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COMPENSATION IN THE FINANCIAL 

INDUSTRY—GOVERNMENT PERSPECTIVES 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL SERVICES 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

FEBRUARY 25, 2010 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Financial Services 

Serial No. 111–103 

( 

(II) 

HOUSE COMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL SERVICES 

BARNEY FRANK, Massachusetts, Chairman 

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania 

MAXINE WATERS, California 

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York 

LUIS V. GUTIERREZ, Illinois 

NYDIA M. VELA ́ ZQUEZ, New York 

MELVIN L. WATT, North Carolina 

GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York 

DENNIS MOORE, Kansas 

MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts 

RUBE ́ N HINOJOSA, Texas 

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri 

CAROLYN MCCARTHY, New York 

JOE BACA, California 

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts 

BRAD MILLER, North Carolina 

DAVID SCOTT, Georgia 

AL GREEN, Texas 

EMANUEL CLEAVER, Missouri 

MELISSA L. BEAN, Illinois 

GWEN MOORE, Wisconsin 

PAUL W. HODES, New Hampshire 

KEITH ELLISON, Minnesota 

RON KLEIN, Florida 

CHARLES A. WILSON, Ohio 

ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado 

JOE DONNELLY, Indiana 

BILL FOSTER, Illinois 

ANDRE ́ CARSON, Indiana 

JACKIE SPEIER, California 

TRAVIS CHILDERS, Mississippi 

WALT MINNICK, Idaho 

JOHN ADLER, New Jersey 

MARY JO KILROY, Ohio 

STEVE DRIEHAUS, Ohio 

SUZANNE KOSMAS, Florida 

ALAN GRAYSON, Florida 

JIM HIMES, Connecticut 

GARY PETERS, Michigan 

DAN MAFFEI, New York 

SPENCER BACHUS, Alabama 

MICHAEL N. CASTLE, Delaware 

PETER T. KING, New York 

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California 

FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma 

RON PAUL, Texas 

DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois 

WALTER B. JONES, JR., North Carolina 

JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois 

GARY G. MILLER, California 

SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West Virginia 

JEB HENSARLING, Texas 

SCOTT GARRETT, New Jersey 

J. GRESHAM BARRETT, South Carolina 

JIM GERLACH, Pennsylvania 

RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas 

TOM PRICE, Georgia 

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina 

JOHN CAMPBELL, California 

ADAM PUTNAM, Florida 

MICHELE BACHMANN, Minnesota 

KENNY MARCHANT, Texas 

THADDEUS G. McCOTTER, Michigan 

KEVIN McCARTHY, California 

BILL POSEY, Florida 

LYNN JENKINS, Kansas 

CHRISTOPHER LEE, New York 

ERIK PAULSEN, Minnesota 

LEONARD LANCE, New Jersey 

JEANNE M. ROSLANOWICK, Staff Director and Chief Counsel 

(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Hearing held on: 

February 25, 2010 ............................................................................................ 1 

Appendix: 

February 25, 2010 ............................................................................................ 35 

WITNESSES 

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2010 

Alvarez, Scott G., General Counsel, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System ......................................................................................................... 11 

DeMarco, Edward J., Acting Director, Federal Housing Finance Agency .......... 9 

Feinberg, Kenneth R., Special Master for TARP Executive Compensation, 

U.S. Department of the Treasury ....................................................................... 13 

APPENDIX 

Prepared statements: 

Welch, Hon. Peter ............................................................................................. 36 

Alvarez, Scott G. ............................................................................................... 37 

DeMarco, Edward J. ......................................................................................... 53 

Feinberg, Kenneth R. ....................................................................................... 60 

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD

Frank, Hon. Barney: 

Letter to James B. Lockhart III, Director, Federal Housing Finance Agency, dated March 19, 2009 ............................................................................. 66 

Letter to Chairman Frank from James B. Lockhart III, Director, Federal 

Housing Finance Agency, dated March 20, 2009 ....................................... 67 

Letter to Honorable Barney Frank, Honorable Spencer Bachus, Honorable Christopher Dodd, and Honorable Richard Shelby from Edward 

J. DeMarco, Acting Director, Federal Housing Finance Agency, dated 

February 2, 2010 ........................................................................................... 69 

(1) 

COMPENSATION IN THE FINANCIAL 

INDUSTRY—GOVERNMENT PERSPECTIVES 

Thursday, February 25, 2010 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL SERVICES, Washington, D.C. 

