Mr Spitzer claims that the bankers on this committee would have been reluctant to complain about Mr Grasso's excessive pay, since they had a clear incentive to get along with him: he had a regulatory role and some influence over other regulatory bodies, such as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
If the possibility of large bonuses indeed generates excessive risk-taking, then bank stakeholders have ample incentive to adopt such limits without government coercion.