President Obama compares Bank CEO salaries to ballplayer salaries

Obama’s smooth. Look how he slams Carlos Zambrano and Vernon Wells without even mentioning their names:

President Barack Obama said he doesn’t “begrudge” the $17 million bonus awarded to JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon or the $9 million issued to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. CEO Lloyd Blankfein, noting that some athletes take home more pay.

The president, speaking in an interview, said in response to a question that while $17 million is “an extraordinary amount of money” for Main Street, “there are some baseball players who are making more than that and don’t get to the World Series either, so I’m shocked by that as well.”

Paul Krugman predictably goes nuts, arguing that unlike bankers in this day and age, ballplayers aren’t beholden to taxpayers and the government. Krugman lives in New York, I presume. Guess he doesn’t get up to the Bronx or over to Queens very often, because there sit a couple billion dollars worth of public largess that does indeed benefit the ballplayers and the men who employ them. And that’s before you get to the government-granted antitrust exemption.

But that’s a nit, I suppose, because I generally agree that bank CEO pay is horrifying. It’s just that when it comes to criticizing it with baseball analogies I’d take a different approach than Krugman does. For example, I might note that in baseball, unlike in banking, you get punished for gambling.

(thanks to Pete Toms for the links)