A survey of 800 registered voters conducted by Public Strategies found that 63% of Americans are "much more concerned" with the debate on executive compensation than they were a year ago and 33% are "somewhat more concerned."

Some 80% have an unfavorable opinion of the chief executives of big banks. What's amazing to me is that 20% don't! 89% want to see some sort of clawback provision to allow companies to recoup funds paid to executives whose firms later collapsed.

This would seem to provide Congress with all the mandate it needs to implement very stringent pay controls on the companies participating in the bailout. If the taxpayers are being asked to provide more than $700 billion to the banks and they want executive pay controls to be part of that, then what's the question? Any bank that doesn't need the money that badly is free to reject it. It's a win-win!

Any rational argument against imposing restrictions on executive pay went out the window when the bailout bill was passed.

Once again, the ever-incisive Financial Times columnist Martin Wolf, an economist, identifies with laser-accuracy what ills the current market. The problem, Wolf argues, is not a lack of solvency but a lack of liquidity (i.e. 'panic').

Wolf does not deny that there have been bad loans (there have been) or that no companies will go out of business (some will). But the circumstance that froze credit markets, that caused quality corporate bonds to fail to price, and that leads to 100-point spreads between the LIBOR rate (what banks charge each other) and the ECB's benchmark interest rate, is rooted more in a lack of confidence, than a lack of sound economic fundamentals or a lack of resources.

A lack of liquidity

And a lack of liquidity or 'panic' is something that central bankers can address. With the above in mind, the U.S. Federal Reserve's plan, in consultation with the European Central Bank, the Bank of England, the Swiss National Bank, and the Bank of Canada, to inject $40 billion via auctions into the financial system is appropriate and prudent. (Further, in addition to reciprocal currency arrangements, the companion central banks will take related actions, including the Bank of England's decision to accept a wider range of collateral on 3-month loans).