WASHINGTON – Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner says the Obama administration doesn't want to place caps on executives' pay — even though it believes excessive compensation led to risk-taking that contributed to the financial crisis.

Geithner said the administration will seek legislation that will permit shareholders to vote on executive pay packages, but the results would not be binding on boards of directors. The administration will still restrict compensation at companies that are receiving taxpayer assistance through its $700 billion financial bailout program.

Geithner said the shareholder measures, as well as legislation to keep corporate compensation committees independent from boards of directors, will reinforce pay guidelines that the administration released Wednesday. Those principles encourage corporate boards to adopt pay packages that reward long-term performance rather than short-term gains.

On the one hand I agree with the concept but on the other hand this is a slippery slope towards socialism. Huge bonus payments to CEOs of failed companies should be a crime against the stockholders.

imo (which does not account for much)

if they are recieving bailout money theey should be capped

and bonuses should be stopped (after all if they need bailout money why do they deserve a bonus)

but if they are not recieving bailout money ir id non of the govt. business but all top execs pay should be public info to anyone that is contemplating investing with them (as should the bonus program as well)

Interesting words going to be pretty hard to enforce that kind of legislation of private companies.

I don't pretend to know a lot about this but aren't the shareholder/stockholders part of the problem? What leads to socialism? To me it looks like ceo's make out no matter what they do or how irresponsible they are.