"Good job, Comrade!"
Posted on 10/24/2009 4:03:55 AM PDT by Libloather
Sen. Chris Dodd produced language that allowed Feinberg to cut salaries
By VICTORIA MCGRANE
10/23/09 4:37 PM EDT
Remember all the heat Sen. Chris Dodd took earlier this year over writing the loophole in the stimulus that let AIG executives collect $165 million in bonuses?
But that same provision had another key section – the authority for a White House pay czar to slash top executive pay at seven financial firms that still hold billions in taxpayer bailout funds. So what Dodd’s legislation gave away in the form of bonuses, it has taken back with special pay master Kenneth Feinberg’s power over Wall Street salaries.
“Sen. Dodd was criticized – I think unfairly – for the language in the stimulus bill. It was that language that gave Ken Feinberg the authority to do what he’s doing,” House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) said.
“What can I say, Barney Frank’s a smart man. Other people remember allegations, he remembers actual facts,” said Dodd spokeswoman Kirstin Brost when asked about Frank’s comments.
In February, Dodd successfully added language to the Senate version of the stimulus that would have barred the 25 most highly paid employees at bailout firms from getting bonuses or incentive payments.
By the time the final bill headed for the president’s desk, Treasury had successfully prevailed upon Dodd to make the change that would ultimately allow the AIG bonuses to go through, citing concerns that they’d be sued for breaking existing contracts.
But the way the story broke, Dodd nonetheless got mired in a flurry of ‘whodunit’ stories that helped hurt his image – and poll numbers – back home, analysts say. It’s a weakness Dodd’s GOP challengers are trying to exploit in their campaigns.
Dodd isn’t exactly trumpeting his role in Feinberg’s Wall Street smack down. Dodd did not mention it in his statement praising the decision, though the press release included the tag: “Dodd’s executive compensation amendment to the Recovery Act provided Treasury the authority to force the pay cuts announced by Mr. Feinberg yesterday” and a link to the bill text.
“In this country, you are supposed to be rewarded for hard work,” Dodd said. “But for folks on Wall Street to be giving out outrageous compensation packages, in the middle of a recession, as they are being propped up by taxpayer dollars is obscene.”
Pay Czar Doubts Cuts Will Make Bankers Leave
By LOUISE STORY
Published: October 22, 2009
Kenneth R. Feinberg, the government’s special master for compensation, has spent nearly five months studying pay packages at some of the nation’s largest banks. But ask him if bankers and traders earn far too much money, and he demurs.
“I wouldn’t begin to say how much money you should make on Wall Street,” Mr. Feinberg said in an interview last week, as he prepared to slash pay for the top 25 earners at seven firms that received significant government aid. “I’ve never worked on Wall Street. I don’t claim to know the ethos of Wall Street.”
For Mr. Feinberg, the process of cutting pay underscored the widening divide between Wall Street and the rest of America, where even a fraction of a banker’s pay seems like riches to many people.
“A Wall Street executive will say to me: ‘Mr. Feinberg, last year I made $30 million. This year, you’re whacking me down, you’re reducing me to $10 million. How can you do that?’ ” Mr. Feinberg said. “On the other side of the argument, you hear people say ‘$10 million — that’s outrageous.’ ”
Pay experts said the plan, which emerged Wednesday, could lead to the departure of the very executives needed to return the firms to health, a prerequisite to repaying taxpayer support. Bankers regaled Mr. Feinberg with similar concerns in the months it took to prepare his order, but he said he thought they would be left with enough pay to persuade them to remain in their jobs.
This is an excerpt.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/23/business/23feinberg.html?em
from (at best) a half a waitress sandwich
Dodd is a now “marked” man for destruction just like Eliot Spitzer was in NY. Chrissie will not be reelected in 010 and he will be destroyed at all costs.
He will not be destroyed for this. If he loses, he will be destroyed by his own hubris and corruption. I predict he will win.
The Democrat party press will deludge the voters with propaganda like this about how Dodd "is looking out of you" and like the good little sheep they are, the voters will go to the voting booth and reelect the same set of politicans who are destorying their lives out of the mistaken notion feed them by a corrupt political/media machince that "Dodd is looking out of me".
Oh, please. They “came” for the Wall Street bankers by handing them Billions of someone else’s Dollars?
Dodd got the wrong people mad like Eliot Spitzer did. Where is Eliot Spitzer now?
Conservatives, the supposed bastion of limited Government thought, rush to applaud the Government dictating to people what they can be paid.
It amazing how simple it is for the Government PR machine to get supposed “Conservatives” to forget every single supposed principal they stand for and act just like the good little Leftist sheep. I guess it escaped most people's notice that this idea has all ready been expanded to the pay of execs at Fed Reserve banks that GOT NOT TARP MONEY AT ALL?
So the wrong people made Spitzer give hundred of thousands of taxpayer dollars to hookers?
You really believe that?
Spitzer's corruption destroyed Spitzer, no one else.
Those people have the money and influence to uncover any dirty secret not matter how deeply buried someone has it and destroy them with it.
These people on Wall Street looked real hard into Eliot’s business,found out his weakness and destroyed him. The same thing will happen to Dodd who has so much more in his closet. They will crush him out of existance.
Amazing how “Conservatives” will look the other way at Dodd history of corrupt crony capitalism in order to cling to the Democrat Party PR machine manufacture myth of evil capitalist conspiring to bring down rabidly Leftist politicians.
BTW, Check out Open Secrets to see where most of Dodd’s campaign money comes from.
Interesting to note the very people you claim “will destroy him” are the ones paying for his campaign.
Dodd’s power has gone to his head like Eliot’s did and he has backstabbed some of the very people who have supported him. His hubris, corruption will all of a sudden be a big issue.
The end result is what was desired in the first place. Everything that happens in politics is foreseen and intended. They planned this very well.
"Good job, Comrade!"
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