In response to criticism of outlandish executive pay, the government is now tightening the reins. Yesterday, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner announced the brand new position of "pay czar" and appointed Ken Feinberg, the Washington lawyer known for setting the compensation amount for families of the 9/11 victims. Now he turns his attention to setting a very different kind of monetary figure. To talk about this is Nell Minow, editor and co-founder of the Corporate Library, a think-tank that studies executive pay.

Yesterday President Obama announced that companies receiving federal bailout money must cap their executives no more than $500,000 a year. Is a pay limit helping the economy? Or is it simply a PR move? Compensation experts Nell Minow, editor and co-founder of The Corporate Library, and Charles Elson, director of the Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance at the University of Delaware, join Adaora and John to debate the merits of the measure.