Feb 10
16
White House Moves to Clear Up Comments on Bankers
It seems the White House was none too pleased with the fallout from an article in which President Obama appeared to take a more conciliatory stance toward the financial sector, telling Bloomberg BusinessWeek that he did not “begrudge people success or wealth,” as it was “part of the free-market system.”
The excerpts of the story published by Bloomberg News ran with the headline: “Obama doesn’t begrudge bonuses for Blankfein, Dimon.”
In the interview, the president compared Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, and Lloyd C. Blankfein, who heads up Goldman Sachs, with athletes who are paid even more.
”First of all, I know both those guys,” President Obama said. ”They’re very savvy businessmen. And I, like most of the American people, don’t begrudge people success or wealth. That’s part of the free market system.”
However, the published excerpts, which were widely picked up by the news media, including DealBook, had the White House scrambling to dampen any suggestion that President Obama was taking a different tone with bankers.
According to press reports, the White House provided reporters with copies of past remarks, dating back to the presidential campaign, where President Obama has asserted that he did not ”disparage” or ”begrudge” wealth and success.
And by late afternoon, the White House deputy communications director, Jennifer Psaki, posted a blog on the White House Web site ”to clear up some confusion” about the president’s stance on executive pay. It included excerpts from the a transcript of the interview.
Ms. Psaki took issue with the headline about the Bloomberg interview, which she said ”inaccurately made it sound like the president brushed off the impact of bonuses and applauded the role of bankers.”
”This naturally came as a surprise to the many people who share his outrage at the behavior that continues on Wall Street and is not an accurate portrayal of where the president stands or what he said during the interview,” Ms. Psaki wrote.
According to the transcript, following his comments about Mr. Dimon and Mr. Blankfein being “savvy businesmen,” President Obama continued: “I do think that the compensation packages that we’ve seen over the last decade at least have not matched up always to performance.”
In the interview, the president emphasized that shareholders should be given a say, even if not a binding one, on the pay packages of executives. He also said bonuses received as stock held over time — like those for Mr. Blankfein and Mr. Dimon — were preferable because they tied the compensation to long-term performance.
”I guess the main principle we want to promote is a simple principle of ’say on pay,’ that shareholders have a chance to actually scrutinize what C.E.O.’s are getting paid,” President Obama said. ”And I think that serves as a restraint and helps align performance with pay.”