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:02 p.m., in room 

2128, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Barney Frank [chairman of the committee] presiding. 

Members present: Representatives Frank, Watt, Sherman, Moore 

of Kansas, Clay, McCarthy of New York, Green, Cleaver, Ellison, 

Perlmutter, Donnelly, Carson, Speier, Adler, Kosmas; Bachus, 

Royce, Biggert, Capito, Hensarling, Garrett, Gerlach, Neugebauer, 

Jenkins, Paulsen, and Lance. 

The CHAIRMAN. The hearing will come to order. This is a hearing 

on the question of what restrictions are appropriate in compensation for people being paid with public funds. I have to announce 

that Ken Feinberg is, unfortunately, stuck on a train. He is on a 

train from New York that was behind a train that was involved in 

a fatal accident. He is trying to get here. 

Given the time constraints we are facing as a result of having 

been snowed out, we can’t really postpone things. So we hope he 

will get here at some point, but we’re going to have to see. 

And I recognize the gentleman from California, Mr. Sherman, for 

2 minutes for an opening statement. 

Mr. SHERMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Those who have repaid 

the TARP money are not truly independent of Federal involvement, 

for they enjoy the implicit Federal guarantee if they are too-big-tofail. 

We are told that old contracts must be honored, even if they were 

signed by entities which, by all rights, are bankrupt. And, therefore, enormous money must be paid to those who drag us and their 

companies down. 

We are told the new lucrative contracts must be signed at AIG 

and elsewhere, so that we can have talented croupiers involved in 

continuing to gamble at taxpayer expense, when in fact, AIG 

should be liquidated. And you don’t need talented croupiers to do 

that. 

And we are told that we shouldn’t focus on the enormous size of 

amounts being paid to those who are employed by government-subsidized entities, we should only focus on whether there are perverse 

incentives. 

I think it’s difficult to construct any contract that doesn’t offer 

perverse incentives to somebody who is running a division of one 

2 

of these big banks, since by taking enormous risks, they could justify getting the grant of an enormous amount of restricted stock, 

which restricted stock will turn out to be valuable unless the heads 

of the other divisions have screwed up and the people taking enormous risks in their own division have no reason to think that everybody else is going to bring down the company. 

So, these bonuses and compensation plans are outrageous, and 

the justifications of pre-existing contract—‘‘We’re done with TARP,’’ 

or, ‘‘We need to preserve the assets for the benefit of the taxpayer’’—don’t hold water when you really examine them. I yield 

back. 

The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman. At the last hearing we 

had on executive compensation, the gentleman—our colleague from 

Vermont, Mr. Welch, had a statement he wanted to put in the 

record. I neglected to ask for permission to do that, so I now ask 

unanimous consent to include in the record the statement from Mr. 

Welch of Vermont on executive compensation. Hearing no objection, 

it will be included. 

The gentleman from Alabama is now recognized for 4 minutes. 

Mr. BACHUS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing. 

We are the largest and strongest economy in the world. America 

didn’t get there by having the government run businesses. 

The traditional view, which I share, is that we have the number 

one economy in the world because of the free enterprise system, in 

which it is inappropriate, ineffective, and dangerous for the government to impose controls on the executive compensation practices of 

privately-owned companies. It is inappropriate, because such companies’ practices should be controlled by their shareholders, who 

are the owners of the money which is being paid to the executives. 

It is ineffective, because government bureaucrats have shown 

themselves to be particularly inept at making decisions governing 

executive compensation. Most critically, it is dangerous, because 

government bureaucrats and politicians inevitably allow political 

considerations to distort their decisions. 

There is no need to elaborate on the first point. It is the stockholders’ money. And unless the government is a shareholder, the 

government has no right to tell them how they may disburse it. 

The pretense that this is a safety and soundness issue is simply an 

excuse to disallow pay that many, myself included, often find excessive. But shareholders already have the power to stop their money 

from being paid to executives who do not deserve it. 

To ensure stockholders have the information and access they 

need to exercise their control, Republicans have supported giving 

shareholders of publicly traded companies a triennial, non-binding 

shareholder vote on executive compensation. This approach is far 

preferable to entrusting more power to the same government whose 

regulatory failures have caused the financial meltdown. 

The ineffectiveness of bureaucratic controls is clearly shown by 

the experience of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which the government does own. I am particularly pleased that we will hear today 

from the acting Federal Housing Finance Agency Director, Mr. 

