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Seventeen big banks getting bailouts from taxpayers made "ill-advised" overpayments to executives in late 2008 and early 2009, but they can't be forced to pay them back, U.S. pay czar Kenneth Feinberg said on Friday. In his final act before he moves on to oversee payments from a fund that oil company BP Plc has set up to compensate oil-spill victims, Feinberg said he was urging banks to voluntarily adopt policies so that such pay practices could never happen again. "There were 17 companies where the payments that were made during this window of about five months ... were ill-advised,"...

Emboldened by the passage of health care legislation, the Obama administration will set its sights on a new target - regulating how much money you can make. Recipients of federal bailout money already face regulations designed to rein in "excessive" corporate salaries. Since the administration has proclaimed this first step a success, it is only a matter of time before it seeks broader control over private-sector compensation. The administration gave itself a pat on the back for a job well done after "only" 16 of 104 senior corporate executives quit when their salaries fell under the pay czar's knife. The...

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and his department have been sued by Judicial Watch as a result of the government's abject failure to abide by the law, specifically the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), concerning the Toxic Assets Relief Program and Obama administration "pay czar" Kenneth Feinberg. Last November, Judidial Watch submitted an FOIA request multiple documents concerning meetings involving Feinberg, special master for executive compensation under TARP; AIG Chairman Robert Benmosche, and New York Federal Reserve Bank President William Dudley. As the Obama administration’s “pay czar,” Feinberg is responsible for setting compensation guidelines for the seven largest firms, including AIG,...

President Barack Obama's TARP Executive Compensation Master (also known as the "Pay Czar") was on the defensive in an interview with Neil Cavuto of the Fox Business Network. The latest trend in the administration is to place the President in the role of seeing no evil, speaking no evil, and hearing no evil.

In a London preview of Wall Street's bonus nightmare, more than 1,000 investment bankers have quit Royal Bank of Scotland to work at rivals due to curbs on their paychecks, according to people familiar with the situation. Wall Street banks fear top talent would flee en masse for greener pastures if Uncle Sam's pay czar, Ken Feinberg, and Congress try to put more ceilings on bonuses and pay at financial firms. In the UK, the rules are modeled after US actions to curb pay at firms bailed out by the government.RBS will soon be about 84-percent owned by the British...

President Barack Obama The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Ave District of Columbia 20500 Dear President Obama, I am deeply concerned and angered by the unconstitutional, illegal, and tyrannical actions taken recently by the administration’s “pay czar”. While I personally am not financially affected by this action, I find myself repeatedly asking the question, “What country am I living in?”

Last week's announcement that "Pay Czar" Kenneth Feinberg slashed compensation for executives at seven large financial firms by an average of 50% stunned Wall Street, stoked the fires of populist resentment, and troubled economists. Will this government-mandated pay cut drive the most talented professionals away from these companies, endangering their recovery? Does it augur further politicization of economic decisions? Lost in the arguments over economics and political theory, however, is a more basic question: Was this action constitutional? Mr. Feinberg's ukase is the most prominent example (and not just by the Obama administration) of the exercise of power by an...

WASHINGTON (AP) - General Motors Co. CEO Fritz Henderson said Wednesday that government-imposed cuts to his own salary, and the pay of other executives at seven companies that received taxpayer money, were "fair" and "thoughtful." Henderson was among executives who will see their base salaries slashed under a plan by Kenneth Feinberg, the Obama administration's "pay czar." Henderson, between meetings with lawmakers on Capitol Hill, said the changes were "tough, but the situation is tough."

And They Want to Be Our Health Care Providers http://www.wiseandfrugalgovernment.blogspot.com In 2002, Caltrans (California Department of Transportation ) began the construction of a new eastern span of the Bay Bridge. The estimated cost was $1.3 billion dollars. The plan? To rebuild rather than retrofit the span after the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989 caused a section of the bridge to collapse. After a series of delays and cost overruns the bridge is now expected to be complete in 2013 at a total cost to taxpayers of $6.3 billion. Just $5 billion or 384% over budget. That was before the break...

One day after he rocked Wall Street by slashing the pay of top executives at banks with federal bailout money, Treasury pay czar Kenneth Feinberg said Thursday that he hoped his cuts would prompt other companies to act on their own and rein in excessive compensation. “I’d like to think that these standards will be voluntarily picked up across the marketplace,” Feinberg said to a packed pen-and-pad briefing for reporters. At the same time, he said he was aware of the legal limits of his authority. “I have a very limited mandate here,” he said. Speaking publicly for the first...

