Our government has proven once again that it is more reactive than proactive. Government proposals to place a $500,000 limit on executive compensation for Wall Street bankers is purely a political reaction to the public outrage over the profitability of investment banks in a time of economic crisis. The extravagant bonuses and profits that are earned on Wall Street are the norm and have been so for decades. Investment bankers and money managers command extraordinary salaries, multimillion dollar bonuses, and stock options for managing huge amounts of risk for their firms and investors. The politicians in Washington are very familiar with how this game works and they receive political contributions from these same firms and their executives on a regular basis. To the extent that taxpayer dollars were used to protect the solvency of financial institutions, it is completely reasonable to cap executive compensation. However, it is equally hypocritical for politicians to chide investment bankers for reaping enormous profits during the current economic downturn while they failed to admonish them for even greater earnings and bonuses when the economy was booming. Industry regulators and politicians in Washington didn’t say or do anything for years to address the increasingly risky activities of these firms and the explosion of hedging instruments and strategies. Somehow everyone wants to believe that multimillion dollar salaries and bonuses are the root cause of America’s financial crisis. Contrary to popular belief, greed, ego, and corruption are at the root of our current economic crisis and these human tendencies are not characteristic of the financial industry alone. Legislating executive compensation will not resolve these human temptations and weaknesses that have become so pervasive in our culture.