DeMarco, about the Christmas Eve decision to award multi-million 

dollar pay packages to the executives of Fannie and Freddie. The 

$6 million pay packages given to each of their CEOs—an amount 

3 

15 times more than the President makes, and 30 times more than 

a Cabinet Secretary—represents just one example of what happens 

when the Federal Government is given the responsibility for regulating compensation. 

Employees of AIG, another company owned by the taxpayers, were awarded $100 million in bonuses this year. 

Executives at General Motors, a firm that already has received $52.4 billion in bailout money, was recently given a waiver to receive compensation in excess of a $500,000 pay cap. In addition, 

GM’s ousted former CEO is being brought back to serve as a consultant, and will receive compensation of $3,000 an hour. 

These are two companies controlled by the government. The 

greatest danger is that dramatically increasing government micromanagement of compensation packages will provide politicians 

with a powerful tool to influence business decisions for political or 

policy purposes, but not economic purposes. Every society that has 

followed that path has come to grief. Governments should not be 

micromanaging private business. 

We need to end the bailouts, and let businesses rise or fall on 

their own merits. Letting the government decide who prospers and 

who doesn’t and bailing out those who fail is not how we became 

the most powerful economy in the world. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. I just want to, off the cuff, say I have this very 

nice, very sharply delineated clock here, that tells me when there 

is only 1 minute left. I did not realize that other Members didn’t 

have it. So sometimes you get used to things and you don’t realize. 

And it is theoretically there, but I can’t see it. Maybe somebody 

else can. I cannot see it. 

I have asked our very hard-working clerk, who puts up with a 

lot, to get us better graphics. Until we do that, it would be up to 

the Members. Would Members, because I have it here, like for me 

to say when it’s 1 minute, or do a tap with the gavel when there 

is 1 minute? 

Some people might find it disruptive. But I would just, when 

there is 1 minute, do that so that people would know that, because— 

Mr. BACHUS. And when it’s up, two taps. 

The CHAIRMAN. Yes. Oh, no. 

[laughter] 

The CHAIRMAN. But yes, if that’s not going to be disruptive—so— 

and I apologize, because I have said to Members, ‘‘Well, why did 

you wait so late,’’ and then I realized that people did not know 

that. We are going to try and get a better set of graphics. And until 

then, that will mean that the Member has 1 minute left, to summarize. 

And with that, the gentleman from Indiana is recognized for 2 

minutes. 

Mr. CARSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I was outraged to hear 

earlier this month the latest move by AIG to, again, reward employees who nearly drove that company, and our Nation’s economy, 

into the ground. Giving huge bonuses after such a colossal failure 

is horribly irresponsible, and simply unconscionable. 

Millions of experienced Americans are struggling right now. They 

have played by the rules, and did everything asked of them. But 

4 

today they are out of work after falling victim to a steep recession 

that was fueled by foolish gambles taken by Wall Street. Despite 

all of this, AIG and its executives continue down the same path of 

greed and excess. 

Americans aren’t necessarily opposed to considerable pay packages. But injustice is quite another matter. And the Nation’s ongoing financial crisis has provided numerous occasions for public fury. 

The recent discussion in controlling executive compensation has 

called for establishing a ratio between a CEO’s salary and the average wage, for controlling the use of stock options, and for capping 

certain salaries. 

I would argue that we should also look to remove impediments 

that prevent shareholders from playing the role that economic theory says they are supposed to play. I want executives to create 

shareholder value and be rewarded when they are successful. But 

I fail to see the need for excessive pay packages when they fail. Executives currently have abundant opportunities to enrich themselves at shareholders’ expense, and to pursue business strategies 

that serve their own interest, rather than those of their companies’ 

owners. 

I look forward to today’s testimony. I yield back my time. Thank 

you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Neugebauer. 

Mr. BACHUS. And, Mr. Chairman, the next 6 speakers have 1 

minute. So I guess we will depart from the tap rule. 

The CHAIRMAN. I will do it in advance. 

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. You all aren’t using my time, are you? 

The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Texas. I’m tapped out. 

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. I see. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. On Christmas Eve, the taxpayers got a gift from the government that they 

want to return. 

And, given the choice, they would exchange the Treasury’s decision to give GSEs unlimited support for a limit, or removing the 

unlimited support on the tax dollars that can go into Fannie and 

Freddie from the treasury. They would exchange this multi-million 

dollar salary package approved for the GSEs for salaries along the 

same scale as senior Federal Government employees, since Fannie 

and Freddie are now essentially government agencies. 

