Should Executive Pay Be Regulated?

Regulating what bankers earn is all the rage in Washington. Why not simply raise their taxes?

Illustration by Harry Campbell for TIME

Kenneth Feinberg , the Washington lawyer who had the thankless job of figuring out how to compensate victims of the Sept. 11 attacks, is now hard at work — as a "special master" appointed by the Treasury Secretary — figuring out how to compensate employees of corporations bailed out by taxpayers since last fall. The House and Senate are crafting legislation that includes "say on pay" shareholder votes on executive-comp packages and (in the House version) calls for regulators to vet incentive pay at financial firms on an ongoing basis. The Securities and Exchange Commission is for the first time...

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