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WASHINGTON -- Sen. Bob Corker, a Republican who serves on the Senate Banking Committee, has called for a hearing on the $2-billion trading loss by JPMorgan Chase & Co., saying that "policies are going to be derived out of what’s happened." Corker, who was a key participant in the debate over the 2010 financial reform law, said it was important for policymakers to get the facts about the situation and whether pending regulations would have prevented it.

In recent months we've become well aware of how U.S. House Republicans are trying to decimate services of vital importance to women. Don't take your eyes off your local statehouse, though: There, legislators have pushed the war on women equally far, cracking down on reproductive rights and cutting funding for education and health programs that largely benefit women and children. ( ... ) Conservative state legislators have also introduced more than 1,000 pieces of anti-choice legislation since January, according to the Guttmacher Institute. In Florida, the state Legislature brought up 18 bills that attempted to tighten abortion laws, and several...

Think of the community development department as the place where government and industry must do some serious kissy-face.

Ummmm. I’m not really sure what to say here. Is Chris suggesting that today’s CEOs should be jumping out of windows in shame for what he thinks they ‘ve done to the economy? Or, is he just getting misty eyed for the good old days? Help me out here my little mobsters. The conversation between him and noted lefty, seniors will just have to die, economist Robert Reich, concerned the debt ceiling battle and the Republican refusal to raise taxes on the rich. Chris lays the blame of this current recession directly at the feet of the “wealthy” … who...

The Wall Street Journal CEO Compensation Study was conducted by Hay Group, a management-consulting firm. The study analyzes CEO pay from the biggest 350 U.S. public companies by revenue that filed their definitive proxy statements between May 1, 2010, and April 30, 2011. Survey Methodology & Terms Definitions Footnotes How to Use This Chart: Click on a column heading to sort by that category. For an individual executive's full compensation details, as well as a link to the proxy statement, click the relevant row. All figures in thousands

Go figure, yet another example of allegedly non-existent rhetoric from a liberal using violent and/or gun-related imagery. Not to worry though, apparently it's only conservatives who set off left wingers when this occurs and and not the other way around. Back on Dec. 16, I wrote about a conversation between liberal radio host Ed Schultz and his producer James "Holmy" Holm, who also helps Schultz with "The Ed Show" on MSNBC. Schultz's radio listeners have grown quite familiar with Holm, who has come on the air to chat with Schultz several times a week over the last year. Let's hear...

WASHINGTON: With trade high on his agenda, some 200 odd top US business chiefs, including soft drink giant Pepsico's India-born CEO Indra Nooyi , are expected to join US President Barack Obama on his India visit next month. Also expected are Honeywell CEO David M Cote, who co-chairs the India-US CEO Forum with Tata group chairman Ratan Tata . So is Terry McGraw, CEO of leading publishing house McGraw Hill, who took over from Nooyi as the chairman of the US Indian Business Council , representing 300 top US companies last June. Two more of 12 US forum members, Louis...

The list of attendees at President Barack Obama's dinner with CEOs was released Monday evening. Obama dined with members of the Business Council, a group of 150 chief executives of leading private-sector companies. The president was expected to make his pitch for financial regulatory reform legislation, as well as solicit advice on how to grow the economy. Guests convened at 6:45 p.m. in the State Dining Room, but a list of attendees was only released after the dinner began. Several participants have drawn attention during the Obama administration.

The House Democrats' Torquemada got cold feet. Self-styled "chief in quisitor" Henry Waxman announced this week that he's canceling a planned show trial of corporate executives who called public attention to the financial hit they're taking as a result of President Obama's health-care mandate. Business owners can breathe a small sigh of relief. But the witch hunt isn't over. You'll recall that Waxman fired off nasty-grams to the heads of Deere, Caterpillar, Verizon and AT&T last month, demanding their presence at a congressional auto de fé. Their sin? Publicly reporting the costs and consequences of federal health-care taxes on their...

