EU Shocker

It's not shocking that the EU is looking at placing limits on executive pay. What should be shocking is that an America known for touting the Free Market actually got there first. Sorry, I find that rather sad. As I anticipated, the EU is looking into a bank regulation solution that would be Europe-wide. But it's not clear that Britain would play along. At this point, I wouldn't bet against the Democrats in Washington saying "us too" if they actually believed it could fly without them being thrown out in two and four years.

As it is, I suspect they'll want to give enough away through UN protocols, treaties and accords over the next few years.

The European Commission president, José Manuel Barroso, promised proposals would be made in April to increase regulation of hedge funds and of private equity, and on executive pay in April or May.

Too radical a recommendation would run the risk of a veto from Britain, which is worried about transferring responsibility for the management of the City of London, the British financial center, to a European level.

But the report's authors said they believed the scale of the financial crisis might persuade national governments to cede some authority over supervision and, under their plans, the City would, to some extent, be supervised by a pan-European watchdog.

Comments

[Lala]

Banks, and parties, and Obama

TMZ: Barack Silent on Luxe Parties by Bank Who Gave Him Unusually Low Mortgage Rate

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By Debbie Schlussel

For all his talk at last night's speech to Congress and the nation about how lavish parties, planes, and perks of company CEOs would end, Barack Obama remains silent about the luxe parties of Northern Trust, the bank that gave Obama a lower-than-the-little-people interest rate on his Rezko Mansion loan.

http://www.debbieschlussel.com/archives/2009/02/tmz_barack_sile.html

[Todd]

Dan, when a company is only still in business because they received TARP money, it's not really existing due to free market forces anymore. Fannie, Freddie, AIG, Citi, BofA, Merrill would all be bankrupt without government assistance. Why is it inappropriate that they not receive pay more in line with government work?