Bankers will walk?? To where..... The GOOD ONES will stay, The GREEDY ONES Might leave , until they find out there is no where too hide.........There will always be a lotof people that would Love a $500 k job, me included......

I wish I had this problem.

What a laugh. I'm sure companies will be lining up to hire the exiting managers who ran their banks into the ground.

How about $50,000 instead of $500,000? Frankly, these idiots should be paying the U.S. Treasury for their incompetence. Of course, there will be no retribution or punishment. They will continue to receive ridiculous compensation, $100,000 more each year than the President of the U.S. The one thing that would pay them back for their worth is the guillotine.

If they were the "best" bankers, their banks wouldn't be in the situation they are in, now would they?
Bonuses are supposed to reward good work, not for running your company into the ground.

If someone thinks they are too good to make "only $500,000 a year", then they are the ones that need to be gotten rid of anyway. Your average American will never make anything near that amount.

I don't think this will even effect the "good bankers" because the good bankers didn't run their business into the ground.

This will only effect the "bad bankers who waste money and act like they are kings."

These banks could have hired winos off the street and not been run worse. Bonuses? These clowns should be embarassed they are still collecting a salary!

Most if not all comments are on target!

If a banker is "best of breed", it should show in the balance sheet. And if it doesn't, then take a pay cut or hit the road, Jack!

This could even save money for the smaller banks. If a bunch of bankers are leaving the big "bad" banks because of the pay cap, there is suddenly a supply of bankers. Supply and demand rules suggest that the smaller banks could offer a lower pay rate as a consequence and still recruit talent...

BANKERS WALK! WHO R U KIDDING? THEY WILL STILL HAVE THEIR LIMOS! HALF A MILL A YEAR.OH MY!! BETTER PILLAGE AND STEAL BEFORE THE LAW IS IN EFFECT! WHEN THEY START SUING THE SON OF A BITCHES FOR MISMANAGEMENT ( YES THATS RIGHT, COMPETENCE & INCOMPETENCE R NOT THE SAME THING) AND RECLAIMING THE FUNDS THEY STOLE FROM SHAREHOLDERS AND CUSTOMERS! ONLY THEN WHEN THEY ARE REDUCED TO POVERTY WILL THEY BECOME HUMBLE AND "GET IT". COME ON DOWN YOU EGG SUCKING BOA A HOLES

The Government should require any corporate or bank CEO who ask's for, and receives Government funding. That the CEO's home and personal property be required to be used as collateral. These CEO's just might think twice, about how and what their going to use the bailout funding for. As well as assuring, they will now keep their business viable.

Let them walk - how good can they be. They drove their current banks into the ground.

TO DOUGLAS MCINTYRE: SPOKEN LIKE A TRUE WALL STREET LACKEY. MOST OF THESE BIG EARNERS ARE NOT INDISPENSIBLE. IN MOST CASES, IT IS THEIR STAFF ANYWAY THAT PERMITS THEM TO BE WHAT THEY ARE. KEEP THE STAFF AND THERE WILL BE LITTLE CHANGE.

First they screw things up beyond belief. Then they tell me that, unless we continue to overpay bad performance, we will lose the people who screwed up. I am retired. When I was working I knew that big screwups were not tolerated and led to a pink slip. How about for the "Masters of the Universe"?
There are always people ready to step up to six or seven figure jobs. Give the new ones a chance. This kind of experience - forget it.

The posters comments are correct. If they are so good then why are they in trouble. They are SCUM and the author of this piece is a true IDIOT. I can not believe he wrote this piece and put his name to it, use whatever common sense you have left.

Let them walk we can always outsource their jobs to India or China.

The cap serves a two-fold purpose. One it creates a sense of fairness to the U.S. tax payer who is propping them up and two it gives them an incentive to pay us back as fast as possible so they can give themselves a raise.

Here's a classic WIN-WIN. Cap the salary at $100,000 - but include realistic and viable performance bonuses. This way we aren't paying idiots 10-20 million to run a business into the ground. It's pretty simple. If they perform, pay 'em. If they don't, dump 'em.

Let's get real there are a lot of people out there making in excess of $500,000 and this is only a big number to the average worker.

Just watch on TV the Barrett-Jackson car auction and see what people spend for their toys. Or look at all of the big estates
in every state and plush country clubs.
These people have to earn in excess of a couple of million dollars a year for sure.

Being a millionaire today is not that tough
what is tough is to maintain a multimillion dollar estate.