Now We Are Just Barrel-Fishing

Fannie Mae bonuses?  It's so great seeing the Dems in charge.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Fannie Mae plans to pay retention bonuses of as much as $611,000 each to key executives this year as part of a plan to keep hundreds of employees from leaving the government-controlled company.

Rival mortgage finance company Freddie Mac is planning similar awards, but has not yet reported on which executives will benefit.

The two companies, which together own or back more than half of the home mortgages in the country, have been hobbled by skyrocketing loan defaults. Fannie recently requested $15 billion in federal aid, while Freddie has sought a total of almost $45 billion.

Fannie Mae disclosed its "broad-based" retention program in a recent regulatory filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company was only required to disclose the amounts for the top-paid executives, who will pocket at least $470,000 on top of their base salaries. The bonuses are more than double last year's, which ranged from $200,000 to $260,000.

A company spokesman declined further comment.

The good news is that Obama's teleprompter won't need to decry "business as usual".  Back when Dems ran Fannie and other Dems ran cover for them, the payouts were a lot more ginormous.  Just for example Jim Johnson, a buddy of Barack who was, for a while, leading the VP selection process, raked in $21 million from 1998 to 2003.

I wonder what advice he would give Barack about a mere $600,000 bonus.  Probably "Throw it back - too small."

Comments

[Fresh Air]

$600,000 apiece--because Lord knows you can't find the kind of talent that can lose $29 billion in one quarter just anywhere.

[Rick Ballard]

Perhaps we could talk about Citi bonuses as well? Fair is fair and Citi is in the trough up to its hocks too.

[bad]

The bonuses are more than double last year's, which ranged from $200,000 to $260,000.

Of course. The well from which they're drawn is so much deeper now.

[David Walser]

Since these folks are, in effect, government employees, shouldn't they be put on the civil service pay scale?

[David Walser]

In all fairness, there can be a very good reason for paying retention bonuses. My son worked for the cruise lines in Alaska last summer as a tour bus driver. He was paid an attractive hourly rate. In addition, he was offered a bonus of about 10% of his pay if he worked the entire season. Why? Otherwise too many kids got homesick and left in June.

Similarly, a company teetering on bankruptcy may have to offer a bonus to those who agree to "work the entire summer." If I knew my current job were likely to end soon (because of circumstances beyond my control), I'd be spending most of my time looking for a new job. It would take a secure promise of a of some multiple of my annual salary to keep me from quitting so I could start the job search process now rather than a year from now.

[bgates]

How can anything get done with these kinds of payscales in place? (The 1998-2003 numbers, anyway.) I'd think the jockeying among the guys making 7 figures to backstab and replace the guys making 8 figures would preclude any kind of productive activity.

[DebinNC]

=Rush Limbaugh last Sept. on Fannie Mae aka the Dems piggy bank

[hit and run]

The apparently ubiquitous use of retention bonuses to employees deemed too key to let go for companies deemed too big to fail gets me to thinking.

What if you have an employee elected to a position too big to fail who is deemed too failed to be this big?

Can we offer an un-retention bonus?

"Mr. Obama, I'm gonna write a number on this piece of paper right here ::slides paper across table:: now this number represents what we, the people of the United States are willing to offer you in exchange for you just to walk away right now..."

I'm thinking $100B for Obama to walk away now would work out profitably for everybody.

I think we could go higher, but don't tell him that.

Way, way higher, and we'd still come out way ahead on the deal given the alternative of him staying in office, in fact, but again, don't tell him that.

[Pofarmer]

What Fresh Air said.

Show em the door, already.

[centralcal]

RIP Natasha Richardson - so sad for her family.

Sorry, for going O/T, but it is a really awful story.

[bad]

Yes CC. I am horrified to learn how young her children are.

[matt]

why don't they get some of the horse's behinds who got the huge bonuses to give them back while they're at it? I'm sure Franklin Raines and the others wouldn't mind. maybe they can join the Fannie/Freedie workfare program too.

[Patrick R. Sullivan]

If I knew my current job were likely to end soon (because of circumstances beyond my control), I'd be spending most of my time looking for a new job. It would take a secure promise of a of some multiple of my annual salary to keep me from quitting so I could start the job search process now rather than a year from now.

Exactly. And, the question to ask about the compensation to the AIG employees who had to unwind a trillion dollar book is, did they provide more than the amount of the bonuses in value to AIG. Liddy, today, appeared to say they not only did, but still are doing so.

And all this ignorant hullabaloo is putting in jeopardy their ability to finish the job.

[narciso]

I was shocked since I first heard the reports last night, so sad, for her family,
such a tragedy, I know it's OT, but some things, way too young if ever to happen.

[clarice]

I think it may be deliberate on the part of some in Congress to make Liddy and his staff's job really far more difficult than it already is.
But for the most part I think they cannot see beyond this moment and his momentary advantage--face time before the cameras, silly posturing, demagoguery..

[sbw]

Her newer version of the Parent Trap is one of the movies, like Caddyshack, that will remain a comedy classic for a very long time. Made before Lindsay Lohan became self-conscious and self-destructive. Much, much better than the original Haley Mills/Brian Keith version. Sad.