When it comes to GSEs, the government must be more honest 

and transparent. What the taxpayers are looking for is truth in 

government. Taxpayers need to know how much this bailout is 

really going to cost them, and when they’re going to get their 

money back. While we can’t shut down Freddie and Fannie right 

now without a replacement system of financing mortgages, Congress must start a plan for the transition now that puts plans in 

place to end this bailout. 

We have to stop. And the reason we shouldn’t have done these 

bailouts in the first place is because of the conversation we are 

having today. 

The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from California, Mr. Royce, for 1 

minute. 

Mr. ROYCE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Since the conservatorship 

back in the fall of 2008, there have been several missteps in the 

5 

handling of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two institutions at 

the epicenter of the financial collapse. About a year ago we, heard from the FHFA that despite $60 bil- lion in losses, Fannie and Freddie would be paying out $600,000 in 

bonuses to top executives at these failed companies. 

In September of last year, despite even deeper losses, we learned that taxpayers had paid $6.3 million in legal defense bills for 3 top 

former executives. Then, last Christmas Eve, along with opening 

up these institutions to limitless losses, the Administration approved the payment of $42 million in additional compensation 

packages, bonuses to 12 top executives at these institutions. 

It seems as though the bigger the bailout gets, the bigger the bonuses get. These institutions are essentially wards of the state, and 

they should be treated as such. I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Texas is now recognized for 

1 minute. 

Mr. GREEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I want to 

speak for those who agree with me. I don’t always know who they 

are, and I don’t always know who they aren’t. But I say this: We 

don’t want to regulate pay, per se. 

We want to regulate pay that creates systemic risk—i.e., the 

yield spread premium, a kickback, lawful though it may have been, 

that was accorded persons who would get buyers to go into higher 

interest rates that they—when they qualified for lower rates, and 

get a bonus for it. We want to make sure that the shareholders are 

properly empowered. If they could have done this without some assistance from us, they probably would have, and we wouldn’t be in 

the predicament we are in. I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. The gentlewoman from West Virginia for 1 

minute. 

Mrs. CAPITO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Like many of my constituents, I was shocked when the Treasury Department and the 

Federal Housing Finance Agency approved compensation packages 

for the chief executive officers of Fannie and Freddie of $6 million 

each, including $2 million incentive payments. These compensation 

levels are 30 times more than a Cabinet Secretary, and were approved by entities that have borrowed $100 billion from our treasury. 

This is an insult to the hard-working families across the country 

who are tightening their belt, trying to make ends meet in this economic downturn. But these compensation packages are but one of 

the many examples why this Congress should and needs to tackle 

the difficult task of GSE reform. 

The chairman has indicated his desire to move forward on this. 

Unfortunately, the Administration has signaled that they do not 

want to put forth serious reform proposals until next year. I hope 

we move forward with GSE reform, and I would like to thank the 

chairman for holding this hearing. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. The gentlewoman from Illinois for 1 minute. 

Mrs. BIGGERT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for 

holding today’s hearing. And I would like to thank Ranking Member Bachus for inviting FHFA Acting Director DeMarco. 

I look forward to hearing the Administration’s proposals to reform the GSEs. It’s important that we have a plan to end the conVerDate Nov 24 2008 16:13 Jun 30, 2010 Jkt 056767 PO 00000 Frm 00009 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 K:\DOCS\56767.TXT TERRIE
6 

servatorship and the taxpayer subsidy, and take this Administration out of financing nearly three-fourths of the Nation’s mortgages. 

The public deserves clear, easily accessible information about the 

actions of FHFA, and about the actions of the Fed and Treasury 

that are supplying unlimited, unprecedented funds to keep Fannie 

Mae and Freddie Mac on taxpayer-funded life support. 

Mr. DeMarco, your staff has reached out to my staff and indicated that you are familiar with and want to discuss my legislation 

to improve GSEs’ transparency and accountability, and I look forward to our discussion today, as well as our meeting. 

And I would hope that Congressman Moore would consider my 

request to add this language to another bill we introduced to establish an FHFA Inspector General. 

The CHAIRMAN. I will yield myself the remaining 5 minutes on 

my side. 

I shared the dismay at the announcement of the bonuses. I did 

try a couple of things to stop it. On March 19th—and I would ask 

unanimous consent to put in the record a letter I sent to James 

Lockhart. James Lockhart was Mr. DeMarco’s predecessor. He was 

the appointee of the previous Administration. Continuity is one of 

the clear themes here. Mr. Lockhart was the appointee of the Bush 

Administration. He was continued for a while in the Obama Administration, and then replaced. 

