“Bad Incentives Haven’t Gone Away”: You Still Need To Care About Sky-High Wall Street CEO Pay
According to a new regulatory filing, Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan received a compensation package for 2013 worth $14 million, a $2 million increase over 2012. This places Moynihan third on the list of big bank CEOs, behind Goldman Sachs chief Lloyd Blankfein, who made $23 million last year and JPMorgan Chase’s Jamie Dimon, who made $20 million. Moynihan’s top underlings also received multi-million dollar compensation packages of their own.
With these numbers, it seems that Wall Street’s biggest banks are trying to put the financial crisis of 2008 firmly in the rear view mirror. (Never mind that many of them, most prominently JPMorgan, are still paying out hefty fines, penalties and settlements due to their actions in the lead up to that crisis.) Nothing more to see here! Back to business as usual! All’s well that ends profitably!
Over at the New York Times’ Dealbook this week, Ohio State University professor Steven Davidoff even lamented the outsized attention still garnered by CEO pay at Wall Street firms, when, for instance, tech CEOs sometimes make much more. “This double standard for finance and technology doesn’t make sense,” he wrote, adding that “perhaps it is time to call a truce on the Wall Street bias in looking at executive compensation.”
But there’s a good reason for the focus on Wall Street pay. For tech firms, misaligned incentives aren’t likely to crash the economy. For Wall Street, however, short-term risk-taking in pursuit of bigger bonuses can cause systemic problems, as several studies have shown. That’s why the Dodd-Frank financial reform law included new regulations meant to tie executive compensation at banks to longer-term performance (and it didn’t hurt that reining in Wall Street pay makes for good politics).
Sure, Davidoff is right that sky-high CEO pay deserves a broader look across the board. After all, it’s a big driver of income inequality. As the Economic Policy Institute has found, “Executives, and workers in finance, accounted for 58 percent of the expansion of income for the top 1 percent and 67 percent of the increase in income for the top 0.1 percent from 1979 to 2005.” Not only that, but taxpayers are subsidizing these big pay packages thanks to a loophole allowing corporations to write off CEO pay that is “performance based.” (Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas, has introduced legislation to fix that particular problem, but given what the Republican-held House is interested in these days, I wouldn’t expect it to come up for a vote anytime soon.)
But the fact remains that Wall Street pay is unique due to its ability to cause harm to the wider economy. The simple solutions for reining in pay that would work in other industries – such as higher taxes, more transparency and stronger unions – don’t reduce that risk. And the fixes in Dodd-Frank, while helpful, haven’t done enough, as professor J. Robert Brown Jr., an expert in corporate law, wrote recently:
Executive compensation is not adequately bounded by legal standards under state law. Efforts to address these concerns by Congress have been useful but remain incomplete. The system as it currently exists does not ensure that compensation will be based upon actual performance or that the approach will not encourage excessive risk taking.
Now, Wall Street will tell you up, down and all around that its new pay packages are not like those of yesteryear. And maybe that’s even the case for now. But as 2008 fades further and further into memory, it’s worth remembering just how the economy was brought to the brink and what still hasn’t been done to fix those problems. Without firm rules, there’s nothing stopping Wall Street from slipping right back to the same old bad habits when it thinks everyone has lost interest.
By: Pat Garofalo, U. S. News and World Report, February 20, 2014
“Indefensible By Any Measure”: Ted Nugent And How The Conservative Press Can’t Hide Its Hate Streak
It’s too soon to tell whether Ted Nugent’s noxious career as a conservative pundit reached a tipping point this week, but the moment he called in sick to CNN and backed out of a scheduled interview with Erin Burnett as Republican politicians denounced him might soon be seen as a flash point for the fading rock star and the incendiary brand of hate rhetoric he’s been cashing in on for years. It might also be viewed as a key stumbling moment for the conservative media, which have been unable in recent years to establish any sort of guardrails for common decency within the realm of political debate.
Increasingly reliant on bad fringe actors like Nugent to connect with their far, far-right audience, the conservative media have built up Obama-bashing personalities who no longer occupy any corner of the American mainstream. Yet Nugent enjoys deep ties with Republican campaigns all across the country. When those ties receive media scrutiny, they cannot be defended.
National Rifle Association board member Nugent found himself at the center of a campaign controversy this week when he was invited to two public events for Texas Republican Greg Abbott, who is running for governor. Of course Nugent, a former Washington Times columnist who now writes for birther website WND, recently called President Obama a “communist-nurtured subhuman mongrel” and has a long and vivid history of launching vile attacks on women. (He’s called Hillary Clinton a “toxic c**t.”)
