The liberal side of the aisle is wasting no time in casting the CEO’s as the bad guys and then attempting to tie the GOP to the CEO’s. This is clever politics and we can’t complain about the Democrats trying this – even though they are far more connected to said CEO’s than we are. What we GOPers need to do is get out in front of this and get the people on our side. I propose the following, with acknoweldgement to Nevada Pundit, from whom I have ripped off part of the ideas:
Golden Parachutes
There is nothing quite so absurd or aggravating for Joe and Jane Average than to see the CEO of a failed or deeply troubled corporation getting out of Dodge with millions of dollars in bonuses and other compensation. The flimsy-as-all-get-out corporate justification for the huge executive compensation is that if the CEO’s, etc don’t feel ownership for the corporation they won’t ensure it performs at peak efficiency. This is utter BS, but lets take them at their word – and rather than going the Big Government, Democrat route of capping CEO compensation, lets enact a law which allows a corporation to pay its executives whatever it wishes, but such compensation decreases 5 percentage points for each 1 percentage point of stock valuation lost in any given fiscal year beyond a 10% reduction (10% can happen for all sorts of reasons outside the control of the executives – but once you get past that loss, you’re starting to get into CEO Bonehead territory).
Corporate Bankruptcy
Everyone with who’s title includes “chief”, “president”, “senior”, “executive” or “chairman” gets compensated at $25 per hour for each hour worked during the fiscal year the corporation filed bankruptcy. Nothing else.
Corporate Layoffs
For each 10 workers laid off the people with the titles noted in “Corporate Bankruptcy” lose one tenth of one percent of their annual compensation for the fiscal year in which the layoffs occured. A corporate boss can layoff workers all he wants, as long as he feels the pain.
Worker Benefits
Cut them all you want, bosses – as long as you lose them, too and, additionally, lose your bonus for the year in which you make the benefit cut, as well as the two years following it. Have a care when passing out the bennies, ’cause cutting back on them will be painful.
These proposals will retain the free market principle, allow generous compensation to corporate executives who score big profits while keeping workers on the payroll, discourage outsourcing of American jobs and encourage corporate executives to seek other routes than bankruptcy when the going gets rough. In addition to this, there’s the simple justice in ensuring that when a corporation falters, everyone from top to bottom takes a hit, not just the worker bees. And, finally, these are nicely populist proposals which will make the American people stand up and cheer without any appeal to envy or hatred, as the Democrats routinely do with their class warfare nonsense.
The fundamental principle missing in corporate America – and its also missing in government-bureaucrat America – is a connection with the concerns of average Americans; there is a lack of empathy for those who are effected by a corporate downsize or a pettifogging bureaucratic regulation. In addition to what I’ve proposed here, government employees should only get pay increases tied to the growth in personal income, less government transfers, amongst the American people – regulate us into stagflation and you’ll only be hurting yourselves, bureaucrats. Bill Clinton said he felt our pain – which was nonsense as he was insulated from any pain other than the self-inflicted wounds of his immoral actions. I say: lets make everyone feel the pain, and while we won’t eliminate pain, we’ll at least get people who will think carefully before they cause any.
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