Sacrifice

#44 on corporate bigwigs and the status quo:

I thought maybe they're a little tone deaf to what's happening in America right now. And this has been a chronic problem, not just for the auto industry, I mean, we're sort of focused on them. But I think it's been a problem for the captains of industry generally. When people are pulling down hundred million dollar bonuses on Wall Street, and taking enormous risks with other people's money, that indicates a sense that you don't have any perspective on what's happening to ordinary Americans. When the auto makers are getting paid far more than their counterparts at Toyota, or at Honda, and yet they're losing money a lot faster than Japanese auto makers are, that tell me that they're not seeing what's going on out there, and one of the things I hope my presidency helps to usher in is a, a return to an ethic of responsibility.

I'd love to see a law that says the top-paid person in a corporation is limited to making something like 10x what the lowest-paid worker is--Ben and Jerry's used to do something like that back in the day.  Sorry, executives, but you don't bring that much value no matter how much "risk" you take and "responsibility" you have, especially when your company's in the shitter.  That's not socialist: it's just common sense.

ntodd