Free Republic

Dozens of Wisconsin National Guard soldiers are still waiting for thousands of dollars owed to them for their service in Iraq. The delay is due to bureaucratic glitches and clerical errors, the Oshkosh Northwestern reported ( http://oshko.sh/xfjOx5). The soldiers, members of the Wisconsin National Guard 1157th Transportation Co., spent much of 2006 and 2007 in Iraq. When they came home they were due extra pay or days of leave for serving multiple deployments, but some never received what was owed to them because of errors in the way the Army computed and paid the benefits. "It's frustrating," said Richard Vander...

After a disappointing year, the big banks are pulling way back on their bonus pools. This is going to be hard on bankers whose salaries are usually a very small part of their overall compensation — and yes, before you drag out the world’s smallest violin, let me agree that they have no entitlement to anything more. But the bankers aren’t the only ones who’ve built their lifestyle around a heavy flow of easy money. Before the financial crisis, the industry payroll accounted for 20 percent of New York state’s tax revenue; it still accounts for about 13 percent, as...

*snip* Tebow has an escalator of $250,000 in his contract for each playoff victory assuming he participated in at least 70 percent of Denver's plays during the requisite season, according to an NFL source. Being that he played 73 percent of Denver's plays this season, Tebow cashed in on a quarter-million salary escalator after his latest shocker -- an 80-yard touchdown pass on the first play of overtime Sunday to beat Pittsburgh 29-23 in the wild-card playoffs. The play, according to Twitter, spawned a record 9,420 tweets per second. Tebow could earn another $250,000 with another victory Saturday night at...

We end this busy day of economic buffoonery with Goldman's scorecard for August ("the US economy has not fallen off a cliff", which we translate as a B+, and "far better than expected"), which in turn explains why Goldman, and everyone else, now assumes QE3 (yes, Op Twist is QE3; get over it) is not only a given, but why in Goldman's esteemed opinion, the Fed has at least 3 rationales for pushing for more QEasing. Incidentally, these are as follows: "First, unemployment is far above the Fed’s long-term forecast in the low 5% range; the longer high unemployment...

Records: $645K In Bonuses Paid To Schools Named In ScandalRecords Detail Bonuses Paid To APS Staff, Teachers Updated: 6:37 pm EDT August 9, 2011 ATLANTA -- Channel 2 Action News has obtained records detailing bonuses paid to teachers and staff at schools implicated in the Atlanta Public Schools cheating scandal. Channel 2's Tom Regan put in a request for the documents on bonus payments two weeks ago. He received the records on Tuesday and has been poring over the documents. Regan said the documents detail bonuses that were paid out from January 2009 to the present. According to the documents,...

Georgia lawmaker wants cheating educators to return bonusesUnder the proposed legislation, any educator found guilty of cheating would forfeit all promised salary increases or bonuses and would have to repay any money handed out based on test results. Updated: 10:33 AM Jul 19, 2011 Reporter: The Associated Press ATLANTA (AP) — **SNIP** State Rep. Billy Mitchell, a Democrat from Stone Mountain, said Monday he plans to introduce legislation that would affect educators who get raises or bonuses for improving students' test scores. Mitchell said he wants to introduce the bill during the special legislative session next month. Under the proposed...

Goldman Sachs released some disappointing earnings numbers this morning. In the report were details of the drop in compensation costs. According to the report, compensation expenses -- which includes salaries, bonuses and benefits -- fell to $3.2 billion for the second quarter of 2011. That represents a big 16% decline from this time last year. Compare that to Q1 compensation costs this year, which clocked in at $5.23 billion and was only down 5% compared to Q1 2010.

If any organization should see a big restriction in executive compensation, it should be the government-seized, taxpayer-rescued Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Congress has expanded the bailout of the two GSEs at the heart of the global economic collapse a number of times, with the potential cost to the Treasury estimated as high as $363 billion dollars. Recall, too, that the Obama administration created a “pay czar� to regulate executive compensation at private-sector banks that took TARP money to discourage excessive compensation. As the Wall Street Journal reported last week, the White House seems to care less about that issue...