Following waves of condemnations for the association, and a torrent of critical media coverage, with reporters and pundits wondering why a gubernatorial candidate would voluntarily campaign with someone who spouts “insane and racist talk,” as CNN’s Jake Tapper put it, Abbott claimed he wasn’t aware of Nugent’s history of racist and misogynistic comments. If so, Abbott’s campaign staff is utterly incompetent. (The “subhuman mongrel” comment, unearthed last month by Media Matters, was highlighted by a number of outlets at the time, including on MSNBC.)
It’s likely Abbott and his staff did know about Nugent’s dark rhetoric, since that’s all he traffics in. But because that kind of hate speech has become so accepted and even celebrated within the bubble for right-wing media, they failed to see the danger of embracing it.
Following the ill-fated campaign events, which made national headlines, Abbott has defended the decision to bring Nugent to the state, claiming that in Texas politics Nugent remain popular. But if inviting Nugent to become an Abbott surrogate was so clever, why did likely Republican presidential hopeful Rand Paul step forward to denounce Nugent and his “offensive” Obama commentary?
Why did Abbott’s fellow Texan, Gov. Rick Perry “recommend” Nugent apologize? And why did Nugent back out of his CNN interview just two hours before taping?
As the media scrutiny settled on Nugent, even staunch conservative Republicans have been unable to defend him — his commentary over the years is just too vile. If the Abbott campaign didn’t directly insist on the CNN cancellation (Nugent cited illness), it’s fair to say his aides were greatly relieved that Nugent didn’t fuel the story for another 24-hour news cycle via an extended CNN interview where no doubt more confused Nazi analogies would have been aired. (CNN’s Wolf Blitzer had already condemned Nugent’s comments, noting that the phrase “subhuman mongrel” bore resemblance to “untermensch,” which is “what the Nazis called Jews … to justify the genocide of the Jewish community.”)
And then there was Fox News, Nugent’s longtime ally in the pursuit of Obama demagoguery, and where just last month Bill O’Reilly welcomed Nugent. As Abbott’s self-inflicted wound deepened this week, and as news outlets all across the country addressed the clumsy campaign association, Fox News went silent. Not only refusing to defend Nugent, Fox wouldn’t even cover the burgeoning controversy.
The network — which was happy to give Nugent a softball interview just two weeks ago — still hasn’t mentioned the firestorm over his campaigning with Abbott.
Ted Nugent has been practicing his brand of openly vile hate for a very long time. And with each passing year of the Obama administration he’s been welcomed deeper and deeper into the heart of the conservative media machine. This week’s Abbott uproar was instructive in that the bright spotlight shone on Nugent helped remind people just how radical, dangerous and out of touch that movement has become, and how that hate cannot be hidden.
By: Eric Boehlert, Media Matters for America, February 21, 2014
“Night Of The Living Bigots”: Religious Discrimination Laws Are Just Zombie Jim Crow, Legalizing Anti-Gay Prejudice
Back in November, I wrote this piece on so-called “religious discrimination.” In short, a florist in Washington state refused to sell flowers to a gay couple for their wedding because it violates her religion. That’s right, she claims she won’t engage in the for-profit business of commerce because her religion tells her not to for certain groups of people. To quote “South Park’s” Mr Mackey “mkay.”
Now I thought maybe this was just a one-off. I mean sure, there are going to be a few folks, a few businesses around the country who won’t serve black people or maybe someone won’t photograph a gay wedding. But these types of things are few and far between, not the norm in society right?
Actually, while they happen more than you may think, as a part of the whole of American society, this isn’t some widespread thing popping up all across the country. What is rearing its ugly head up is the conservative movement’s insistence on using state legislatures to fighti what they claim is gay marriage’s “attack” on family values across the country. Lawmakers in Arizona, Kansas, Idaho, Tennessee, South Dakota and Maine have all debated and/or passed “religious discrimination” bills to protect for-profit businesses from having to serve gays and lesbians. The Arizona legislature just yesterday passed legislation and it’s now on its way to Gov. Jan Brewer.
I know, I know, the states are the incubators of democracy, where great ideas come from but this, my friends, is pure unadulterated crap. Jim Crow was supposed to have died a long time ago but like some horrid episode of “The Walking Dead,” Zombie Jim Crow has arrived with a vengeance.
Do conservatives actually think it’s OK to deny someone a meal, a photograph or a flower arrangement by using God as their reason? Will national Republican leaders try to pass similar legislation in Washington, D.C. or is it better for this type of Jim Crow foolishness to remain under the radar screen (in other words in the state legislatures)? I wonder how Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus feels about these types of bills being promulgated across the country. He is, after all, the national leader of the Republican Party right?
