In article ,
"HeyBub" wrote:


Let's get up-to-date, Slick. It was the PRESENCE of regulations that
caused the current collapse. Specifically the Community Redevelopment
Act "enhancements" in 1995 that mandated banks provide low (or no)
interest loans to people who were simply unqualified.

There is another on-going regulation that has played a BIG part in
most of the financial hoohas over the last 15 years or so. The Congress
passed a law that mandated salaries over $1 million could not be
deducted. In an attempt to "align the interests of top management with
those of the shareholders", compensation in the form of
"performance-based" and stock options was treated favorably for tax
purposes.
This had three results: It put a floor under the salaries of the
bigwigs of $1 million. (2). It resulted in total compensation being a
few orders of magnitude above what any board of directors would have had
the balls to give the dudes and dudettes in salary and (3). It actually
divorced the interests of the bigwigs and the stockholders by making
80-90% of their compensation dependent on ever-increasing metrics and
stock prices. I don't think it is just happenstance that every major
corporate scandal since then is to a great extent based on executive's
actions trying to boost stock price and "performance".