Just on Fox, as breaking news, more to follow

Henry Waxman, whom Michelle Malkin has dubbed "the Witch Hunter of Capitol Hill" understands where his loyalty lies. If he were faithful to the principals of our founders then his loyalties would be to his constituents, his state and the republic, but of course there is ample evidence to the contrary. Appearances aside, Waxman is not a mere stooge to the future former president and his gross clique of radicals and sycophants. Where then do Waxman's loyalties lie? This past week Mr. Waxman declared war on the CEOs of Caterpillar, John Deere, AT&T, Verizon and all others who dare to...

NEW YORK (AP) - An analysis by The Associated Press shows that New York Times Co. CEO Janet Robinson got roughly $4.9 million in compensation in 2009. Robinson's base salary fell 4 percent to $962,500. But she got a bonus of about $2.3 million, four times the size of her 2008 bonus. Robinson also received stock options that were worth $1.6 million when they were granted. About $560,000 of that was meant to replace options that had been given in 2008 and were later voided because they exceeded a limit set by company bylaws.

In his bestseller "Inside USA," the hugely reada ble journalist John Gun ther described America as it was in the last year of World War II. He interviewed hundreds of politicians, businessmen and journalists, but only four men rated a separate chapter -- three politicians and Henry J. Kaiser, the California construction magnate who built dams and ships and manufactured concrete and steel and aluminum. Kaiser was, Gunther wrote, "tough, creative, packed with ideas and energy, above all a man who likes to make things." But he was also, he noted, a "link of enterprise by government, since government was...

When he met Monday with the CEOs of the nation's largest banks, President Obama's message was simple: We gave to you, now you give to us. That assumes that a lack of bank lending is holding back the economy, undermining job creation. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is the president's own policies that are holding back the economy. Recessions are first characterized by significant job losses. At some point, these taper off, as the boom's excess corrects. For instance, the almost 2 million construction jobs lost after the housing bubble burst are probably most or all of...

One lesson that Democrats learned from the failure of HillaryCare in 1994 is that they had to buy the silence, if not the outright support, of the business class. They've done this brilliantly by peddling the illusion that ObamaCare will "lower costs" for employers. But slowly as the legislative details become clear, it is dawning on executives of businesses large and small that reform is boiling down to a huge tax increase to finance a gigantic new entitlement. The cost and quality of care are afterthoughts that will both suffer, as a growing roll of medical experts have been writing...

Four of the most powerful business leaders in America arrived at the White House one day last month for lunch with President Barack Obama, sitting down in his private dining room just steps from the Oval Office. But even for powerful CEOs, there’s no such thing as a free lunch: White House staffers collected credit card numbers for each executive, and carefully billed them for the cost of the meal with the president.

COPENHAGEN – A global summit of business leaders urged governments to order steep and mandatory cuts in greenhouse gases Tuesday, favoring a cap-and-trade system instead of a tax to set a market price for carbon waste. The strong consensus among the 500 CEOs and other top business experts attending the World Business Summit on Climate Change added momentum to prospects of forging a new U.N. climate treaty in six months. Leaders agreed at the end of the three-day conference on the need for "immediate and substantial" emission cuts by 2020, based on the best science available, followed by cuts of...

Treasury Secretary Geithner said President Obama is ready to remove bank CEOs in the same way he demanded the resignation of General Motors Corp.'s CEO, Rick Wagoner. See, http://twitter.com/IlGOPAssembly

your brains or your signature will be on this resignation letter. That's what Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner might as well be saying to the next corporate CEOs he intends to muscle out of their posts. Bloomberg reports Treasury's highest-ranking tax evader said he is gearing up to turn senior management and boards of directors at banks that require "exceptional" assistance from the U.S. government into roadkill. "If in the future, banks need exceptional assistance in order to get through this, then we will make sure that assistance comes," while ensuring taxpayers are protected, Geithner said today in an interview on...

