Obama needs to insist that all bets are off unless those two traders want to be responsible for destroying Citi. If this goes through, it will be obvious who is running the show. This game about what their contracts say is getting old and should have been shut down months ago. Citi was insolvent so let's quit pretending as though that wasn't the case. They are alive only because of the generosity of the US taxpayer so to allow $130 million in bonus money to two individuals will be too insulting to everyone who is struggling to get by. It's a free job market so if the traders don't like it, let them find another company.
Quit the hand-wringing and bet wetting and show some executive leadership ability.
Senior Obama administration officials were wrestling on Friday with how to handle an explosive executive pay issue involving two traders’ compensation package of nearly $130 million that Citigroup says is exempt from government review.
Citigroup’s decision leaves top White House and Treasury Department officials unable to do much about some of the highest-paid employees at the deeply troubled bank just two months after the administration announced, with great fanfare, the appointment of an official to crack down on lucrative payouts at companies that have become wards of the state.
On Friday, Citigroup, which is facing a government deadline, submitted the pay packages for its 25 senior executives and highest-paid employees. People involved in that process said Citi advised the Treasury that an energy trader named Andrew J. Hall, due $98 million, was exempt from federal review, and so was a second unidentified trader who received more than $30 million.
