Billionaire Bill Gates says Wall St pay too high
Wed Nov 11, 2009 10:16pm EST
Wed Nov 11, 2009 10:16pm EST
* Bill Gates warns limits on Wall St pay could backfire
* Gates says government ownership of AIG "unnatural"
By Michelle Nichols
NEW YORK, Nov 11 (Reuters) - Bill Gates said on Wednesday he believes Wall Street pay is "often too high" and that U.S. government ownership of American International Group Inc (AIG.N) worries him because it has devalued the giant insurer.
The billionaire Microsoft (MSFT.O) founder, who retired in 2008 to concentrate on philanthropy, blamed a 1993 U.S. law that capped executive salaries at $1 million and warned that further bids to try limit Wall Street pay could also backfire.
"It was a bad milestone in controlling executive salaries when that $1 million cap went on," Gates told a discussion on philanthropy at the 92nd Street Y cultural and community center in New York City.
"The compensation problem is a very interesting problem. I do think compensation is often too high, but it's a very tough problem to solve," said Gates, who was also ranked by Forbes on Wednesday as the 10th most powerful person in the world.
The $1 million limit on salaries encouraged companies to instead give executives lucrative stock options, sending pay to vast new heights.
U.S. officials are again pushing for Wall Street pay practices to be reformed to curb the excessive risk-taking that fueled the crisis and pushed the financial system to the brink of collapse last year.
Huge pay packages for banks and other financial firms have ignited public anger at a time the U.S. unemployment rate is at a 26-year high of 10.2 percent.
"What happened was a surprise to people and it comes from everybody being so optimistic and over ebullient and having a view of risk and price appreciation that was completely out of kilter," Gates said of the financial crisis.
The U.S. government spent hundreds of billions of dollars during the crisis bailing out several Wall Street firms, including Bank of America Corp (BAC.N), Citigroup Inc (C.N) and AIG which is now 80 percent owned by U.S. taxpayers.
"I do worry that when the government owns an entity like AIG that you can greatly devalue that entity by having it essentially have to behave as though it part of the government," Gates said.
"It's an unnatural situation when the government owns a lot of a private company. Unfortunately there is a view that that should exist for a long term. There's some devaluation of what that asset would have been worth if it hadn't had to go through that kind of management structure. It's unavoidable," he said. (Editing by Lincoln Feast)
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P.S. Isn't this a case of the pot calling the kettle black?
I believe that Bill Gates really has lost touch with reality.
He believes that nobody else should achieve the indecent wealth that he has attained.
How ironic that a man that converted his $46 Billion assets into Euros a few years ago should now call for a limit on the amount of dollars that American financial entrepreneurs should earn?
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Bill Gates is calling for a control on how much Wall Street traders should earn. Several weeks ago, President Obama stressed that CEO's of major corporations (ones that received bail-outs?) should have a salary cap. My response to these nouveaux riches idealists is: Why stop at salary limits on Wall Street movers and shakers, or Executives of America's major corporations? Why not also limit the salaries of government (public servants) employees, especially politicians and administrative officials (cabinet members)? I believe it's a crime for most of the citizens to suffice with a supply of ever dwindling crumbs while the elected officials, and those appointed to represent them gallivant around on multiple Hundreds of thousands of dollars stipends (and get $10 -20,000 increases regularly); Living a separate reality from that of the average constituent who barely breaks even after job cuts, rising prices, diminishing dollar value, etc.
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Hypocrisy is my response to all those caviar eating jet-set amnesiacs that have forgotten what it's like to have to work all week for peanuts; Here in the land of the Constitution; Not, Tajikistan!
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Freedom begins at home; Or, has is it now changed to Democracy everywhere else, and tyranny for the natives in the USA?
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Arsenio.
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