On the heels of the resignation of General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner, the Service Employees International Union is urging President Barack Obama to oust Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis. “It defies logic, common-sense, and responsible governance to punish the auto industry while letting financial institutions off the hook,” SEIU President Andy Stern said, announcing his call for Lewis’s job Tuesday. The SEIU has begun circulating an online petition, calling on the administration to “show the door to CEO Ken Lewis.” “Firing GM's CEO is a positive step towards restructuring a broken industry,” Stern said. “But the Obama Administration needs...

New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is in discussions with Rep. Barney Frank and other lawmakers on a plan to tie Wall Street pay to the long-term performance of the firms. Mr. Frank (D., Mass.), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, and other prominent Democrats appear to back such a plan, though no legislation has been introduced. Barney Frank "We plan to put laws into effect, no question," said Mr. Frank. "We have to address this 'heads I win, tails I break even' issue." Compensation became a big issue in late 2008 when the government was forced to...

One of the things liberals love to do when making shrills against conservatives is to claim that they are backed by big business corporate capitalist elitists. Conservatives they say are interested in advancing the agenda of the rich against the poor. Conservatives are champions of the rich while they crap all over the poor. They only want to protect the privileged and elite. They give tax cuts to the super rich by cutting programs and putting our nation in debt. Also according to liberals, by electing Barack Obama, we would undo this and require that the rich pay their share....

The U.S. financial system is like a heart attack patient. Joe America (financial system) ate fast food (spent more than he made) at every meal, didn’t exercise (ran up debt), and worked late (didn’t save) at the office 6 days per week for the last 30 years. This ultimately led to a massive heart attack (worldwide financial crisis) and the patient has been kept alive through tremendous doses of drugs (interest rate cuts, Federal Reserve injections) and quadruple bypass surgery (bank, insurance company and car company bailouts) to keep the blood (money) flowing to the heart. The Chief Surgeon (President...

While it may look superficially similar to the recent implosions of such investment giants as Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Lehman, the takeover and bailout of AIG is quite different, and means that the market is entering the next and even more dangerous phase. What is driving the fall of AIG - and potential government losses that may far, far exceed the $85 billion bailout announced late on September 16th - is not mortgages or real estate (directly), but fears that AIG's huge, global credit-default swap positions will unravel. The $62 trillion dollar credit derivatives market is 50 times the...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Top executives at major businesses last year made as much money in one day of work on the job as the average worker made over the entire year, according to a report released on Wednesday. Chief executive officers from the nation's biggest businesses averaged nearly $11 million in total compensation, according to the 14th annual CEO compensation survey released jointly by the Institute for Policy Studies based in Washington and United for a Fair Economy, a national organization based in Boston. At the same time, workers at the bottom rung of the U.S. economy received the first...

President Bush yesterday said there is a growing "income inequality" gap between rich and poor Americans, and told companies they should rethink the giant compensation packages they offer top executives. The markedly populist message, a divergence from the past, in which Mr. Bush has accused critics of practicing class warfare, was all the more noteworthy given his venue -- a speech at Federal Hall in New York, in the middle of Wall Street, the capital of capitalism. But the president called for conservative market-based answers, including demanding that Congress renew trade-promotion authority, which allows him to negotiate trade agreements then...

Why our CEOs are warming to Kyoto. (Editor's note: We reintroduce today the Potomac Watch column from Washington. It will appear on Fridays and be written by Kimberley Strassel, a member of The Wall Street Journal's editorial board. She joined the Journal in 1994 and has worked as a reporter in Europe and as an editor and editorial writer in New York.) Washington this week officially welcomed the newest industry on the hunt for financial and regulatory favors. Big CarbonCap may have the same dollar-sign agenda as Big Oil or Big Pharma, but don't expect Nancy Pelosi to admit to...