And I wrote and said, ‘‘I am writing to urge strongly that you rescind the retention bonus programs at Fannie Mae and Freddie 

Mac, prohibit any further payment of bonuses to executives under 

that program, and pursue repayment of any already-paid bonuses.’’ 

Mr. Lockhart wrote me back the next day, March 20th, and said, 

‘‘No.’’ And he said that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had important responsibilities, and he needed to keep them. The loss of key 

personnel would be devastating to the company’s and to the government’s efforts to stabilize the housing system. 

So, I regretted that. I thought they were a mistake. I wrote to 

him to try and stop it. When that didn’t work, we talked about legislation. In fact, the House did pass two bills on compensation last 

year. One was, I understand, somewhat controversial because it 

would have imposed—and it’s still pending in the Senate, a phrase 

you hear a lot these days—restrictions involving purely private 

companies. And I believe that’s appropriate as to the perverse incentive structure. But I understand Members’ objections to it. 

But we had an entirely separate bill that came out of this committee to restrict compensation to those entities getting public 

funds, the TARP, and specifically—and it says, ‘‘No financial institution has received or receives a direct capital investment under 

the TARP program, or with respect to the Federal National Mortgage Association, the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, 

etc.’’ 

We specifically included Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and what 

we said was they couldn’t get compensation if it provides for compensation that’s unreasonable or excessive, defining standards established by the Secretary, in consultation with the chairman of 

the oversight panel, includes bonuses, supplemental payments, etc. 

7 

In other words, this was a piece of legislation that dealt only 

with TARP recipients in Fannie and Freddie. Of course, many of 

the TARP recipients have now paid back, so they would not be covered. 

What we have here is a bill that would have covered Fannie and 

Freddie. And so, as I said, when they issued these bonuses, I wrote 

a letter to Mr. Lockhart, the hold-over appointee, and objected. He 

said he was going to use his authority to keep them in place. 

We then did what we, as the Congress, can do when an executive 

refuses to accede to a request from us. We passed the bill. Unfortunately, the bill was somewhat partisan. I’m not sure why. Again, 

I understand why there was a debate about the bill to restrict 

purely private companies—although I agreed with what we did— 

but this was for TARP recipients, and those TARP recipients that 

were covered and—of course those who paid it back are not covered—and specifically Fannie and Freddie. 

So, yes, they did put those through. We would have banned that 

with our legislation. The bonuses that came on Christmas would 

have been severely restricted had the legislation passed. It didn’t 

pass, unfortunately, in the Senate. It passed in the House. And 

that’s one of the reasons why we are in this situation. 

I should add that I also believe the time has come to proceed to 

a total reorganization of housing finance, and I do want to mention 

again that I had—and this was on my initiative, although I knew 

there was an interest on both sides in doing this—scheduled a 

hearing for next Tuesday, and invited the Secretary of the Treasury and the Secretary of HUD to testify. 

As we all know, we’re not socialized. Some invitations are more 

happily received than others. These were not invitations which 

were met with a gushing, ‘‘Oh, thank you, I can’t wait,’’ but we are 

going to begin that process. 

I then had to postpone it. I want to make it very clear. It was 

my constituency issues that intervened. They called a hearing on 

fishing in the City of Gloucester. It is very important for me. As 

I said, I had to decide, literally, to fish or cut bait, and the response 

will be a postponement of the hearing. That hearing will be rescheduled for March 23rd. Members will be aware we have a pretty 

packed hearing schedule, partly because we lost that week of snow. 

But the Administration is on notice that they are going to be 

asked on March 23rd—and I will say this—had they appeared next 

Tuesday and told us they were still in a preliminary stage, I would 

have been more understanding. Now that they have another couple 

of weeks—3 weeks—to come, I expect them to be better prepared 

on March 23rd with an outline of what they think should be done 

than there would have been on March 2nd. So I hope, in terms of 

preparation, not much time is lost. 

So, in summary, I did object to those bonuses when they were 

issued, and the holdover appointee kept them. And we did try to 

pass legislation to stop it. 

The gentleman from Texas. Yes? The gentleman from Alabama? 

Mr. BACHUS. I would like to commend the chairman. He set the 

hearing very promptly. So, had he set it for the date that it now 

postponed to, it would have been fine. And it was set, and I happened to visit that area of Massachusetts, just coincidentally, and 

8 

saw what a hot item that fishing issue is up there. And—but I did 

want to commend the chairman. And the postponement was done 

with my consent. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman. But again, I would say 

the Administration has 3 more weeks. But it won’t be acceptable 

for them to be no better prepared on March 23rd than they would 

have been on— 

Mr. BACHUS. And I actually think that it may be a more appropriate time, because I think there can be more preparation, and 

that they be prepared to go forward. 

