still been less than a week since Ed Whitacre’s $9m compensation package was announced but politicians are only now starting to sit up and take notice. Barney Frank (D-MA) can usually be counted on to give greedy CEOs a good dressing-down, but at this point, Mama Frank seems to have given up on the government-owned automaker’s execs. The Detroit News reports Frank’s mild disappointment thusly:
“I don’t think Mr. Whitacre was going to go do something else” if he got paid less, Frank told reporters this afternoon after a hearing. “He’s having a good time there. I think they way overcompensate themselves.”
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At the risk of being an old fart, let's get our nomenclature straight, please? Chrysler's "bailout" in the Iaccoca days was NOT a government bailout like we are seeing today. What happened was Chrysler was loaned money by the PRIVATE sector, who, unlike the last few years, had some reservations about loaning money, and actually wanted to have some hope of getting paid back. The gov GUARANTEED the loans. Taxpayers were only on the hook IF Chryco didn't pay the private lenders back. NO taxpayer funds ever went out the door. I realize this is a minor point to some, but it really isn't. Back in the day, no financier would have let GM or Ford get TENS of BILLIONS dollars in the hole, with no way evident on the balance sheet to pay it back. To equate (if only in name) the Fed being Chryco's cosigner for a bank loan with the wholesale rape of the American taxpayer that just happened is just this side of revisionist history.