Responding to the growing furor over the paychecks of executives at companies that received billions of dollars in the government’s financial rescue, the Obama administration will order the companies that received the most aid to deeply slash the compensation to their highest paid executives, an official involved in the decision said on Wednesday.Kenneth FeinbergAPKenneth R. Feinberg, the Treasury Department’s special appointee for executive compensation.Under the plan, which will be announced in the next few days by the Treasury Department, the seven companies that received the most assistance will have to cut the annual salaries of their 25 best-paid executives by an average of about 90 percent from last year. Their total compensation — including bonuses and retirement contributions — will drop, on average, by about 50 percent. The companies are Citigroup [C 4.42 -0.01 -0.23% ], Bank of America [BAC 16.51 -0.50 -2.94% ], American International Group [AIG 38.96 -1.47 -3.64% ], General Motors, Chrysler and the financing arms of the two automakers.At the financial products division of the insurance giant, A.I.G., the locus of problems that plagued the large insurer and forced its rescue with more than $180 billion in taxpayer assistance, no top executive will receive more than $200,000 in total compensation, a stunning decline from previous years in which the unit produced many wealthy executives and traders.

via U.S. Said to Order Deep Pay Cuts at Bailed-Out Companies – Politics and Government US News Story – CNBC.com.

So we’ve learned recently that our representatives in Congress put in a work-week of about 2.5 days. Well, our country’s economy and global competitiveness might both be strengthened greatly if we could persuade the Keystone Cops who make up the Justice Dept.’s antitrust circus to do the Congress one better and work only 2.5 days a month.I was going to say that it’s almost incomprehensible that Justice is preparing to once again mount a vague, circumspect, and generally unsubstantiated attack on one of the most creative, innovative and valuable companies in the world, but that would be unfair. Because there’s no “almost” about it—to anyone outside of the Justice Dept.’s giant-shoe red-nose horn-honking clownish view of the world, this grandstanding effort to attack IBM NYSE: IBM and teach the company its proper place is completely and 100% incomprehensible.

via Global CIO: IBM Is Being Railroaded By Our Clueless Justice Dept. — InformationWeek.

FedEx Express is learning what could be the Democrats’ economic motto — “Never Let Success Go Unpunished.”

Led by Rep. James L. Oberstar, Minnesota Democrat, the House on May 21 passed legislation that contains an almost hidden provision — a mere 230 words — that would hobble FedEx Express. It would do so by completely changing the labor laws under which the company operates. Unless the Senate removes the language from the underlying bill reauthorizing the Federal Aviation Administration, a mere dozen or so workers in just one city could hamstring much of the nation’s overnight delivery service.

We Americans take for granted that things can “absolutely, positively … be there overnight” — but it took FedEx Express to make that so. FedEx Express is, of course, one of the great corporate success stories of modern times, having grown from a mere idea in a 1965 term paper by Yale University undergraduate Frederick W. Smith into a company essential to the workings of our modern economy.

It is a little-known fact that FedEx contracts with the U.S. Postal Service to carry almost all of its Express Mail and a large proportion of its Priority Mail. FedEx delivers huge amounts of needed supplies for American military forces, too — and its service is just about the only way to guarantee that some lifesaving medicines reach patients overnight.

via EDITORIAL: Kneecapping FedEx – Washington Times.

I must be naive. I really thought the administration would welcome the return of bank bailout money. Some $340 million in TARP cash flowed back this week from four small banks in Louisiana, New York, Indiana and California. This isn’t much when we routinely talk in trillions, but clearly that money has not been wasted or otherwise sunk down Wall Street’s black hole. So why no cheering as the cash comes back?

My answer: The government wants to control the banks, just as it now controls GM and Chrysler, and will surely control the health industry in the not-too-distant future. Keeping them TARP-stuffed is the key to control. And for this intensely political president, mere influence is not enough. The White House wants to tell ‘em what to do. Control. Direct. Command.

It is not for nothing that rage has been turned on those wicked financiers. The banks are at the core of the administration’s thrust: By managing the money, government can steer the whole economy even more firmly down the left fork in the road.

If the banks are forced to keep TARP cash — which was often forced on them in the first place — the Obama team can work its will on the financial system to unprecedented degree. That’s what’s happening right now.

Here’s a true story first reported by my Fox News colleague Andrew Napolitano with the names and some details obscured to prevent retaliation. Under the Bush team a prominent and profitable bank, under threat of a damaging public audit, was forced to accept less than $1 billion of TARP money. The government insisted on buying a new class of preferred stock which gave it a tiny, minority position. The money flowed to the bank. Arguably, back then, the Bush administration was acting for purely economic reasons. It wanted to recapitalize the banks to halt a financial panic.

via Barack Obama Maintains Control Over Banks By Refusing to Accept Repayment of TARP Money – WSJ.com.

It was nearly two weeks ago that the House of Representatives, acting in a near-frenzy after the disclosure of bonuses paid to executives of AIG, passed a bill that would impose a 90 percent retroactive tax on those bonuses. Despite the overwhelming 328-93 vote, support for the measure began to collapse almost immediately. Within days, the Obama White House backed away from it, as did the Senate Democratic leadership. The bill stalled, and the populist storm that spawned it seemed to pass.

But now, in a little-noticed move, the House Financial Services Committee, led by chairman Barney Frank, has approved a measure that would, in some key ways, go beyond the most draconian features of the original AIG bill. The new legislation, the “Pay for Performance Act of 2009,” would impose government controls on the pay of all employees — not just top executives — of companies that have received a capital investment from the U.S. government. It would, like the tax measure, be retroactive, changing the terms of compensation agreements already in place. And it would give Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner extraordinary power to determine the pay of thousands of employees of American companies.

via www.washingtonexaminer.com >> Politics.