Wall Street pay plan coming by mid-June, Geithner says
This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.
Mark the calendar: The Obama administration’s plan to rein in compensation practices at financial companies will be rolled out by mid-June, Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner said today.
‘We’re going to need to see very, very substantial change,’ Geithner said in an interview on Bloomberg TV’s ‘Political Capital with Al Hunt,’ to air tonight.
From Bloomberg:
Geithner said that Wall Street’s pay practices, which include big year-end bonuses, encouraged excessive risk-taking and helped precipitate the financial crisis. What’s needed is a set of broad standards that financial supervisors can use to make sure that doesn’t happen again, he said. The administration’s pay plan would be part of a proposed comprehensive overhaul of financial regulation aimed at both protecting consumers and reducing vulnerability to crises.
But Geithner has already said that the administration wouldn’t pursue Wall Street’s worst nightmare: pay caps. ‘I don’t think our government should set caps on compensation,’ he said at the National Press Club on Monday.
In the interview, Geithner also scoffs at critics who say the Obama administration is hell-bent on adopting a socialist agenda.
‘It’s the least plausible charge anybody could say,’ Geithner said. ‘The president understands how important markets and businesses are to the future prosperity of the U.S.’
-- Tom Petruno