The outrageous hearing spearheaded by the Democrats, concerning their disapproval of how CEOs of corporations are compensated, is a ludicrous waste of time and taxpayers' money.
The Democrats claim that executives are being paid too much in salary, bonuses and retirement, while the companies they work for struggle.
What needs to be asked though, is why did the Democrats choose this obvious struggling time in the industry, and not the times when the CEOs were making tons of money for shareholders and everyone involved?
As CEO of Countrywide Financial Corp, Angelo Mozilo said at the hearing, "As our company did well, I did well, my direct compensation and obviously the value of my own Countrywide stock holdings declined substantially, which is as it should be."
He's right of course, and the stock of Countrywide, as Mozilo pointed out, had risen 23,000 percent from 1982 through April 2007. At that time the company experienced its first loss in 30 years. You didn't hear from the Democrats any time during that period concerning executive compensation at Countrywide.
As the top Republican on the committee, Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va said, the hearing is pretty much a waste of time, as the shareholders and boards are taking care of the problems. In other words, this has absolutely nothing to do with the government or politicians.
"CEOs have resigned. Potential payouts have been surrendered or reduced, and so-called 'golden parachutes' trimmed," said Davis.
Davis rightfully added that when the government enters into market matters (where it doesn't belong), they always make things worse rather than better.
All this is, is an attempt by the Democrats to keep the class warfare idea lodged in the minds of people, and make business leaders continue to look bad in the eyes of the public. We need to remember this at election time.
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