Fannie, Freddie Execs Get Big Bucks Despite Downturnby Sonari Glinton April 1, 2011 Sure the past year was a tough one for the millions of Americans who lost jobs or faced foreclosure, but at least some people did well. The top executives of bailed-out mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were paid very large salaries — without proper written procedures or analysis, according to an inspector general's report. MICHELE NORRIS, host: A new report out this week is criticizing the pay for top executives at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Those are the mortgage giants that were taken...

GOP targets salaries, 'offensive' bonuses of federal workersBy Erik Wasson - 03/09/11 08:50 PM ET Cost-cutting House Republicans on Wednesday made it clear that they are eyeing the salaries of federal workers. And they don’t like what they see. During a House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee hearing, panel Chairman Dennis Ross (R-Fla.) noted that “federal employees on average earned $101,628 in total compensation in 2010, nearly four times more than the average private-sector worker.” He argued President Obama’s two-year pay freeze for federal workers, enacted in December, “wasn’t really a freeze” because it did not include all increases. He...

But on Wednesday the heads of the police and firefighter unions stood shoulder-to-shoulder on the steps of City Hall united against Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who they both called a "liar." What brought the rivals together? Money. For the past month, Mr. Bloomberg has renewed a call to eliminate a $12,000-a-year pension supplement for about 60,000 retired police officers and firefighters that the mayor has repeatedly called "Christmas bonuses." Mr. Bloomberg said the city is "now kicking in more than $600 million a year to subsidize it" at a time when they're trying to close a $2 to $4 billion budget...

When it comes to paychecks, Wall Street's law of gravity is back in full force: What goes down must come back up. In 2010, total compensation and benefits at publicly traded Wall Street banks and securities firms hit a record of $135 billion, according to an analysis by The Wall Street Journal. The total is up 5.7% from $128 billion in combined compensation and benefits by the same companies in 2009. The increase was fueled by a revenue rebound as the financial crisis recedes in the rearview mirror. At 25 large financial firms that have reported full-year results, revenue rose...

Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein bagged a $14.6M compensation package.....including stock awards, which were also paid to other top executives. Blankfein also got a 230% bump in his base salary to $2M, up from $600,000 since 2007....excluding private jets, cars and other perks. CFO David Viniar, COO Gary Cohn and Vice Chair Michael Evans received identical boosts, with each hauling in $1.85M annually. Blankfein's pay in the halcyon days of 2007, was $67.9M. Other firms have been hiking base pay at a time when regulators are mulling new rules for Wall Street pay.

Army Looks For Soldiers Due Unpaid Bonuses (Undated) -- The Army is looking for about 35-thousand soldiers who are owed bonuses because they were forced to remain in the military beyond their normal enlistment. The government authorized the "special pay" in 2009 after criticism from some troops and Congress who said the "stop loss" policy extending enlistments amounted to a "back door draft." Many of those affected fought in Afghanistan or Iraq. The Army has already paid 245-million-dollars in bonuses for 84-thousand soldiers, but hasn't paid 160-million to about 57-thousand current or former soldiers, or their families. The Pentagon is...

Someone's paying attention at Microsoft. At least enough to only grant CEO Steve Ballmer half of his maximum bonus this year, because of Microsoft's continued failure in the mobile industry, and because tablet computers are threatening Microsoft's core Windows business. As Reuters reports, "a discussion of Ballmer's pay in the company's annual proxy filing also referred to the 'unsuccessful launch of the Kin phone, loss of market share in the company's mobile phone business, and the need for the company to pursue innovations to take advantage of new form factors'." You may recall that Microsoft canceled its Kin mobile phone...

Private employees toil 13½ months to earn what federal workers do in 12. Pay cuts, layoffs and the highest unemployment rates in decades have reignited a debate over the relative treatment of public and private workers. USA Today reported in March that federal workers earn substantially higher wages than private sector employees who work the same types of jobs.White House budget chief Peter Orszag responded that these pay differences merely reflect the superior skills of federal workers, not government largess. Adjusting for education and experience, he said, federal workers make about the same salaries as private workers.

