Obama pay czar to "look back" at Wall Street pay (seek to renegotiate pay not in "public interest")

[sabra]

Source: Reuters

WASHINGTON/NEW YORK, March 22 (Reuters) - Obama administration pay czar Kenneth Feinberg plans to review past compensation at 419 firms that received bailout funds, including JPMorgan (JPM.N), Goldman Sachs (GS.N), according to a source close to the U.S. Treasury Department.

Feinberg will "look back" at any pay for the top 25 earners that totaled more than $500,000 from October 2008, when firms first received funds from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, though February 2009, when legislation was passed attaching pay restrictions to the funds.

That period includes the 2008 end-of-the-year bonus payments at Wall Street firms.

Feinberg will judge if any payments were "contrary to the public interest" and can request that individuals give money back. But he cannot force such repayments, the source said, speaking anonymously because the letters will not go out to firms until Tuesday.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN2220981520100322?type=marketsNews

[Joanne98]

1. YAY

[seabeckind]

2. I suspect a sternly worded letter will be forthcoming... n/t

[hughee99]

3. I'll bet they're writing those checks already.

:sarcasm:

[sabra]

4. key phrase...

But he cannot force such repayments

[progressoid]

5. Hey Ken, you're kinda closing the barn doors after the horses have bolted

Hell, those horses are so far away, you ain't ever catching them.

[pattmarty]

6. Fuck getting the money back. Make 'em pay it to high priced lawyers............

...........to stay out of jail. If you liked the Healthcare bill, you will really love the financial "reform".

[DLnyc]

7. Would it not be simpler just to put the top tax bracket back up to 80 percent

where it belongs? No complicated weighing of who deserves a bonus and who doesn't, just tax the hell out of excessive (say over a few million) income.

[aquart]

8. See, I like that.

No one person or corporation should be so wealthy that there is nothing left to buy but government.

[unabelladonna]

9. 90%

anything over 10 million a year.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

10. 99% of Americans earn under $200K a year.

Maybe that's a good place to start?

[DLnyc]

13. Yes, good point, but I like the idea of starting higher for a couple of reasons.

First, although most people don't make 200K a year, many know someone who does, or know of someone who does. So, psychologically, 200K sounds like "something I might make someday" (even if it's probably not). So, a tax starting at 200K is easy to demagogue against by appealing to that psychology.

More importantly, 200K a year doesn't really lead to significant concentration of wealth; A professional couple in Manhattan with two or three kids in private schools or colleges and a mortgage quite likely make AND SPEND 200K a year. On the other hand, anything over 1,000,000 a year in income is not really going to be spent -- it is going to be accumulated.

So while I think the currently popular strategy of pegging 'wealthy' at anything over 200K may be accurate technically, a higher number is better politically and in terms of practical effect.

Incidentally, 200K is about 10 times more than I make in a year, so either tax has very little effect on me personally.

Note: Wikipedia seems to give 97.33% below 200K, not 99% and then gives 98.50% below 250K.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States

[mistajefferson]

11. thanks

Thank you for posting this. Great info.

[RainDog]

12. Good. like FDR... Obama needs to make some adujstments

to fit the present reality.

hope he will give some love to the folks on the left.

[depakid]

14. "But he cannot force such repayments"

Then again, that tongue lashing from the president will be terrible thing to endure.

[western mass]

15. The Obama con game.

Handouts to corporate criminals, then hopeful noises about "fixing" things later.

Rinse. Repeat.