[Patrick R. Sullivan]

Don't be dissin my gal Hayley, sbw. I recently watched--in several roughly ten minute segments--her film debut on You Tube, where as a 12 year old, stole the movie Tiger Bay from its ostensible stars (on of whom was her father). Which is how she got noticed by Disney.

I think it is the most brilliant child actor performance of all time.

[sbw]

Hah, Patrick. Perhaps. But what Disney did to the first Parent Trap -- casting, directing, screenplay -- did not stand the test of time. Hell, it was saccharine at its grand opening. I had no interest in the new version but, because of my youngsters was obliged. It was so well cast.

[Porchlight]

I have to say that Lindsay Lohan in the remake of The Parent Trap is extremely impressive. I was not predisposed to like that film, but I've since watched it a dozen or more times and enjoyed every minute (while my daughters were off elsewhere - that's how much I like it). Natasha Richardson and Dennis Quaid are splendid in it and their romance is entirely believable. Very sad news.

[matt]

Heard from a relative in Roundstone, the village in Ireland where Dodd has his house, that Dodd is trying to buy the whole island now. Must have been a big payday from AIG.

[Pofarmer]

This quote from the Fed should scare the Hell out of everybody.

The Fed said Wednesday that the "near-term economic outlook is weak" but that it anticipated "that policy actions to stabilize financial markets and institutions, together with fiscal and monetary stimulus, will contribute to a gradual resumption of sustainable economic growth."

We're into five year plan territory.

[DrJ]

Since these folks are, in effect, government employees, shouldn't they be put on the civil service pay scale?

There are many, many government positions that are not on the civil service pay scale. Those are just too low to get the good people required for many positions. Some of those are not as high-level as you might imagine.

[not_bubaroooni]

Fannie and Freddie were 'captured' during Clinton's administration and basically treated as any other captured foundation: a place to park libs while they made ginormous salaries and promote and effect social change. Foundations, Media and Academia are the bedrock of liberal, progressive (democratic or whatever else it is they are calling their creed these days) power. You could never really sell their ideas without the gloss provided by those institutions.

The only real difference is they put the taxpayers on the hook for their failed social experiments with the control of Fannie and Freddie.

My bro worked for the Pew in the '90's and it is quite a story on what he says he witnessed. I keep telling him there is a best seller in his recollections...

[Ranger]

Ok... All I can say to this is Oh... My... God.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/03/president-ob-14.html>President Obama Compares Big Banks, AIG, to Suicide Bombers

"Here's the problem," Mr. Obama said, "It's almost like they've got -- they've got a bomb strapped to them and they've got their hand on the trigger. You don't want them to blow up. But you've got to kind of talk them, ease that finger off the trigger."

Kind of sums up his views of capitalism in general I imagine.

[centralcal]

Family called and I had to leave after my early post about the untimely and mysterious death of Natasha R.

Thank you guys, for reaffirming why I love the regulars here.

Prayers and more prayers for all of you! You enrich my life in ways you will never know.

[Alien]

The bonuses are more than double last year's, which ranged from $200,000 to $260,000.

That's fair. They produced a bigger mess.

[Topsecretk9]

I'd like the names of these Fred and Fannie employees right now - PRONTO!!! Channeling Barney....

[narciso]

He doesn't get it, big surprise huh, what made banks volatile like bombs, was the nitro of subprime and other ARM product, virtually mandated by the CRA revisions,
bought by Fannie & Freddie, and repackaged abroad as CDOs. That's what ate through the foundation of American and now global finance, why am I not surprised.

[nieuwe verzekering]

I think it is actually mood elevating site with great report. Yes, you are doing absolutely fine job.

[DebinNC]

AP: "The pool of media that accompanies the president wherever he goes won't be allowed into the NBC studio during Thursday's taping of that night's "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno." That pool of about 14 journalists, made up of print and radio reporters, one TV camera crew and a few still photographers, will instead be held in a separate room where a live feed from the studio will be shown."

Question: If a camera crew accompanies BO wherever he goes, they must have captured his "Thank you, President Obama" snafu yesterday. Where's the film? Can the WH legally refuse to release the film?

[PD]

off

[Charlie (Colorado)]

Centralcal, Richardson's death isn't that mysterious. Every so often, an amazingly small head trauma will set off a intracranial bleed. Maybe the ER doc didn't have the nerve, or didn't realize what wqas happening, in time to crack her head and relieve the pressure.

[Fresh Air]

So the bombmakers were ACORN and the suicide bombers are Franklin Raines and that idiot who runs Zombiebank?

I can really see why he would need Ayers' help to write his first book, since his facility with metaphors is almost as poor as his extemporaneous speaking ability. Can we pull the plug on this idiot yet?

[daddy]

How about for any new nominee with a tax problem we simply have Congress retroactively redo their previous years pay to a level where the taxes that they actually did pay cover their new retroactively reduced income, so no longer are they tax cheats. Problem solved.

Likewise if their housemaids were illegal aliens Congress could retroactively make their maids American Citizen's. No problemo.

I suggest we label this new time altering Congressional power not anachronistic (against time), but instead "AnaChrongresstic." (Congress against time).

What's that you say, it's not in the Constitution? Well that's true for the moment, but tomorrow it'll have been in there for 200 years!