Under the Obama administration, the government is doing such a good job that it's decided to reward itself. Last year, Uncle Sam paid out $408 million in bonuses to 1.3 million federal workers, according to the Asbury Park Press, which obtained the information through a Freedom of Information Act request. That's about $80 million more than the previous year. About one in four federal workers received a bonus, and awards ranged from $25 to, in the case of one lucky State Department worker, $94,500. That $408 million figure only counts bonuses that were handed out to about 65 percent of...

<p>LAWRENCEVILLE, Ga. – About 180 county employees in suburban Atlanta are being asked to return thousands of dollars the county says they were overpaid 16 years ago.</p>

Some New York Times Co... staffers are boiling about their top executives' huge $12 million payouts in 2009. Chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr.'s compensation more than doubled in 2009, to nearly $6 million. President and CEO Janet Robinson also boosted her earnings by 32%, to $6.3 million. During the same year, the New York newsroom lost 100 staffers to buyouts and layoffs, along with pay and benefit cuts at sister publications. "We watched our colleagues pack their boxes and he is making $6 million? It's a joke."

Those paydays that New York Times Co. Chairman Arthur Sulzberger and President Janet Robinson received last year are once again coming back to haunt them. The Boston Newspaper Guild, which absorbed more than $10 million in pay and benefit cuts to members last year in order to save The Boston Globe, has lashed out at the Sulzberger and Robinson 2009 bonuses and are demanding their lost wages and benefits be restored... The Times Co. declined to comment. The company raised eyebrows earlier this month when it revealed in a company filing that the pair of execs got higher bonuses in...

The only thing that seems to be growing during the current economic downturn is the government, and that's cause for alarm. While families and businesses struggle to make ends meet, the ranks of federal workers swell - as does their compensation. It's time for the feds to start making the same financial sacrifices as the rest of us. Consider how much money a bureaucrat can make for successfully sitting at his desk for a year. In January, all federal workers, regardless of competence or expertise, saw a 2.4 percent boost in their paychecks. That came on top of a 4.8...

On January 21st, Lloyd Blankfein left a peculiar voicemail message on the work phones of his employees at Goldman Sachs. Fast becoming America's pre-eminent Marvel Comics supervillain, the CEO used the call to deploy his secret weapon: a pair of giant, nuclear-powered testicles. In his message, Blankfein addressed his plan to pay out gigantic year-end bonuses amid widespread controversy over Goldman's role in precipitating the global financial crisis. The bank had already set aside a tidy $16.2 billion for salaries and bonuses -- meaning that Goldman employees were each set to take home an average of $498,246, a number roughly...

'GOVERNMENT MOTORS' CEO Gets $9 Million Pay Package...

Paul Krugman is, I think, right to be amazed by Obama's embrace of the $17 million bonus given to JPMorgan Chase Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon and the $9 million issued to Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein. If Obama's idea of moving to the middle politically is to embrace Wall Street's too-big-to-fail banks, he's crazy. Usually Republicans are the party of Big Business and Democrats of Big Government, and the public's hostility to both more or less evens the politics out. But if Obama now becomes the spokesman for Big Government intrusiveness and the apologist for Big Business irresponsibility all...

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Blankfein was awarded $9 million in stock for his performance in 2009, a year in which profit soared to an all-time high and the shares doubled. The sum falls short of the Wall Street record that Blankfein, 55, set with his $67.9 million bonus in 2007. Blankfein’s payment of 58,381 restricted stock units, valued at $9 million at today’s closing price of $154.16, was disclosed today in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Goldman Sachs, the most profitable securities firm in Wall Street history, cut the percentage...

Crain's New York Business Lazard bonuses so big, they turned 4Q into a loss By Aaron Elstein Published: February 3, 2010 - 3:06 pm What should have been a profitable quarter a Lazard Ltd. turned into a surprising loss due to the investment bank paying its people big bonuses. The firm doled out $616 million in compensation and benefits to about 2,300 employees last quarter, or more than triple the amount handed out in the same period in 2008. It was a consequence, Lazard said, of a decision to pay more bonuses in cash and accelerate some deferred cash awards...

