Isn’t this rich? Bill Gates, the richest man in the whole country, thinks Wall Streeters are paid too much.
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.
Gates blamed a 1993 federal law capping executive salaries at $1 million–”a bad milestone”–which he said wound up backfiring, encouraging huge bonuses and stock option awards. He doesn’t like that, he said during a discussion on philanthropy in New York yesterday, but he’s wary of doing anything about it, worrying that, like the ’93 law, it will just make things worse.
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Pouting all the way, MF Global plans to reincorporate in the U.S., abandoning Bermuda for Delaware.
The futures brokerage, formerly part of the Man Group, has recently been whining a whole lot about how unfair and anti-competitive all of those billions in U.S. government bailout bucks to banks have been. We do not necessarily disagree. But such gripes about competitive disadvantages are pretty rich coming from a company based in Bermuda, and for all of the right reasons, we’re sure.
“We want to operate in a regulatory environment that benefits from the regulatory reforms discussed in Washington,” MF CEO Bernard Dan said. Plus, Delaware has recently been named the bestest damned tax shelter on God’s green earth, while Bermuda seems intent on driving out all of its financial firms with potentially ugly new taxes.
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