Throw the bums out - or at least some of them

Although he probably wasn't the first in this crisis cycle to do so, New York Times (NYT) columnist Frank Rich makes a rhetorical reference to the guillotine while discussing the public's response to CEO and management underperformance on Wall Street and in Detroit. (It should be noted that the French deployed the guillotine for the express purpose of dealing with those seen as standing in the way of economic and political change during the French Revolution.)

As far as Rich is concerned, aside from CEO Rick Wagoner at General Motors (GM), CEOs and senior managers in corporate America have thus far largely escaped the guillotine, or an end to their tenures, despite similar management mistakes.