Bankrupt Tribune Company Hands Out $45 Million In Bonuses Lauren Hatch Jan. 27, 2010, 5:21 PM Tribune Company, which declared bankruptcy in December 2008, just got official permission to shell out $45 million in bonuses. A Delaware judge approved the bonuses for 720 of the company's top managers and executives who work for their daily newspapers including the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, The Baltimore Sun. The Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild and the U.S. bankruptcy trustee objected to the payouts, Editor & Publisher reports. Tribune planned on giving out three separate bonus last year, in hopes of retaining a knowledgeable and...

When you breach the sacrosanct wall between church and state, and use religion to promote policy, bad things happen. At least, that's what the left has been telling us for years. But Rev. Jim Wallis, editor-in-chief of Sojourners magazine and author of "Rediscovering Values: On Wall Street, Main Street and Your Street," sees it differently. Wallis used his interpretation of religion, particularly the Bible, to play the populist card and categorize portions of the American private sector as greedy on MSNBC's Jan. 21 "Morning Joe." "These bank bonuses, I would say, are a sin of Biblical proportions," Wallis said. "But...

1/20/2010 - PIERRE, S.D. (AFNS) -- South Dakota officials are paying a bonus to members of the Armed Forces who were legal residents of the state for no less than six months immediately preceding their period of active duty and who served on active duty during one or more of the following periods. 1. Aug. 2, 1990, to March 3, 1991 - All active service counts for payment. 2. March 4, 1991, to Dec. 31, 1992 - Only service in a hostile area qualifying for the Southwest Asia Service Medal counts for payment. 3. Jan. 1, 1993, to Sept. 10,...

$145 BILLION* Joe Weisenthal Jan. 14, 2010, 7:54 PM Thanks to taxpayers, Wall Street is going to have a killer bonus season, up 18% from last year, according to analysis from WSJ. That works out to $145 billion.

The White House press briefing is under way as we speak, and Press Secretary Robert Gibbs was asked about whether the White House's proposed new tax on banks would merely be passed on to consumers. Gibbs' response, via the twitter feed of David Corn from Politics Daily, is rather astonishing: Gibbs: "let your money do the talking". Suggests customers move $ out of banks thatvpass along tax. #whbrief 4 minutes ago Gibbs: if banks pass thetax along to consumers-when paying big bonuses-ustomers can bank elsewhere. #whbrief 5 minutes ago The White House press briefing is under way as we speak,...

JP Morgan to pay $29 bn in salaries and bonuses: Report 10 Jan 2010, 1549 hrs IST, PTI LONDON: World's biggest banks will pay out more than $65 billion in salaries and bonuses over the next fortnight, with banking conglomerate JP Morgan Chase alone likely to shell out a record $29 billion, barely a year after the bailout of the banking system. "JP Morgan Chase is set to defy calls for constraint over bankers' bonuses this week when it delivers an expected $29 billion compensation pot for its executives," the Sunday Telegraph reported. JP Morgan's 220,861 employees are on average...

YEAH, BABY! Massive Taxpayer-Sponsored Wall Street Bonuses! Henry Blodget Jan. 9, 2010, 6:53 PM Thank you, Tim Geithner! Thank you, Ben Bernanke! Thank you, Hank Paulson! Thank you, Larry Summers! Thank you, Barack Obama! Thank you, AMERICA, for making this yet another absolutely great year to work on Wall Street! [Wall Street] executives acknowledge that the [bonus] numbers being tossed around — six-, seven- and even eight-figure sums for some chief executives and top producers — will probably stun the many Americans still hurting from the financial collapse and ensuing Great Recession.[snip]

