Who’s this guy?
Meet Kenneth R. Feinberg, the new pay “czar” for the White House. He’s tasked with reigning in the out of control compensation at companies the government helped recently.
I think it should be noted right off the bat that this is tied to executive compensation and bonuses…two pots of money that are so [...]

And this is for 2008…a year when their failure nearly brought the entire world’s financial system to its knees.
I don’t care if these bonuses were contractual or not. New circumstances (you know…like BANKRUPTCY!) could allow them to renegotiate with their employees.
From the AP comes the list…
Citigroup…
Citigroup Inc., one of the biggest recipients of government bailout [...]

Not too many people are dancing over the news of GM’s bankruptcy, but opinions are decidedly mixed on what the government ownership of the car company will mean.
Lee Cary, of American Thinker sees the era of Government Motors dawning with coercive attempts to force a Green fleet onto American consumers. This, in Cary’s opinion, will [...]

All the kings horses and all the bond deals couldn’t keep GM from cracking. As feared, the car giant has filed for bankruptcy. Now what?
The plan is for the federal government to take a 60 percent ownership stake in the new GM. The Canadian government would take a 12.5 percent stake, with the United Auto [...]

I don’t think think this comes as a huge surprise, and it’s certainly disheartening.
From Wash Post:
The government signaled yesterday that its financial rescue efforts may have reached their high-water mark, announcing that the much-anticipated “stress tests” of 19 large banks showed that only one, GMAC, was likely to need additional taxpayer aid and that it [...]

Despite all the government assistance and talk of providing more, GM lost $6 billion last quarter with earnings dropping by 47%.
GM executives say car buyers are turning away from GM out of concern the company will end up in bankruptcy and won’t honor its warranties. Could the prospect of bankruptcy help force bankruptcy? To [...]

Okay, that’s not really what they said, but it’s certainly the net effect. Because there will be no bailout money forthcoming for this industry.
More from the AFP:
The White House on Monday expressed “concern” and “sadness” over the state of the ailing US newspaper industry, but made clear that a government bailout was not in the [...]

Between Wells Fargo and this news, doesn’t anybody think that this may put a slight damper on those Tea Parties on Wednesday?
From MarketWatch:
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said Monday it swung to a profit in the first-quarter compared to the prior period, and announced it has commenced a public offering of $5 billion of its [...]

And there was much rejoicing…
From MarketWatch:
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — Wells Fargo & Co. said Thursday that first-quarter earnings will surge to a record $3 billion, well ahead of analyst forecasts, as loan losses and provisions dropped from the previous difficult quarter and its mortgage business thrived.
Wells shares jumped 22% as the bank also noted its [...]

At the center of President Obama’s overhaul strategy for Wall Street are the “stress tests” which will be applied to all financial institutions. But how accurate will the test results be? That will depend on whether the treasury takes off-balance-sheet assets into account, experts say.
This is Danielle Ivory, reporting from the American News Project and [...]

After months of hand-wringing, bailouts and backlash, new GM CEO Fritz Henderson says bankruptcy is still a very real possibility:
The company, he said, has until June 1 to accomplish changes sought by the government, or it will be in bankruptcy. The 60-day deadline should be enough time, but if it becomes evident that the changes [...]

So it’s pretty apparent people are upset that there are different rules for the automakers and banks. Well, I’m not sure what to tell you except the entire economy isn’t leveraged against the health of the Big 3. Yes, they’re vitally important and I think we should continue to help them out, but they don’t [...]

And after the AIG mess, I say we give it to him. How we allowed one company to take down the entire system still feels unreal to me. How on earth could we allow that to go down? Crazy, crazy, crazy.
But it did happen and we are suffering massive fallout as a result, so we [...]

Given all the press the AIG bonuses have garnered, you’d think our only economic problem was a few nearsighted/greedy execs at one insurance firm. Today, the House took AIG backlash to the next level by passing a bill which would levy heavy taxes on such bonuses. Specifically:
The bill would levy a 90 percent tax on [...]

The AIG bonus plot thickens, but only slightly.
Because while it appears that people in the Treasury department knew about the bonuses, they didn’t think it was necessary to inform their new boss about them?
From TIME:
“Treasury staff was informed about the new bonuses in a Feb. 28 memo that the March 15 [bonus-payment] date was [...]

Senate Banking Committee Chair Chris Dodd has had better days. Looks like the AIG bonus scandal just found a political whipping boy:
Dodd just admitted on CNN that he inserted a loophole in the stimulus legislation that allowed million-dollar bonuses to insurance giant AIG to go forward – after previously denying any involvement in writing the [...]

AIG’s decision to pay out bonuses despite the financial company’s massive troubles has angered a lot of people. Place the president in the angry category.
Joining a wave of public anger, President Barack Obama blistered insurance giant AIG for “recklessness and greed” Monday and pledged to try to block it from handing its executives $165 million [...]

The plan is pretty straight forward.
Bankruptcy judges can modify loan terms and lenders will get assistance if the agree to modify existing loans so people aren’t paying more than their homes are worth.
From Bloomberg:
Obama intends to make loan modifications the centerpiece of plan that also gives bankruptcy judges more power to help borrowers keep their [...]