17 million
It is not Alex Rodriguez’s annual salary (amazingly he makes a bit more), or the population of New York. Nope. But I’d say it’s plenty large. It represents the total bonuses paid at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac last year, according to Gretchen Morgenson’s most recent New York Times article. A drop in the bucket to the days when Franklin Raines was running the show and he alone pulled in nearly $100 million in just 5 years of quasi-government work as the CEO of Fannie Mae.
Okay. Another number, this one is a bit bigger:
153 billion
The GDP of New Zealand? Close. Albert Haynesworth’s annual salary? Nope. $153 billion is the amount taxpayers have “invested” in the solvency of Fannie and Freddie.
Main Street, here we go again. You’re asked to pay $153,000,000,000 under the threat that if you don’t the economy will really tank. Okay. You do it. But the next time the “ask” is going to be $500 billion. And the bonuses maybe $50 million.
One might respond, “We have to maintain the talent and experience base and the current executives aren’t the ones that ran up the massive debt.” That is partially true, and Freddie Mac’s CEO did not join the company until 2009; however, many of the companies’ high-ranking officers have remained throughout the crisis. For instance, Ms. Morgenson notes that Michael Williams, the head of Fannie Mae, has remained with the company since 1991.
When the public has the equivalent of a small nation’s GDP invested in a single company or two, executives cannot be allowed to receive bonus packages. I hate to flog a dead horse—and I feel like I’ve addressed this subject ad nauseam—but this constitutes a breach of the public trust, plain and simple.
These days much of my hope for consumer protection has rested with Elizabeth Warren and her Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, but this one is outside of her domain. Executive compensation is generally an internal issue, but the game changes when public finances are the only thing ensuring the solvency of the operation. Where is the outrage?
Assisted by David Martin