Democrats vs. incentives, III

Treasury Secretary Geitner wants private sector help to buy the bad assets off the balance sheets of banks. But how much will we have to pay them to help? The recent attacks on incentive pay suggest that we will have to compensate companies for dealing with the government. And if the participating companies cannot use incentive pay, we might expect all their best people to leave.

Senior executives on both sides of the Atlantic on Friday warned of an exodus of talent from some of the biggest names in US finance, ...

“There are three big industries where the US has global leadership: financial services, media and technology. Introducing this 90 per cent tax is like taking one of those industries out the back and shooting it,” said a top Wall Street executive.