Top executives at banks that got money from the TARP will face stricter compensation limits thanks to the stimulus bill ... The limits, which limit bonuses to one-third of total compensation for top execs, would affect both banks that have already received a piece of the $700 billion bailout and future investments. That’s far stricter than previous limits. For example, the limits proposed last week by Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner [3] wouldn’t have applied at all to the Treasury’s ongoing program [4] to invest in "healthy" banks across the country.

The new limits will force "huge change" at the country’s larger banks – albeit "temporarily" – said Paul Hodgson of the Corporate Library, a corporate-governance research firm. The limits will apply until a bank pays back the government’s bailout money.

The bill requires Secretary Geithner to set new pay limits for participants in the bailout. It also spells out what some of those limits must be:

* No golden parachutes for the top five execs. Under the terms adopted by the Bush administration and continued by the Obama administration, execs could still leave with sizable exit bonuses, capped at three times the average annual compensation. This bill would prohibit such bonuses. (But don’t worry about those CEOs: Execs would still be allowed their fat pensions [12].)
* Bonuses for top execs are limited to long-term restricted stock, meaning they can’t cash in until the government gets its money back, and that bonus can’t be more than one-third of the total annual compensation.

For those banks that received more than $500 million from the government, the rules affect the five most senior executives and the twenty "next most highly-compensated employees." Banks that got between $250 million and $500 million only limit the pay of the five most senior execs and ten next highly paid, and so on down to the smallest banks, those that got less than $25 million, where only the highest paid employee is affected.

The limits will be felt by execs at the country’s national and regional banks, said Hodgson, of Corporate Library, the corporate-governance research firm. Bonuses at the biggest banks have run at 20 to 30 times an exec’s base pay, he said, and two to four times salary for regional banks.

The limits don’t directly limit executive salaries, only bonuses – but it does put in place some indirect measures to control them. The bill requires that each bank that received more than $25 million create a Board Compensation Committee composed of "independent directors" to review compensation plans. And public companies have to put their compensation arrangements up for nonbinding shareholder votes.

Harold Ford is African American (AA). Corker is white. This is Tennessee with its history of jim crow and lynching AAs. If you can't see what Corker was doing there, with his reference to color, then there is no point in discussing this.

Honestly, I think people who see it as a 9/11 reference are just grasping at straws. If a Democrat had made that comment I don't think anyone on the left would have found it objectionable.

Yes the Republican minority leader of the Arizona State Senate is grasping at straws. And Bob Corker was not using the mention of "colors" in his mailing to appeal to Tennessee bigots. Of course the white republican folks I know from Tennessee had no problem deciphering Corker's intention in about a split second.

But I have no idea what is in Corker's head or his campaign staff's minds when they write this.

Isn't that always the case. A white southern political could call a black man uppity and we could use the same argument. That we don't know what is really in his heart.

I am asking if you believe that in some instances, a politician will say something using code words to say something and deny they meant what they said.

During the 2006 senatorial race in Tennessee, Bob Corker put out a mailer. Do you think that because it doesn't specifically discuss racism that it wasn't meant to appeal to bigotry or fear of black men gaining power?

Yes. It's pretty clear that he said ... That's been clear all along.

You are a sophist. Good luck with that.

That makes most crashed low speed.

"The crew then lowers the landing gear and adjusts the airplane's flaps, but at 10:16.26 p.m. there's a sound similar to movement of the flap handle, according to the transcript, and Shaw says, "Uhhh. ... Less than a second later, there are sounds similar to the stick shaker — a warning transmitted through the control stick that the aircraft is nearing a stall."

"Most airplane crashes occur during takeoff or landing."

The planes Max cruise speed is 360 kts. You have to be flying around 220 kts. or less before you can lower the gear. Stall speed has got to be below 140 kts. The buffalo crash was not at full speed.

Thanks for sharing.

"flying the US plane into the ground at full speed" ... I can see how some people might have thought 9/11 when they heard the quote, but I don't think that's what he meant.

Code words. When you think of flying a plane into the ground at full speed, what is the first thing most Americans are going to think off?

How does "car teetering on the edge of a cliff" equate with "flying the US plane into the ground at full speed?"

States Rights, do you know what that meant in Reagan's time?