In an era when our media and even our education system exalt emotions, while ignoring facts and logic, perhaps we should not be surprised that so many people explain economics by "greed." Today there are adults -- including educated adults -- who explain multimillion-dollar corporate executives' salaries as being due to "greed." Think about it: I could become so greedy that I wanted a fortune twice the size of Bill Gates' -- but this greed would not increase my income by one cent. If you want to explain why some people have astronomical incomes, it cannot be simply because of...

WASHINGTON - Chief executives of 10 major corporations urged Congress on Monday to require limits on greenhouse gases this year, contending voluntary efforts to combat climate change are inadequate. The call for immediate action came on the eve of President Bush's State of the Union address in which he is expected to reiterate that the industry on its own is making progress in curtailing the growth of heat-trapping emissions without the need of government intervention. But the executives and leaders of four major environmental organizations said in a letter to Bush that mandatory emissions caps are needed to reduce the...

When I was a kid, I shoveled snow to make a few dollars. One time, a friend and I did a driveway for a grumpy old neighbor. We pooped out before all the snow was gone, and when we asked to be paid, the old man refused. "You don't finish, I don't pay," he said. We skulked off. But those were the rules of the marketplace. You wanna get paid, you gotta do the job. Simple enough, right? Apparently not in corporate America, where CEOs regularly leave their companies in no better shape than when they got there, yet walk...

Talking to a colleague recently, the subject of CEO salaries arose. Once again, I gained great insight into the liberal mind. He started by stating his astonishment at some figures. “In England,” he began, “the difference between the salary of a CEO and an average worker is 24 percent. Here, it’s 416 percent (unconfirmed, but I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt)! That’s ridiculous.” Knowing industry is far more ambitious and less burdened here than in England – and finding myself more and more these days in the role as a defender of free market capitalism – I retorted,...

the only way you can keep corporate America purring is to give CEOs compensation packages that are 187 times higher than what's earned by the average worker in their companies, then go ahead. Do it. Let market forces reign. But if the ever-increasing levels of extremely high executive pay are largely a case of the CEOs having their way with timid boards of directors paying little or no attention to performance criteria, stop it immediately. Few things could be more damaging to the free-market system. There are three reasons: One is that dishing out millions upon millions of dollars to...

Not only were neither Saddam Hussein nor Iraq mentioned in a film about the Iraq-Kuwait war, but the Manchurian corporation's technicians rewire the brains of the abducted U.S. soldiers with false memories of al-Qaida-type jihadists so that they will lay the blame for their terrorist acts on an innocent Muslim jihadist. Why don't the movies have plausible, real-world villains anymore? One reason is that a plethora of stereotype-sensitive advocacy groups, representing everyone from hyphenated ethnic minorities and the physically handicapped to Army and CIA veterans, now maintain liaisons in Hollywood to protect their images. The studios themselves often have "outreach...

For all my conservative friends: Anyone who has ever lived in the Boston area is probably familiar with the Boston Phoenix, a far-left newspaper. Its Aug. 26, 2005, issue had an article decrying the fact that some companies give to conservative causes (pp. 18-19). It then listed the companies & their products, warning their readers not to buy these products. I’m using their article for the exact opposite purpose – to get people to buy from these companies. The owners/founders/CEOs of these companies contribute large sums to support conservative causes and candidates. Products made by these companies are: AdvantEdge Ensure...

Many articles have been written about the phenomenon of “outsourcing”—the practice of sending work needed within a company to be performed outside of the company. More recently, the word has become synonymous with “offshoring”—the practice of sending the work to be done by lower-paid workers overseas, often in third-world or emerging countries such as Mexico, China, and India. These phenomena have been going on for some time—one of the first industries to be moved outside of the United States has been textiles. Indeed, while garment manufacturing was first sent to low-cost locales, there was some outcry over the growth of...

