Who are the members of the boards who have let BofA, Citicorp, Lehman, and Bear Stearns, Washington Mutual, and other financial institutions get in the state they are now in? Why are they not more in the news? What is their fiduciary responsibility here? Should that fiduciary responsibility be changed given what we've learned.

Why are there so many high level political figures having tax problems. We need two questions answered -- one, is it a problem of how complicated the system is? If yes, make it less complicated. When the tax system is sullying people's confidence in the government it needs to be changed. If its not an issue of complication, why do so many think they can get away with not paying their share and why are they not bothered by this? What can we do for them to understand that they should be honest and pay their fair share?

I wonder why image and reality are so far apart in so many cases. Would you wish your healthcare come from the Veterans Administration? If not, read the following piece which raises many important issues regarding healthcare.

Best Care Anywhere

Evaluation of Obama Speech by Mark Halpern captures it all...

1. He smartly plans to ignore the media's fetishistic obsession with how he balances optimism and realism.

2. Michelle Obama (and her popularity) will not go unused by the administration as a valuable asset.

3. He appreciates Joe Biden, even when he wants to muzzle him (which is often) – and Biden is gamely taking to his role as public comic sidekick.

4. The president has a good ear for the level of populist outrage he needs to exhibit to satisfy the public's anger over Wall Street shenanigans.

5. If Republicans weren't sufficiently worried about the size and reach of Obama's megaphone before Tuesday night, they should ramp up their concern now.

6. Obama truly believes he is at the beginning of four-year teaching moment for the American people – and that his students are mature enough and interested enough to actually learn.

7. He's Mr. Cool, then, now and forever.

8. He knows that confidence is key – as much for him as for the country.

9. Like his predecessor, he feels no need to be loved by members of the Washington political power structure (but unlike his predecessor, he's not hostile to it).

10. He's doing his homework and he knows his history.

11. He's well aware of the audience(s) in the room and the audience(s) at home (and how those bodies interact and dovetail).

12. Education is the sleeper issue of this administration.

13. He seems genuinely inspired by the power and opportunities of the presidency (and has not become overwhelmed by the responsibilities, despite the overwhelming circumstances).

14. Youth + competence = a refreshing antidote to these exhausting times.

15. The man can give a heck of a speech – and has a close to perfect record of delivering at big moments.

Obama gets it. Using this fellow as an example during his speech -- stroke of genius.


Leonard Abess Jr Gives $60 Million To His Banking Employees

The problem with leaving policing up to the government is that what's politically palatable is not always sensible. Big bonuses, for example, may look terrible. But in some cases they may not be crazy. However from a political perspective they're poison.

Michael Kinsley on the feeble banker's arguments for limiting pay. Can't they do better than that?

Banking for Dummies

If not wiser heads, then at least richer heads seem likely to prevail in the dispute over limits on executive pay in the stimulus package. The Obama version contained some restrictions on pay for top executives of banks that get “exceptional assistance” from the government. For instance, any compensation over $500,000 a year would have to take the form of stock, and couldn’t be cashed in until the government has been paid pack. Led by Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), senators insisted on inserting tougher restrictions and applying them to more people at more banks -- any, in fact, that have received so-called TARP, or bailout, money.

As a general principle, executive compensation ought to be set by supply and demand, just like other goods and services in a free market. In practice, the machinery that sets the pay for America’s top business executives is badly broken. Whether we want the government in there fixing it is a good question we can debate in a more leisurely economic period. But meanwhile it is a sign of how far we have come, and how fast, that any government bailout of a bank, no matter how few billions may be involved, can be officially considered “unexceptional.”

There is general agreement that some pay restrictions are justified, or at least unavoidable, if the bailout is to proceed. “Populism” demands it. (And it’s nice to see populist anger redirected back toward bankers and business executives after recent decades when the Republican party managed to point it at hard-working politicians.) But a consensus is emerging that Dodd, and even Obama, go too far.

The critics make three general points. First is that restrictions on things like bonuses are easy to evade, simply by relabeling them as salary, which is either unrestricted or less so. This, the critics note (with exasperation, and some justification), will break the connection between pay and performance that was considered so crucial during other banker-burning festivals of recent years. Second, compensation ceilings limited to executives at troubled banks that have received government money will put these banks at a disadvantage in the competition for talent -- just when they need talent the most. And third, the rules give these bank executives a strong incentive to pay back the government too quickly, in order to be free of the restrictions on their pay.

So let’s put this all together. Here is what supporters of the Bailout Bankers are saying: These bankers, who ran their banks into the ground, asked the taxpayers for money to save themselves, and got it, will -- if given the opportunity -- use that money to give themselves a back-door raise in order to maintain their incentive to do their jobs so brilliantly. If they don’t get their traditional bonuses, they will flee to banks that are not under these restrictions, because they did not need to be bailed out. And if, for some inexplicable reason, these other banks don’t wish to hire bank executives who ran their previous banks into the ground -- and into the reluctant arms of the government -- these bankers will stay where they are, nefariously pay back the government in full, and then -- out of either malice or incompetence, or some lethal combination of both -- they will wreck their banks and need to be bailed out all over again.

That’s quite a threat. The banks have been buying full-page newspaper ads (and God bless them for that!) to express their patriotism and humility. Their CEOs have been up on Capitol Hill eating crow and promising to be more careful from now on. Yet in this side argument, they are in essence promising that their selfishness and/or incompetence will continue.

Having never tried to run a bank, or wished to, I’m not saying it’s easy at any time, let alone now. But it’s hard to believe that the people at or near the top of the banks involved in the bailout are so irreplaceably qualified that incentives to keep them, and keep them happy, must be a major concern. In fact, of all the world’s seven billion people, these are the ones who have established better than anyone else that they aren’t qualified to run a bank.

By Michael Kinsley | February 16, 2009; 6:24 PM ET