Wealth // Current TV

Is Congress ready to take a pay cut?

While members of Congress make an annual salary $174,000, many members of Congress are fabulously wealthy. See the link below for the 50 Richest Members of Congress (Updated).

http://dailybail.com/home/the-50-richest-members-of-congress-2011-update.html

****

In the fall of 2001, the Senate pushed aside an effort to block lawmakers’ annual pay raise, just as the House had done a few months before. The move wasn’t surprising — both chambers regularly consented to getting an automatic salary bump with little controversy.

A lot has changed in a decade.

Congress hasn’t accepted a pay increase since 2008, leaving rank-and-file members’ salary at $174,000. And with the economy stalled, the unemployment rate high and public opinion of the legislative branch historically low, lawmakers probably won’t see an increase anytime soon.

But how far has the pendulum really swung? Beyond simply forgoing an annual raise, several members have proposed bills that actually would cut their paychecks. So far, leaders haven’t shown much interest in scheduling any of those bills for the floor.

Reid’s (D-Nev.) office declined to comment.

Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-Wash.) has found it difficult to drum up interest in her bill to cut the pay of members, the president and the vice president by 10 percent. The measure has just one co-sponsor.

“It’s more uphill than I expected,” she said. “To me it seemed like a no-brainer idea.”

For many years, the belief that members deserved an annual raise prevailed on Capitol Hill. For roughly a decade beginning in the mid-1990s, Republican and Democratic leaders observed an informal truce on the issue, with the result that pay increases went through nearly every year.

“There was an unspoken agreement among the leadership that we would not attack each other and the [party campaign] committees would not attack each other” over the raises, recalled Steve Elmendorf, who served as top aide to former House minority leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.).While members of Congress make an annual salary $174,000, many members of Congress are... more

maasanova
added this
1 year ago
|
0 comments

Chant of 'tax the rich' growing louder in nation

Billionaire Warren Buffett may not seem to have much in common with angry laborers at... more

Cabal
added this
1 year ago
|
0 comments

Empathy -or- Job Creators

Let's tackle the myth of the wealthy being "Job Creators"

asherp
added this
1 year ago
|
2 comments

The Daily Blender: Billionaire Sheikh Carves His Name in Desert So Big It Can Be Seen From Space (VIDEO)

Billionaire Arab Sheikh Hamad Bin Hamdan Al Nahyan, 63, carved his name into the... more

dryeraser
added this
1 year ago
|
0 comments

FDR Has A Word Or Two About Taxes - 1936. | Newstalgia

Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was.

Gordonskene
added this
1 year ago
|
0 comments

'Too Big to Fail or Too Big to Change' — The Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation

Editor’s Note: Chad Johnson is a partner in the litigation practice at Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann LLP. This post is based on an article by Ross Shikowitz in the Spring 2011 edition of the BLB&G publication Advocate for Institutional Investors.

Two and half years removed from the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, the investing public has grown increasingly frustrated with the lack of criminal prosecutions of, and absence of truly significant fines levied against, the senior executives and companies responsible for igniting the subprime meltdown. Pundits have criticized the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) and the Department of Justice (the “DOJ”) as capitulating to the interests of “big finance,” citing SEC settlements that have been characterized as mere “slaps on the wrist” and the DOJ’s failure to convict a single executive responsible for creating the “great recession” despite significant evidence of intentional misconduct.

For decades, the public’s trust in the integrity of U.S. capital markets was a source of economic stability and unparalleled prosperity. To maintain this trust, investors must believe that they compete on a relatively equal playing field and that the laws governing the markets will be strictly enforced. In furtherance of these goals, violators of federal rules face civil penalties from the SEC or criminal prosecution by the DOJ. In connection with previous corporate scandals, the government held a significant number of the principal wrongdoers civilly and criminally accountable for their misconduct. In the wake of the current financial crisis, however, many argue that the lack of such accountability has eroded the public’s faith in U.S. capital markets.

Now, more than ever, private lawsuits are needed to supplement the existing regulatory structure, both to ensure that shareholders are adequately compensated for their losses and to send a strong message that fraudulent conduct will not be tolerated. Indeed, institutional investors continue to vigorously prosecute suits against the companies and executives at the heart of the mortgage crisis, well after the SEC and DOJ have shuttered their civil and criminal investigations. While it remains to be seen whether government regulators will eventually force Wall Street executives to answer for their improprieties, it is clear that sophisticated public pension funds will continue to play an essential role in obtaining compensation for injured investors and deterring future wrongdoing by corporate executives.

