My Conversation with Alan Blinder and Steven Pearlstein

I recently sat down with Princeton economist Alan Blinder and business columnist Steven Pearlstein of The Washington Post. We discussed the crisis on Wall Street and the government's ongoing ongoing efforts to secure the strength of our economy. Here's a bit of what they had to say.

Comments

[avraamjack]

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Pearlstein's point about underpaid government offocials is good.
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Salaries for the top Federal positions should be raised.
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Fed chief, Supreme Court Justices, VP should all get at least 2 million.
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Senator and Cabinet should be 1 million. Rep should be .5 million President should be 5 million.
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Penury should be not be the price of serving your country.
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[fredlonsdale]

Some would say the top guy should not make more than 10 or 15 times the bottom guy. That's the way it used to be.

In the private sector, compensation was set by a mixture of supply and demand, merit and longevity. That has changed. In the private sector, top management discovered they could monkey with the system to bring their compensation to outrageous levels while keeping the supply and demand method in place for lower level management and rank and file workers. These CEO's and COO's are not footbal stars.
I have no problem with the private sector paying their CEO's outrageous salaries. If the stockholders and customers are happy with profligacy of their compensation policies. Fine! Screw 'em. But look at what it has wrought on the NAtion.

I agree that public sector employees are underpaid and that they have been losing ground. But I do not see any groundswell of opinion that their salaries and benefits should be competitive with the private sector... escpecially at the CEO level.