Many articles have been written about the phenomenon of “outsourcing”—the practice of sending work needed within a company to be performed outside of the company. More recently, the word has become synonymous with “offshoring”—the practice of sending the work to be done by lower-paid workers overseas, often in third-world or emerging countries such as Mexico, China, and India. These phenomena have been going on for some time—one of the first industries to be moved outside of the United States has been textiles. Indeed, while garment manufacturing was first sent to low-cost locales, there was some outcry over the growth of...

This is getting to be a habit, albeit mostly a pleasant one. The government revised its measure of first quarter economic growth again yesterday to 3.8%, up from its previous estimate of 3.5%, which was above its initial estimate of 3.1%. You may recall that the initial estimate inspired a great deal of fretting that the current economic expansion was heading south. But the 3.8% figure -- despite high oil prices -- matches the rate for the fourth quarter of 2004 and means that growth has now averaged close to a 4% annual rate for eight consecutive quarters going back...

A 9-0 Supreme Court rebuke ought to be a teaching moment. So it is amazing to behold that -- notwithstanding the unanimous recent reversal of its 2002 Arthur Andersen conviction -- the Justice Department may well make the same mistake all over again. We're referring to the news that Justice may indict the entire KPMG accounting firm for obstruction of justice and the marketing of legally questionable tax shelters. As Andersen's fate made clear, an indictment against a corporation is usually a death sentence, whatever the ultimate legal outcome.... The purpose of criminal law, we had thought, is to punish...

The Supreme Court has now ruled that it was excessive prosecutorial zeal and inadequate jury instruction that destroyed Arthur Andersen in 2002, not the merits of the federal obstruction-of-justice case.... Thus, the excesses of a few corporate swingers led to suspicions that hanky-panky was the ruling ethos in every corporate boardroom. Naderites, Hollywood pundits, Marxist professors and left-wing journals piled on with assurances that they had been right about capitalists all along. [A] Congress never reluctant to make work for fellow lawyers whooped through the Sarbanes-Oxley bill.... The sour public mood has had other effects. Staffers at the Securities and...

Inherent in our political system is the glaring flaw that 535 people can pull the wool over the eyes of 300 million. People don't vote on bills before Congress, they rely on those 535 people.. When those elected minions do the wrong thing, seldom do the people even know about it. That failure is compounded by a MSM dedicated to keeping the truth from the people if it would hurt the Democrat party. So we come to Social Security and the single greatest criminal fraud in the history of man. Try a $1.7 Trillion collateral theft on for size. Then...

Otherwise eco-activists will keep the world’s poor impoverished, hungry, and disease-ridden. The litany of alleged offenses follows a script: fragile ecosystems, environmental devastation, irresponsible investment, huge profits, human rights violations, indigenous people imperiled. So do the demands: transparency, accountability, ethics, social responsibility. The tactics are equally familiar. Launch website, issue denunciations. Enlist grade school teachers whose students can write letters to the CEO. Harass the CEO at home. Stage protests at corporate offices. Claim to be stakeholders who must be given a role in all decisions, so that company policies henceforth reflect activist demands. Confrontational? Disingenuous? Of course. Effective? Absolutely....

Naomi Klein, writing in The Nation magazine asks the question, "Can Democracy Survive Bush's Embrace?" Klein writes, “It started off as a joke and has now become vaguely serious: the idea that Bono might be named president of the World Bank.” Bono talks to Republicans as they like to see themselves: not as administrators of a diminishing public sphere they despise but as CEOs of a powerful private corporation called America. "Brand USA is in trouble...it's a problem for business." The solution is "to re-describe ourselves to a world that is unsure of our values." Klein continues, “The Bush Administration...

SAN FRANCISCO -- Carly Fiorina's ouster from Hewlett-Packard Co. on Wednesday wasn't totally unexpected, but for some it was a disturbing end to an otherwise encouraging chapter in U.S. women's corporate progress. The number of Fortune 500 companies with female chief executives declined 12.5 percent Wednesday, from eight to seven, according to the nonprofit Catalyst Inc., which tracks women in business. And it will shrink again soon, with the pending resignation of Marce Fuller at independent power producer Mirant Corp. "It's a shame it's a woman CEO, because it could influence people to think that opportunities for women are on...