I really don’t have a problem if a business owner thinks I’m gay. I actually don’t have a problem if a business owner doesn’t like that I’m gay. But here’s the deal business owners of America: I have money and you have a for-profit business that opens its doors to the public. That means you that you don’t get to put up a sign in your window that says “We cater to heterosexual trade only” like this one from a Lancaster, Ohio business during Jim Crow. If I walk into your place of business and am willing to pay what you’re asking for your service or product, who I marry is none of your damned business. I’m a huge fan of equality. I don’t get to ask you if you’re a bigot and you don’t get to ask me if I’m, well, gay.
If you want to be a church, a non-profit or a private club, then you have the right to tell me you don’t want my money. That’s really stupid of you but hey, it’s your inalienable right to be stupid in America. I also have the right to tell my friends you don’t want my money because it’s gay money. And they get to tell their friends, and then we’ll treat you like we did Anita Bryant back in the 1970’s. That didn’t turn out so well for her.
I’m not angry about what’s happening in these state legislatures. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised frankly. Like I said, there are a lot of dumb people out there. But what no one in this country should be allowed to do is profit from bigotry. What no business in this country should be allowed to do is tell me their God tells them I’m a second-class citizen.
By: Jimmy Williams, U. S. News and World Report, February 21, 2014
“A Cudgel For The Oil Industry”: Chevron’s Lobbyist Now Runs The Congressional Science Committee
For Chevron, the second-largest oil company in the country with $26.2 billion in annual profits, it helps to have friends in high places. With little fanfare, one of Chevron’s top lobbyists, Stephen Sayle, has become a senior staff member of the House Committee on Science, the standing congressional committee charged with “maintaining our scientific and technical leadership in the world.”
Throughout much of 2013, Sayle was the chief executive officer of Dow Lohnes Government Strategies, a lobbying firm retained by Chevron to influence Congress. For fees that total $320,000 a year, Sayle and his team lobbied on a range of energy-related issues, including implementation of EPA rules under the Clean Air Act, regulation of ozone standards, as well as “Congressional and agency oversight related to offshore oil, natural gas development and oil spills.”
Sayle’s ethics disclosure, obtained by Republic Report, shows that he was paid $500,000 by Chevron’s lobbying firm before taking his current gig atop the Science Committee.
In recent months, the House Science Committee has become a cudgel for the oil industry, issuing subpoenas and holding hearings to demonize efforts to improve the environment. Some of the work by the committee reflect the lobbying priorities of Chevron.
In December, the Science Committee, now chaired by Representative Lamar Smith (R-TX), held yet another hearing to try to discredit manmade global warming. In August, the committee issued the first subpoena in twenty-one years, demanding “all the raw data from a number of federally funded studies linking air pollution to disease.”
Though Chevron has gone to great lengths to advertise a lofty environmental record, the company continues to break air pollution laws while quietly backpedalling on its prior commitments to renewable energy. A Bloomberg News investigation reported that Chevron estimated that its biofuel investments would return only 5 percent in profits, a far cry from the 15 percent to which the oil giant is accustomed, and quietly moved to shelve renewable fuel units of the company. In California, Chevron is battling the newly created cap-and-trade system for carbon pollution. And in states across the country, Chevron has lobbied and provided financial support to a range of right-wing nonprofits dedicated to repealing carbon-cutting regulations, including the low-carbon fuel standard.
Earlier this year, Dow Lohnes’ lobbying practice merged with Levick, a public affairs firm.
By: Lee Fang, The Nation, February 21, 2014: This post was originally published at RepublicReport.org
“The Vampire Slayer Election”: Democrats’ Best Weapon For Midterms, Fear Of A Red Senate
We’ve known for a long time now that the Democrats have a lot of Senate seats to defend in red states where Barack Obama’s approval numbers aren’t much higher than George Zimmerman’s—indeed, in these states, surely lower.
But I feel like the fear has just set in here in the last couple of weeks; that is, Democrats coming to terms with the possibility-to-likelihood that they might lose the Senate this November, and after that, the utter bleakness of a final Obama two years with both House and Senate in GOP hands, saying no to anything and everything except, of course, any remote whiff of an opportunity to bring impeachment charges over something.
Republicans need a net pickup of six seats. Democrats are trying to defend incumbent status in six red states (North Carolina, Louisiana, Arkansas, Montana, West Virginia, and Alaska); also in two blue ones (Michigan and Iowa). They’re hoping for upsets in two red states (Georgia and Kentucky).