Height of Chutzpah http://www.wiseandfrugalgovernment.blogspot.com/ On October 3rd, Business Week published an Associated Press article on the compensation package for the new Freddie Mac Chief Financial Officer, Ross Kari. Mr. Kari was presented with a package "worth as much as $5.5 million. That includes an almost $2 million cash signing bonus and a generous salary that could top $2.3 million" according to the AP. (see link below) The article goes on to explain that the generous pay package was established to be competitive with the other financial sector jobs presumably available to Mr. Kari. You remember, Freddie Mac surely. The government-controlled...

Height of Chutzpah http://www.wiseandfrugalgovernment.blogspot.com/ On October 3rd, Business Week published an Associated Press article on the compensation package for the new Freddie Mac Chief Financial Officer, Ross Kari. Mr. Kari was presented with a package "worth as much as $5.5 million. That includes an almost $2 million cash signing bonus and a generous salary that could top $2.3 million" according to the AP (link below). The article goes on to explain that the generous pay package was established to be competitive with the other financial sector jobs presumably available to Mr. Kari. You remember, Freddie Mac surely. The government-controlled mortgage...

The Federal Reserve joined the Treasury Department on Thursday in imposing new limits on executive pay, extending the government's control over compensation at taxpayer-owned companies to institutions that are merely government regulated. {snip} However, the Fed's proposed rules have wiggle room: The guidelines would let banks set their own compensation but give the Fed veto power over pay practices that it determines could threaten the safety and soundness of a bank. They would extends the regulators' reach into pay practices affecting tens of thousands of bank employees, from senior executives to traders of complex securities.

Kenneth R. Feinberg, the Obama administration's "pay czar," has no clue about how to run a business. And why would he? His professional background is not in business, but as a liberal trial lawyer. His career includes such relevant experience as placing valuations on the Kennedy assassination's Zapruder film and on the lives of those killed in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Nothing in his background seems to make him qualified to determine how much firms should compensate executives. But even an extensive business background wouldn't mean that he should set corporate salaries. He has no economic incentive to pick...

    Feinberg interviews turn networks against Obama administrationAP Photo/Kevin Wolf The Obama administration now claims it did not try to exclude Fox News from Thursday's round of network interviews with pay czar Ken Feinberg.   A treasury department spokesperson claimed, "There was no plot to exclude Fox News, and they had the same interview that their competitors did. Much ado about absolutely nothing".  Unfortunately for the Obama administration, four other networks are fully aware of the situation and have proof that the treasury department is lying.  Fox did have the same interview as their competitors, only because the other networks came...

In 1992, Congress intervened in corporate compensation and messed things up. Now it's the White House's turn. BY DAN MACEY Executive pay has emerged, once again, as a major issue in Washington. This week Treasury and the Federal Reserve announced new regulations designed to oversee and limit executive pay at thousands of financial institutions. This is deeply ironic, because today's pay woes are the direct result of prior government intervention.

This week Kenneth R. Feinberg, popularly known as the White House Pay CZAR, announced his plan to cut the pay for the top 25 earners at seven companies that received federal government help. On average cut total these executives had their compensation cut by about 50 percent. The companies are Citigroup, Bank of America, American International Group, General Motors, Chrysler and the financing arms of the two automakers. This week Kenneth R. Feinberg, popularly known as the White House Pay CZAR, announced his plan to cut the pay for the top 25 earners at seven companies that received federal government...

Sen. Chris Dodd produced language that allowed Feinberg to cut salariesBy 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...

NEW YORK (Fortune) -- There's no need to fear a Wall Street brain drain -- despite the crackdown on pay by Washington. On Thursday, White House pay czar Kenneth Feinberg outlined compensation restrictions at seven firms that got special bailouts, and the Federal Reserve proposed to review pay practices at 28 unnamed giant banks. Critics warn that reining in pay makes it hard to keep talented employees. Hemmed in, institutions like AIG (AIG, Fortune 500),Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500) and Citigroup (C, Fortune 500) could lose their best people. These firms would then perform even more abysmally, if that's...

Dispatch from the Department of Pot-Meet-Kettle . . . Katie Couric has demanded "humility" from Wall Streeters making seven-figure incomes. This from a woman pulling down . . . eight figures [an estimated $15 million/year] from CBS while cementing the Evening News' caboose status. Couric made her hypocritical plea in her "Notebook" segment yesterday, commenting on Pres. Obama's pay czar's plan to cut compensation for employees of financial firms that have received bail-out bucks [emphasis added]: