Pay czar quietly meets with rescued companies

[IDemo]

By Brady Dennis and Tomoeh Murakami Tse
updated 4:13 a.m. MT, Sun., Aug 9, 2009

President Obama's compensation czar has been meeting for weeks with executives at some of the country's largest and most troubled companies as they face a Thursday deadline to propose how much they will pay their top employees.

Kenneth R. Feinberg has the unprecedented task of deciding executive compensation at seven companies that received large government bailouts. His meetings with American International Group, Citigroup, Bank of America, General Motors, Chrysler, Chrysler Financial and GMAC have been conducted in secret, with neither Feinberg nor the companies willing to say much in public.

But one window into this opaque process is an account provided by people familiar with his discussions with AIG, the crippled insurer that has received tens of billions of dollars in federal rescue money.

Last month, Feinberg's face flashed across the video screens at corporate offices in London, Paris and Wilton, Conn. Over the better part of an hour, AIG employees on both sides of the Atlantic peppered him with questions about their compensation, recalled several people familiar with the videoconference. What could happen to the bonuses they were promised? Would he try to alter their contracts? How would the company's pay structure change?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32347737/ns/business-washington_post/

I had no idea there was a "pay czar". Why do I feel a "compromise" will be created that essentially grants execs everything they want with only token reductions and a sternly worded note (or not).