Madam Speaker, I want to comment on some of the comments made by the parliamentary secretary. He stated that the government had no influence over executive pay and bonuses. This was after I reminded him that while the banks made $15.6 billion in profits last year, they paid their executives anywhere from $9.7 million to $10.4 million.
I reminded him that in Europe and Japan the executives were not paid anywhere this amount of money, yet there was no shortage of executives in those jurisdictions. He said that the government had no influence. The government will sit back and let things happen.
In the United States, Mr. Bernanke just this past weekend talked about how the government was looking at making certain that there was no such thing any more as too big to fail, that if corporations and banking institutions got too big, that the government would step in and wind them down if they went beyond a certain threshold.
Clearly there is something wrong with this picture. The government is taking the attitude of staying away, letting the banks run their own business and letting them keep earning their salaries. In the meantime, it keeps reducing the corporate taxes.
How is that fair to people who work in our country?