As the President said about A-Rod's steroid use: "There are no shortcuts" - you tarnish those who played it straight and your entire career and it's not worth it.
When it comes to the hard work of addressing the economic crisis and the budget debt that President Obama inherited, what is true for baseball is true for politics: we can't take shortcuts. We will need economic recovery, a new banking approach, and entitlement reform -- all of which will be rough, take time, and require hard choices, but can be done.
As the Senate passes their version of President Obama's American recovery plan and final negotiations begin, we turn to the new banking approach announced by Obama's Treasury Secretary.
While President Obama's Main Street Bailout is gaining public support for shared sacrifice, the Wall Street Bailout needs a recruitment drive for a few good men and women willing to sacrifice profit for the common good.
Troubling are news reports that after the team of rivals debated, the White House decided that CEOs and banks will not be subject to the same rigorous loan conditions as everyday homeowners, consumers, and small businesses squeezed by the credit crunch - that must change.
As we have learned from recent events, nothing stings so much as hypocrisy - or as the President puts it: we cannot have two kinds of people - those who follow the rules and those who don't.
Is there really no way to ensure a single standard for Wall Street and Main Street? Are there really no CEOs willing to serve as Lee Iacocca did?
Exhaust those possibilities before the Geithner plan becomes the Obama plan.
I am not certain there are Iacocca's out there. He did not crash his company but he was a white knight. I am beginning to wonder where his breed went. I thrived in commodity trading (long ago in the 90's) where once you "said, DONE" the contract was made. No lying, no whining (well maybe a little LOL) but your word was your bond and hundreds of millions of dollars changed hands this way. It appears that Wall Street has lost its integrity like so many other sectors of the nation. President Obama has to keep pushing service to country and community AND business and community leaders must step forward. If they do not, we need new leaders.
Mr. Iacocca also was employed at one time or another by each of the Big Three.
Oh, and the Minivan was introduced during that time too, saving Chrysler and eventually setting us up for SUVs.
"Lee Iacocca set the precedent in 1978, when he was chairman of Chrysler. Realizing the automaker was in dire financial straits, Iacocca fired executives and pushed the United Auto Workers to accept salary and benefit cuts. In an effort to lead by example, Iacocca lowered his own salary to $1 a year. Five years later, with a helping hand from the government, the company was restored to financial health." http://www.businessweek.com/managing/content/sep2007/ca20070914_637253.htm?chan=careers_managing+your+board+page_ceo+compensation
If the self-interested car CEO could work for a buck a year, why not the self-interested American bank CEO?
So, what Mr. Iacocca *did* was fire a bunch of executives (i.e.: executive reorganization), and extract some wage and benefit concessions from the UAW, in a company where labor costs were a significant part of doing business.
Applying the idea of wage and benefit cuts to banks (and insurance companies and investment houses) appeals, but a lot of the compensation that many people find objectionable come from bonuses outside of the salaries and these bonuses have been used to signal what the status of the employees are,
It would have helped to mention that in the article.
P.S.: I doubt that the banking and financial CEOs have the same appreciation of their situation as Mr. Iacocca did.