American attitudes about regulating executive compensation are very clear: If taxpayers help a company stay in business, the government should regulate executive pay and bonuses. But if no taxpayer money is involved, the government should keep its hands off.
Consumer and investor confidence increased dramatically over the past week after falling to record lows. On Sunday morning, March 15, the Rasmussen Consumer Index rose to the highest level since November 5, the morning after Barack Obama was elected president.
Bernard Madoff, the Wall Street financier who ran a $64.8 billion Ponzi scheme, is expected to plead guilty to 11 criminal counts on Thursday, but he hopes his wife Ruth will be able to keep at least $70 million to live on while he’s in jail.
Most Americans remain confident that the U.S. economy will be stronger in five years than it is today, but most also expect very little to change in the next 12 months.
Most Americans (53%) now think the United States is at least somewhat likely to enter a 1930’s-like depression within the next few years.
Fifty-one percent (51%) of U.S. voters say President Obama is unlikely to achieve his pledge to cut the federal deficit in half within four years. Twenty-seven percent (27%) say he is not at all likely to do it.
Only 29% of Americans believe the federal government should nationalize some banks that are at risk of going out of business, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.
Fifty-five percent (55%) of U.S. voters believe the media tries to make the economy seem worse that it is. That’s an increase from 46% in November.
The chief executive officers of the nation’s largest corporations are viewed favorably by just 22% of American adults, lower even than the ratings earned by members of Congress.
Only 39% of Americans now express confidence in the stability of the U.S. banking industry, with just six percent (6%) Very Confident, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.
All sorts of big government solutions are being proposed to combat the country’s economic troubles, but Americans are clear on one thing: 75% say the federal government should not take over the U.S. banking system.
Eighty-eight percent (88%) of American adults say the executives of companies that need federal money to stay in business should not receive bonuses. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that only eight percent (8%) believe the bonuses are okay while five percent (5%) are not sure.
Public support for the economic recovery plan crafted by President Obama and congressional Democrats has slipped a bit over the past week. At the same time, expectations that the plan will quickly become law have increased.
Paul Krugman, last year's winner of the Nobel Prize for economics and a regular columnist for the New York Times, recently wrote that you should “write off anyone who asserts that it’s always better to cut taxes than to increase government spending because taxpayers, not bureaucrats, are the best judges of how to spend their money.”
Apple CEO Steve Jobs has had the business world in a tizzy for months wondering about his mysterious illness, but 41% of Americans say the innovative technology company he co-founded will do fine without him.
Will he or won’t he – go to jail for life, that is?
Just 37% of Americans are even somewhat confident that their political leaders know what they’re doing as they try to address the nation’s economic problems.
Fifty-eight percent (58%) of American adults are opposed to a government economic recovery plan that does not cut taxes, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.
Americans are solidly optimistic about the economy’s recovery, but most expect it to take up to five years to come back.
A majority of voters (54%) believe a major government economic recovery plan is necessary to restore the U.S. economy to good health.