You’ll read a lot about Obamacare and the minimum wage and the War on Women and everything else, and all those things will matter. But only one thing really, really, really matters: turnout. You know the lament: The most loyal Democratic groups—young people, black people, single women, etc.—don’t come out to vote in midterms in big numbers. You may dismiss this as lazy stereotyping, but sometimes lazy stereotyping is true, and this is one of those times.
So how to get these groups energized? Because if core Democratic voting groups turn out to vote in decent numbers, the Democrats will hold the Senate. Two or three of the six will hold on, the Democrats will prevail in the end in Michigan and Iowa, and either Alison Lundergan Grimes in Kentucky or Michelle Nunn in Georgia will eke out a win. Or maybe both—if Democratic voters vote. And if not? Republicans could net seven, eight.
The other side will be motivated: They’re older, white, angry that Obama continues to have the temerity to stand up there and be president, as if somebody elected him. This will be their last chance to push the rage button (well, the Obama-rage button; soon they’ll just start pushing the Hillary-rage button). But what will motivate the liberal side?
I call this the vampire-slayer election. I’ll explain that farther down. But first, let’s hear from Matt Canter, deputy executive director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, making his team’s most plausible case for why 2014 isn’t destined to be a repeat of 2010.
Canter acknowledges that the Democrats talk about “field” in every off-year election. But now, he vows, “This is the year we’re going to say it and mean it.” In the 10 states I mention above, Canter says, the goal is to spend $60 million on field operations alone, with an aggregate 4,000 paid staff in those states. It’s called the Bannock Street Project, after the street that housed the campaign HQ of Michael Bennet, the successful Democratic Senate candidate in that state in 2010. Bennet, you might recall, was one of the few Democrats not running against witches who held on to beat a Tea Party GOPer. The effort will be to quasi-nationalize what happened in Colorado then.
Look also, Canter says, at what happened in Montana and North Dakota in 2012. In both of those states, Obama was getting walloped by Mitt Romney—by 14 and 20 points, respectively. And yet, Democratic Senate candidates won in both states. Turnout was much higher in these two states: It was 53.4 percent nationally, but 59.4 in North Dakota and 61.5 in Montana. In both cases, Jon Tester and Heidi Heitkamp ran well ahead of Obama and are senators today.
Canter says the operations in those 10 states will look like this. Every voter in those states—yes, every single voter in those 10 states, he says—will be given two scores on a scale of 1 to 100: a support score and a turnout score. So if Molly Jones in Paducah is a 58 likely to support the Democrat and 38 likely to turnout, she can expect a lot of contacts from field operatives this fall.
But… contact her saying what? This is where I was a little less impressed by the things Canter had to say. I think he makes a plausible logistical argument. The Colorado, Montana, and North Dakota examples are real things. So are 60 million simoleons and 4,000 operatives. But they still need a compelling, unifying message. This is where we get to Buffy.
One of the all-time great Buffy the Vampire Slayer episodes was Season 3’s “The Wish,” when a female demon grants Cordelia, the classic senior-class Queen Bee-beeyatch, one wish. Cordelia wishes instantly that Buffy Summers—who makes her life far more complicated than she wishes it to be—had never come to Sunnydale. The wish is granted. The next thing you see is, indeed, what would have happened to Sunnydale if Buffy, the vampire slayer, had never hit town. The high-school population is reduced by more than half. There’s a 6 p.m. curfew. Those who remain live in fear. The vamps have taken over. It’s a death town.
See where I’m going here? That’s Washington if the Republicans get the Senate. Vamp town. Imagine if Ruth Bader Ginsberg retires. If the Republicans control the Senate, will they even give a mildly left-of-center Supreme Court nominee a hearing? What about less high-profile federal judgeships across the country? How many of those are going to go vacant? If a Cabinet official or high-ranking sub-Cabinet member resigns, will they even permit the position being re-filled? Remember—41 of the 45 current GOP senators voted against confirming Chuck Hagel as defense secretary. And he was a former senator. And a Republican one at that!
Picture the mad Darrell Issa having a counterpart in the Senate to launch baseless investigations. It’s one thing for the House to be banging on about phony IRS and Benghazi scandals, but the Senate doing it is another matter entirely—far more serious. You really think a Republican Senate won’t? And I haven’t even gotten to regular policy. You think a GOP House and Senate combined won’t try every trick in the book to pressure Obama to fold on Social Security and Medicare?
The unique 2008 election aside, fear is a much better motivator in politics than hope. Democrats need to make their base voters see vividly the potential consequences of a GOP Senate majority and live in mortal fear of it. That and $60 million just may stem the tide.
By: Michael Tomasky, The Daily Beast, February
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