Wrongdoers Have Largely Escaped Government Penalties

While the SEC has reached several settlements in connection with misconduct related to the financial meltdown, those settlements have been characterized as “cheap,” “hollow,” “bloodless,” and merely “cosmetic,” as noted by Columbia University law professor John C. Coffee in a recent article. Moreover, one of the SEC’s own Commissioners, Luis Aguilar, has recently admitted that the SEC’s penalty guidelines are “seriously flawed” and have “adversely impact[ed]” civil enforcement actions. “We continue to have in place…a misguided approach to how to weigh factors one considers when deciding whether to seek a corporate penalty…and the Commission fails to appropriately focus on deterrence,” Aguilar explained.

Perhaps the most cogent criticisms of the inadequacy of the SEC’s settlements with companies and their senior officers can be found in rulings from federal judges considering whether to approve such agreements. For example, Judge Jed Rakoff castigated the SEC for its attempted settlement of charges that Bank of America failed to disclose key information to investors in connection with its acquisition of Merrill Lynch (“Merrill”), including that Merrill was on the brink of insolvency (necessitating a massive taxpayer bailout), and that Bank of America had entered into a secret agreement to allow Merrill to pay its executives billions of dollars in bonuses prior to the close of the merger regardless of Merrill’s financial condition. The SEC agreed to settle its action against Bank of America for $33 million in August 2009, even though its acquisition of Merrill resulted in what The New York Times characterized as “one of the greatest destructions of shareholder value in financial history.” In rejecting the deal, Judge Rakoff declared that the proposed settlement was “misguided,” “inadequate” and failed to “comport with the most elementary notions of justice and morality.” Indeed, Judge Rakoff described the agreement as “[a] contrivance designed to provide the SEC with the façade of enforcement and the management of the Bank with a quick resolution of an embarrassing inquiry.” When the SEC later submitted a revised $150 million settlement for approval, Judge Rakoff reluctantly approved the agreement while “shaking [his] head,” explaining that it was “paltry” in nature and “[w]hile better than nothing, [was] half-baked justice at best.”
.

The SEC was also recently criticized for failing to tack fraud claims onto its “record” $550 million settlement with Goldman Sachs (“Goldman”) in July 2010, even though the company admitted that it failed to disclose critical information to investors relating to its ABACUS transaction, a deal that was “born-tolose,” according to Taibbi. Specifically, Goldman chose not to tell its clients that prominent hedge fund manager John Paulson had selected the securities included in the ABACUS vehicle, while at the same time betting against the value of those same securities. Indeed, because of the strength of the claims against Goldman and the concurrent criminal probe by the DOJ, many investors expected a settlement in excess of $1 billion. John Carney, a CNBC senior editor, noted that in light of the deal, “somewhere Goldman’s lawyers and executives are probably popping the cork on a bottle of bubbly. This settlement was a win for them.”
Further, a review of the DOJ’s recently released statistics supporting Operation Broken Trust’s purported accomplishments reveals that the DOJ’s figures are, at best, unsupported. As columnists such as Andrew Ross Sorkin of The New York Times and Jonathan Weil of Bloomberg have detailed, several of the criminal and civil cases touted by the DOJ were commenced before Operation Broken Trust was initiated, and certain of the criminal convictions that the DOJ highlighted did not lead to any criminal sanctions whatsoever.

The lack of meaningful government sanctions raises legitimate questions as to whether corporate executives will continue to evade responsibility for their actions. Many have described the financial crisis as “unexpected” or “unforeseeable.” In contrast, the recent report from the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (“FCIC”) makes clear that the mortgage meltdown was an avoidable event born of fraud, as well as of failures in corporate governance and risk management. Significantly, the FCIC explicitly concluded that banks selling mortgage products failed to disclose critical information to investors. Indeed, a former president of one of the top mortgage research companies testified before the FCIC that, even though approximately 28 percent of the loans issued to homeowners with poor credit examined by his company failed to meet even basic underwriting standards, nearly half of those loans were nevertheless packaged and unloaded onto unsuspecting investors. According to publicly released emails, “vomit” and “crap” were the terms of art used by UBS employees in 2007 to describe the company’s assetbacked securities; a Bear Stearns Deal Manager wrote in 2006 that investors were being sold a “SACK OF S**T.”Editor’s Note: Chad Johnson is a partner in the litigation practice at Bernstein... more

figgdimension
added this
1 year ago
|
2 comments

Nazi link to thalidomide disaster | Herald Sun

Andrew Rule- A FORMER Nazi doctor grew rich promoting the drug that caused the... more

figgdimension
added this
1 year ago
|
4 comments

Because You Can’t Get A Table At Nobu in Peking

China’s ‘Wealth Drain’: New Signs That Rich Chinese Are Set on... more

joeeddy
added this
1 year ago
|
0 comments

People of Egypt: you have paid for Gamal Mubarak's palace

This morning, I received a set of photos of Gamal Mubarak's palace in... more

Aimee_Kligman
added this
1 year ago
|
1 comment

The not so invisible arm of Saudi Arabia in Egypt's (counter) revolution

The Saudis are not happy. The democratic wind which is sweeping the Middle East is not... more

