GM Executives Back on Top
Wednesday, September 8th, 2010
It’s been over a year now since the bailout and reforms on America’s big three automakers and other firms was instated and things are getting back to business as usual. In February of last year the Obama Administration mandated that all firms receiving “extraordinary assistance” from the government were to have certain limitations imposed on them. These limitations included a $500,000 salary cap for top executives as well as restrictions on severance packages (which had come to be known as “golden parachutes”) and policies on luxury spending. Fast forward to the present day, the United States Government still owns 61% of GM but has for the most part reversed many of the previous year’s pay and benefit cuts. With the salary cap no longer in effect GM’s newly appointed CEO Daniel Akerson (pictured here) is set to receive $9,000,000 in annual pay, just barely over a year since the company’s utter bankruptcy. How does GM justify paying executives this much money annually when the company only recently recovered and only recovered as a result of the $50,000,000,000 granted to them by the United States government?