Goldman sued by pension fund over bonus plans NEW YORK Thu Jan 7, 2010 6:19pm EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - Goldman Sachs Group Inc was sued on Thursday by an Illinois pension fund seeking to recover billions of dollars of bonuses and other compensation being awarded for 2009, saying the payouts harm shareholders. In a lawsuit filed in New York state supreme court in Manhattan on behalf of shareholders, the Central Laborers' Pension Fund said Goldman had by September 25 set aside nearly $17 billion for compensation and might pay out more than $22 billion for the year. It said...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Top executives at mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, both of which have been under government control since last year, received millions of dollars in pay in 2009, according to documents filed by the companies Thursday. The chief executive officers of each company got annual pay packages worth $6 million apiece, while other top execs pulled in at least $2 million. Fannie Mae (FNM, Fortune 500) CEO Michael Williams, who was promoted to CEO on April 21, will receive about $4.2 million in base salary and deferred cash payments for his time in the...

In a London preview of Wall Street's bonus nightmare, more than 1,000 investment bankers have quit Royal Bank of Scotland to work at rivals due to curbs on their paychecks, according to people familiar with the situation. Wall Street banks fear top talent would flee en masse for greener pastures if Uncle Sam's pay czar, Ken Feinberg, and Congress try to put more ceilings on bonuses and pay at financial firms. In the UK, the rules are modeled after US actions to curb pay at firms bailed out by the government.RBS will soon be about 84-percent owned by the British...

To get a sense of what Goldman Sachs (GS) has pulled off in the last two years, consider: Goldman Sachs was directly responsible for creating, marketing, and trading many of the toxic financial instruments behind the mortgage crisis and resulting recession. The bank's irresponsible behavior nearly caused its collapse, and taxpayers had to bail it out. Public funds saved Goldman Sachs, which this year is minting money and watching its stock soar. Last month, two Goldman vice chairmen quietly sold $55 million worth of company stock and pocketed the cash. And there you have it: from your IRS check to...

Unions standing in the way of progress? I’m shocked, shocked I tell you! The Boston Herald reports that a plan that rewards teachers whose students receive passing grades on Advanced Placement tests — and offers incentives for the students, too — is, predictably, being opposed by the Boston Teachers Union.

Wall St. Is Winning: Elizabeth Warren "Speechless" About Record Bonuses Posted Oct 16, 2009 10:58am EDT by Aaron Task in Newsmakers, Banking Elizabeth Warren, chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel, is the rare public official who doesn't mince words. But Warren admits to being "speechless" at reports of record bonuses on Wall Street. "I do not understand how financial institutions could think they could take taxpayer money and turn around and act like it's business as usual," Warren says. "I don't understand how they can't see that the world has changed in a fundamental way - it's not business as...

MUCH of the recent anger over bank bonuses has been focused on Goldman Sachs, which, according to results just published, accumulated a further $5.4 billion for its staff in the most recent quarter. Yet the one thing that can be said about Goldman is that if its employees are making hay partly on the back of an implicit public guarantee, so are shareholders. In the same quarter the bank generated an annualised return on equity of 21%. Not so for some of America’s other banks. There, the owners (and in theory the controllers) of the firms seem to have been...

Goldman Sachs is considering donating in excess of $1bn (£627m) to charity in an attempt to quell the growing furore over the likely size of its 2009 bonus pot. The investment bank which is set to report its results for the three months to September on Thursday, is understood to be giving serious thought to some form of large philanthropic donation. The aim of the donation, first disclosed by Henry Blodget's Business Insider blog, would be to deflect the likely row come at the end of the year. By then Goldman's total compensation pot is expected to be a record...

Bankers will see their pay-outs curtailed after G20 ministers agreed at the weekend to limit them to sucessful deals. The groundbreaking agreement has been designed to limit the negative economic effects of deals which go wrong and help the global recovery continue to take hold. The Chancellor Alistair Darling said the new clawback measures would mean financial companies are "focused on long-term sustainability and strength" and would result in staff not being "rewarded for reckless behaviour". However a plan put forward by the German and French governments to cap bankers' pay was rejected as a result of protests from the...