Aimee_Kligman
added this
2 years ago
|
1 comment

Brother’s Koch: True American Victims

Charles and David Koch both agree that President Obama is anti-business."He's the most radical president we’ve ever had as a nation,"… "And has done more damage to the free enterprise system and long-term prosperity than any president we’ve ever had.

Those poor little Rich boys.

Influencing our Politicians to further their billion dollar interests isn’t enough for them. Now they are the victims of a Marxist plot. We ordinary,(little) people should be kissing their filthy rich asses and thanking them for polluting the environment, not paying taxes and greatly contributing to making life miserable for the working-class.

Here’s a sample of what they think is so unfair.
Since Obama was inaugurated, the Dow Jones has increased more than 50% -- from 8,000 to more than 12,000; the wealthiest received a massive tax cut; the top marginal tax rate was three times less than during the Eisenhower years and substantially lower than during the Reagan years; income and wealth inequality are so vast and rising that it is easily at Third World levels; meanwhile, "the share of U.S. taxes paid by corporations has fallen from 30 percent of federal revenue in the 1950s to 6.6 percent in 2009." During this same time period, the unemployment rate has increased from 7.7% to 8.9%; millions of Americans have had their homes foreclosed; and the number of Americans living below the poverty line increased by many millions, the largest number since the statistic has been recorded. Can you smell Obama's radical egalitarianism and Marxist anti-business hatred yet?

Where would this Country be without super wealthy, delusional cretins whining about how unfair it all is? Oh, the inhumanity of it all!

If all of us little people pitch in our extra spending money maybe together we can afford buy them each a pair of socks for the Holidays this year. I suggest a note to go along with the packages stating, “Stuff these where the sun doesn’t shine”!

Read on… and don’t forget to bring a bucket and some tissues for all the tears you will shed.

http://www.salon.com/news/wall_street/index.html?story=/opinion/greenwald/2011/03/27/kochCharles and David Koch both agree that President Obama is... more

FLeggplant
added this
2 years ago
|
121 comments

New Rule: Television Networks Have to Quit Trying to Put a Happy Ending on America's Wealth Disparity | Video Cafe

Funny stuff, but sometimes getting the truth out there via the humor is the only way... more

kennymotown
added this
2 years ago
|
134 comments

Carlos Slim Helu Has Become The Richest Man Of World

Carlos Slim has beaten Bill Gates to reach the top of 2011 Forbes billionaires list.... more

shaadimeo
added this
2 years ago
|
1 comment

FEDERAL RESERVE HAS STOLEN AMERICA!

AND IT ISN'T EVEN A GOVERNMENT OWNED INSTITUTION! Thanks to the... more

COMMONSENSEFORCOMMONGOOD_COM
added this
2 years ago
|
2 comments

Secret Millionaire Show Will Tell Things About Rich People

Wealth can give all types of happiness to us. It makes us confident and wise. But... more

shaadimeo
added this
2 years ago
|
1 comment

Taxes for the poor, benefits for the rich

The situation in the Middle East has prompted others around the world to speak out... more

bundlebear
added this
2 years ago
|
0 comments

Orwell Rolls in his Grave

examines the current and past relationships between the media, the US government and... more

bundlebear
added this
2 years ago
|
10 comments

For the Rich, the Economy has Recovered

The surging stock market and metals market has given the wealthy the liquidity it... more

corderodedios
added this
2 years ago
|
0 comments

Weekly Audit: The Real Legacy of Reaganomics

By Lindsay Beyerstein, Media Consortium blogger Sunday marked the 100th anniversary... more

MediaConsortium
added this
2 years ago
|
0 comments

Rules for a happy and healthy life!

They don't say health is wealth just like that. If you're among those who... more

eva2
added this
2 years ago
|
0 comments

select your country

Community Spotlight

TAGS

tagged w/ Wealth

top videos

find current on tv

find current online

recent comments

© 2013 Current TV, LLC All Rights Reserved

the basics

follow us online

tools

stay in touch

© 2013 Current TV, LLC
All Rights Reserved