I'm sure you've all read the announcement by Citibank that they intend to increase the salaries of many of their bankers by as much as 50%. They explain that this is in response to the government's new legislation limiting executive compensation to $500,000. Of course, the "executives" have become accustomed to making many multiples of that amount.

On one hand, I commented here that the financial institutions who were targeted by this law had about about a half dozen ways to circumvent the poorly-written law by Congress. At the same time, the government (that's us!) propped up Citibank to the tune of close to $50 billion to prevent their failure...too big to fail, remember? The President said that he had no intention of having the government involved in the management of any of the banks which had received the huge injections of TARP money.

But what about this situation? Should the President and the government hold true to their word and stay out of this situation and let Citibank's distasteful plan stand? Or should someone in Washington say that enough is enough, we're not going to let this happen, even if you do lose a few "key" employees to non-government controlled or regulated financial firms? We...all us taxpayers...own many of these big banks.

Should us taxpayers have something to say about who gets paid and how much? Or should we let the free market answer that question? Remember, it was the free market that produced the greedy bankers who caused this financial mess in their quest for larger and larger bonuses in the first place.

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Well, that's why they have stockholders' meetings. If the stockholders want to change the board or policy, that's where it happens. If the US Government now own voting stock, the stockholders' meeting is the place to exercise those votes for control of the board and establishment of policy.

The only other choice is the US Government exercising a version of "eminent domain" and fully nationalize the corporation. If that happens, we are no longer a nation "Of the people, by the people and for the people," and are instead "Of the government, by the government and for the government." I believe that's called a dictatorship....