A modest proposal: Make banker bonuses payable in electric cars! Alex Salkever Jul 17th 2009 at 1:00PM Goldman Sachs (GS) and JP Morgan (JPM), reported blow-out earnings to be matched with blow-out six and seven-figure bonuses for their staffs. And struggling electric car company Tesla Motors opened a Gotham showroom (via AMNewYork) for its Roadster. This sporty two-seater zips from zero-to-sixty in a breathtaking 3.7 seconds. The car's $109,000 price tag is also breathtaking. But if you're a bulge-bracket banker, coughing up $109,000 for a car means merely a slight downgrade on the Hamptons summer rental. So the modest proposal...

Goldman Sachs bankers in line for record bonuses Bankers at Goldman Sachs could be in line for record bonuses as compensation on Wall Street looks set to rebound in spite of problems in the wider economy. By James Quinn, Wall Street Correspondent Published: 5:21PM BST 02 Jul 2009 The headquarters of Goldman Sachs. The bank is reportedly on course to produce a total compensation pot of $20bn this year for its bankers Photo: Getty Images Goldman, which continues to attract the very best investment bankers and is chaired by Lloyd Blankfein, is on track to pay staff more than it...

WASHINGTON, May 5 (Reuters) - Embattled insurer American International Group (AIG.N) paid some $454 million in previously undisclosed performance bonuses to employees for 2008, the company said in answers to questions from a U.S. lawmaker that released on Tuesday. It was not 165 Million ... More circuses and bread for the masses. We are being played.

* Citigroup Inc., soon to be one-third owned by the U.S. government, is asking the Treasury for permission to pay special bonuses to many key employees, according to people familiar with the matter. The request comes as Citigroup is grappling with broad government pay restrictions that could break apart its legendary energy-trading unit. People at that unit, Phibro, are threatening to leave because of pay caps tied to the U.S. bailout of Citigroup. Phibro has been the source of hundreds of millions of dollars in profits for the bank, and has paid out hefty compensation, including a roughly $100 million...

Just saw this on U.S. News & World Report.  There's a new petition asking Keith Olbermann to give back his extra $3.5 million in compensation, in light of the fact that GE is taking bailout funds: While General Electric, the parent-company of your MSNBC network, was negotiating a $126 billion taxpayer-funded bailout, you signed a new contract raising your salary from $4 million to $7.5 million annually. You have used your show as a platform to call for the resignation of corporate executives accepting excessive bonuses on the backs of taxpayers who are picking up the tab for these atrocious...

Companies Reset Goals for Bonuses By JONATHAN D. GLATER When executives have a tough time meeting their performance goals, a growing number of companies are moving the goalposts for them. Instead of paying bonuses to top executives when revenue or profits rise — less and less likely in this dark economy — companies have disclosed plans to offer awards based on other measures of success. A bonus may be more attainable if based, say, on preserving cash flow. Xerox has dropped revenue growth as a factor in determining bonuses for its executives, the company disclosed recently in regulatory filings. The...

Democrats struggle to respond to AIG bonus flapAnne Flaherty, Associated Press Writer Wednesday April 1, 2009, 6:08 pm EDT WASHINGTON (AP) -- The House is taking another, albeit weaker, stab at trying to keep bailed-out financial institutions from paying their employees hefty bonuses after lawmakers had second thoughts about their vote two weeks ago to tax the bonuses away. A new bill, expected to pass narrowly Wednesday, would allow the bonuses if the Treasury Department and financial regulators determine they are not "unreasonable or excessive." "No one has the right to get rich off taxpayer money" and "no one should...

While Congress has been flaying companies for giving out bonuses while on the government dole, lawmakers have a longstanding tradition of rewarding their own employees with extra cash -- also courtesy of taxpayers, the Wall Street Journal reported. Capitol Hill bonuses in 2008 were among the highest in years, according to LegiStorm, an organization that tracks payroll data. The average House aide earned 17 percent more in the fourth quarter of the year, when the bonuses were paid, than in previous quarters, according to the data. That was the highest jump in the eight years LegiStorm has compiled payroll information....