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As you may have noticed, things are a bit tight on Wall Street these days. Now we hear that the CEOs understand the virtue of self-sacrifice. Lloyd Blankfein, the head of Goldman Sachs, for example, will forgo his executive bonus this year. His base salary is $600,000. Last year’s bonus was $70 million. So he’s giving himself a 99% pay cut. Deutsche Bank and UBS have also given up bonuses this year for the top brass.

I’m not sure why there’s such a focus on CEO pay. All I can say is that politicians loves to complain about it and it seems to have some resonance among voters. If regulators think CEO pay is somehow connected to the mortgage mess, then they’re proving to me that they shouldn’t be in the regulation business.

Posted by edelfenbein at November 17, 2008 10:47 AM