Can Feds thwart runaway exec pay?

If you're interested in the topics Don has addressed in today's column and would like to experience a powerful audio-visual supplement, please consider watching Michael Moore's latest film, "Capitalism: A Love Story." I've only watched one other Moore film. I recently saw "Capitalism: A Love Story" and consider it to be a powerful documentary, with the potential to help spur a new dialogue about what type of society and governance we really want. It's important to distinguish between the type of free enterprise or "entrepreneurial capitalism" we want to encourage, and the many expressions of parasitic and socially destructive behavior which tend to characterize our world today; in terms of what Wall Street has become, and the revolving-door nature of our world's apex corporate and governmental sectors (including the supposed major federal "regulatory agencies" which, with few exceptions, are mainly outposts of corporate sector interest versus anything truly responsive to "the will of the People"). We need to return to forms of free enterprise and the raising of funds for public infrastructure (ie: policies and institutions related to taxation) that promote honest effort and social contribution; rearranging our affairs so that present high levels of corruption and parasitic behavior die out and are replaced by more constructive practice. The good news is that this is something that we can achieve, as a nation, during the next 5-10 years. The starting point for developing the kind of major grassroots pressure and consensus that will be required to reinvent our institutional landscape along such lines, meanwhile, involves articles like this latest one from Don and (I would submit) this latest Michael Moore film. To view a two-minute trailer and find local showtimes for "Capitalism: A Love Story," visit: www.CapitalismaLoveStory.com Finally, I would like to thank Don for his long-running advocacy of the very best of free enterprise possibilities. His work has always reflected a brand of entrepreneurial capitalism in which honesty, hard work and social contribution remain pre-eminent. I hope he will experience a sense of satisfaction as we witness our larger society finally returning to these more worthwhile values.
— November 12, 2009 6:31 a.m.