Хороший день, Comrade Pay Czar. Не снимите нас
Friday was the last day for companies on the government dole to submit their pay plans to Kenneth Feinberg, our nation’s new Pay Czar. The new compensation commissar is as powerful as a mid-winter blizzard on the Eurasian Steppe. According to Law.com:
The Obama administration’s “pay czar” is embarking on a review of proposed compensation packages for the top employees at seven companies that are on government life support, marking the first time a federal official will have veto power over how much private-sector executives are compensated.Kenneth Feinberg, who ran the government’s fund for families of the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, has 60 days to approve or reject the compensation plans submitted this week from bailout recipients. They include American International Group Inc. and General Motors.
Can’t you just see a detail of Feinberg’s men assigned to follow Fritz Henderson (the new CEO of GM) during his training routine? One day maybe Fritz will outrun Feinberg’s men and climb to the top of a high peak and scream “Fein-BERG,” as he prepares for an epic final battle with Feinberg himself?
In the meantime, here are more reasons why being a lawyer right now is better than being a banker.
Kenneth Feinberg — a dude from Brockton, an NYU Law grad, and a former partner at Kaye Scholer — seems as confused as anybody as to why America has implemented a politburo-style solution to temper the right of every American to make as much money as possible on the backs of everybody else:
“In our country’s heritage, we do not look kindly on the federal government insinuating itself into the private marketplace and micromanaging these companies,” Feinberg told National Public Radio in June. “On the other hand, there’s this populist sentiment today that there was excessive compensation paid to high-level company officials.”Compensation experts say Feinberg will likely seek changes that would align pay packages with executives’ performance.
Pay tied to performance? Now I know what that wild-eyed woman was talking about when she said “I want my America back!”
As usual, the fees these bailed out companies pay their lawyers have escaped mainstream media attention. That’s a fortunate thing. If the federal government started telling lawyers how much they could get paid, well, somebody might just dust off that old Constitution we have — or at least a copy of The Wealth of Nations.
Biglaw bonus season is just around the corner. We’ll befoul the Volga before we let any Pay Czar take that away from us, right?
Obama ‘Pay Czar’ to Review Executive Compensation Plans [Law.com]
Let The Bad Times Roll; Weil to Get Nearly $50 Million In Lehman [WSJ Law Blog]
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Comments
First...since when do you speak Russian?
Commies!!!!
After reading about Obama's criticism of the media and his attack on the first amendment (particularly the outcry against Obamacare), I think he should change his title from Head Czar to Commissar Obama.
Horrible translation! Don't rely on translate.com Elie and you may avoid embarassment. Should be:
Добрый день, Comrade Pay Czar. Не отбирайте у нас!
Put those suckers on the GS scale until they can generate their own profits.
4 is right. No surprise Elie makes typos in foreign languages.
@4 He can't even write in English. How would we expect him to be any better in a language he doesn't falsely claim to know?
Elie's Russian is almost as bad as his English. Elie, listen to 4, fix the title.
Thanks, number 4, I was about to provide a correction. Also, Elie, it's "tsar", not "czar". If you want to stick with the Russian theme....
TOP 10!
9 & 4 - Seriously, get over yourselves. (Or get into each other). Either way, STFU.
I want my Above the Law back! The funny clever one that wasn't rife with errors, moronic editorializing, and high-school-dropout level legal analysis. Please send Mystake on a permanent vacation.
11 - It's "shit the fuck up", not STFU.
If they don't like the gov'mint's oversight of their pay, they should have just refused the gov'mint's money and gone out of business.
Elie -
The "comrades" overthrew the Czar, killing him and his entire family. In fact, the word "comrade" came into use precisely to promote a sense of equality (according to the commies), that words and titles like "czar" stripped away.
Your "comrade czar" is a complete historical oxymoron.
Also, next time, ask an intern to call a Russian friend - don't use an online translator. What you wrote is gibberish.
Ellie, they are not fucking with. Fix the title.
Fritz vs. Feinberg? I wonder if their grandfathers had any, uh, mutual history...
Ha! 17 wins. Awesome.
lmfao at хороший день!
seriously dude. fix it.
Comrade 15. I think even Nicholas got the joke. I'm sure Prime Pay Minister Feinberg did too.
--Elie
Elie must have used the same translation service as did the State Department.
first off, douchebag, dont write in languages you dont speak.
second, dust off the constitution? seriously? go ahead and make a constitutional argument about why Congress's commerce power is insufficient for regulating wages and salaries. you think this is unconstitutional? you think a minimum wage is unconstitutional?
thats what i thought. tell you what. keep the political hyperbole misusing the constitution OUT of a legal blog. go get your own fucking blog where you can shout your political extremist nonsense until youre blue in the face.
Welcome back, ellie, you twat.
PE is a cock-watcher.
Hey Ellie, did you watch Rocky IV yesterday too? I turned it on right at that part.
Was Elie an affirmative action admit? Has he ever copped to that status?
I think the regulation of private sector wages and hours by congress is unconstitutional because to argue that a single employee's wage negotiation is part of interstate commerce is to distort the term beyond recognition and deprive it of all meaning. There can be no rational basis for construing the term in such fashion other than to place more power in the hands of the federal government. Bring back Lochner. Schecter Poultry was right.
The NLRA should be uncostitutional as well.
Do not select? Is babelfish broken? What does this idiom mean?
Feinberg rocks.
Elie, listen to no. 4. Your Russian is really bad.
Elie, listen to no. 4. Your Russian is really bad. Depending on how you read what you actually have in the title, it either says "don't take us down" or "don't take off [our clothes].
Your heading means "Good day, pay czar. Don't take us." or, alternatively it can also mean "Good day, pay czar. Don't film us."
Elie sounds like some african Borat trying to speak russian