Liberal activist Norman Lear told me last week that if George W. Bush wins re-election, "watch what happens to real estate in New Zealand." He wasn't joking. Mr. Lear may have an exaggerated notion of the number of Americans with means to relocate to the other side of the globe. But he accurately reflects the intense feelings of a few who do: himself, financier George Soros, insurance executive Peter Lewis and Hollywood mogul Stephen Bing. Together, they have spent more than $50 million to register new voters and defeat President Bush. They are the X factor in this year's election:...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, facing political fallout if he vetoes bills helping Californians import cheaper prescription drugs from Canada, pressed pharmaceutical industry leaders Thursday for an alternative plan to cut drug costs for California's poorest residents. Schwarzenegger called the heads of several pharmaceutical companies Thursday, aide said, and pushed them to back his cost-cutting alternatives, which have already been rejected by state lawmakers. His proposals would establish group discounts, give poor Californians electronic cards that pharmacists could "swipe" to find the cheapest prices and hire an outside vendor to negotiate other price discounts. Advocates for bills on the...

NEW YORK - U.S. companies that outsourced the most jobs in 2003 also offered well-above average pay increases to their chief executives, according to a new study released this morning. Companies that made outsized political contributions to either the Democratic or the Republican parties also paid their CEOs unusually well, the study finds. More From Dan Ackman The average CEO compensation at the 50 firms outsourcing the most service jobs increased by 46% in 2003. That increase compares to an average hike of 9% for CEOs at 365 of the largest U.S. companies, according to a report by the Institute...

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS.MW) -- Almost no one in America would admit to being overpaid, but many of us take home bloated paychecks far beyond what's deserved. "Fair compensation" is a relative term, yet human-resource consultants and executive headhunters agree some jobs command excessive compensation that can't be explained by labor supply-and-demand imbalances. And while it's easy to argue that chief executives, lawyers and movie stars are overpaid, reality is not that cut and dry. Corporate attorneys earning $500 an hour and plaintiffs lawyers pocketing a third of a class-action or personal-injury settlement certainly don't go hungry. Yet many local prosecutors...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use.CHARLOTTE, N.C., April 23 (Reuters) - General Electric Co. shareholders on Wednesday narrowly defeated a resolution at the company's annual meeting that was designed to curb executive "golden parachutes" amid lingering resentment over former Chairman Jack Welch's retirement package. The vote was one of the closest in GE history. No shareholder resolutions have passed in recent memory, GE spokesman Gary Sheffer said. All 13 shareholder resolutions - ranging on topics from global warming to pay disparity - were defeated at GE's annual meeting in Charlotte, North Carolina. Nevertheless, investor discontent was evident...

After Employees Agree to Cuts, American Airlines Discloses Trust to Shield Executives FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) -- One day after American Airlines employees agreed to annual cuts of $1.8 billion, the cooperative spirit turned acrimonious Thursday as union leaders expressed outrage over newly disclosed perks granted to executives. One angry union leader said if workers had known earlier about a pension trust created last year to protect executives' benefits in the event of a bankruptcy filing, they might have voted against the steep concessions intended to keep the world's largest carrier out of Chapter 11. The executive perks, which included...

washingtonpost.com As Carriers Sought Help, Top Tier's Pay Soared By Keith L. Alexander Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, April 12, 2003; Page E01 For airline employees and investors, 2002 was one of the worst years in history. But for most chief executives of U.S. carriers, it was one of the best. While the air industry grappled with a steady decline in travel due to the weak economy and the lingering effects of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, airline boards piled on hefty rewards for their senior executives. Certainly the airlines weren't the only companies bestowing largess on their top...