THE WHITE HOUSE IS SET TO APPOINT a "special master for compensation" according to news reports, to ensure that companies receiving federal bailout funds are abiding by executive pay guidelines. Kenneth Feinberg, who ran the government's compensation fund for victims of 9/11, is expected to be the pay czar and will report to Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner. The move comes at a time when numerous and often overlapping efforts to curb pay at financial institutions have arisen in the wake of perceived pay excesses. Feinberg is expected to have wide discretion on how the rules apply and firms won't be able to appeal decisions that he makes. Let's see if we understand this. The administration wants to give Guantanamo terrorists the right of appeal but not financial executives employed by wealth-and-job creating U.S. firms.

Print Get the Mag Weekly Updates