The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Texas for 1 minute. 

Mr. HENSARLING. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I heard one of my 

earlier colleagues mention executive compensation and systemic 

risk. It’s interesting that most of the evidence we have seen has 

shown that many financial firms have the same compensation 

packages, and some went belly up and some didn’t. So the connection is tenuous, at best, which suggests to me we ought to be guided by one overarching rule: What people do with their money is 

their business; what they do with the taxpayer money is our business. 

And, certainly, I have seen—in the past, I know of no more outrageous use of the taxpayer money than on Christmas Eve, to announce these multi-million dollar bonuses for Fannie and Freddie, 

and simultaneously lift the cap on taxpayer exposure. 

So, I am looking forward to having some explanation, because it 

wasn’t a particularly merry Christmas for the taxpayers, who are 

looking at the mother of all bailouts with Fannie and Freddie, to 

know that they are looking at trillions of dollars of exposure, and 

then paying for the privilege at the same time. It is objectionable. 

I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from New Jersey. 

Mr. GARRETT. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. Yes, it was actually just 

about a couple of months ago that the ranking member and I did 

request from the chairman that we have a hearing, both on the 

issue of the bonuses and also, as Jeb says, with regard to the 

‘‘Christmas Eve Massacre,’’ as we call it, which is the lifting of the 

limits on the bailouts of Fannie and Freddie. 

And this hearing today is important, with regard to the bonus 

issue. But really, as I say, the larger issue is the lifting of this cap, 

of going to $200 billion, to $400 billion, and now basically no limit 

whatsoever on the bailouts of the GSEs. This is certainly what 

we’re hearing from our constituents back home. 

To the chairman’s point about having the Secretary come here 

next week, or in a couple of weeks, that’s all well and good. But 

he was over at the Budget Committee just yesterday. And in Budget yesterday, the Secretary was asked, ‘‘When are you going to roll 

out a plan, as far as doing something about this,’’ and he said, 

‘‘Well, maybe we will have principal some time this year, but our 

plan is going to be next year.’’ 

Conversely, we had the Chairman of the Fed here yesterday and 

we asked him the question, ‘‘When should we do something about 

this,’’ and I’m on the same page as the chairman as far as doing 

something quickly, and you heard the chairman yesterday say, ‘‘We 

should be doing something about this right away.’’ 

9 

The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman. You said—to clarify—obviously, the question—I would consider that, and have—and I 

should have been more explicit—fully within the subject of the 

hearing. That is, because again, that hearing is about housing finance, not simply about Fannie and Freddie. 

So, the implications of what they did is very much on the table. 

And they will be on notice that they should be expected to addressed that. They would have been on Tuesday, and they will on 

the 23rd. 

We will now begin with our witnesses. And again, I explained 

that Mr. Feinberg is being held up—by a train wreck, literally. Beyond that, I do want to—because the gentleman from Georgia, Mr. 

Price, asked a very good question as to why the FDIC is not here, 

since they are proposing a compensation scheme, and the answer 

is that’s exactly why they’re not here. I did invite them, and wanted them to come. 

What they advised me is that, because—precisely because they 

have a proposal now pending to tie down compensation for some of 

those that they are working with, they are legally barred from saying anything because the comment period is gone now, and they 

have to keep that open, and they will be able to talk again at the 

end of the comment period. 

So, once the comment period is over, we will invite them back. 

But that’s why the FDIC is not here. And I apologize, obviously, 

for the fact that Mr. Feinberg—or I regret that he can’t be here. 

And we will begin with Mr. Edward DeMarco, who is the Acting 

Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency. And aren’t you 

glad you took the job? 

Mr. DEMARCO. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. And any material that the witnesses want to 

submit will be put in the record. 

And again, I would get unanimous consent to put the correspondence between myself and Mr. Lockhart in the record. Without objection, it is so ordered. 

STATEMENT OF EDWARD J. DeMARCO, ACTING DIRECTOR, 

FEDERAL HOUSING FINANCE AGENCY 

Mr. DEMARCO. Very good. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you 

for putting my prepared remarks in the record. 

Chairman Frank, Ranking Member Bachus, and members of the 

committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify on this important subject. Compensating the executives at Fannie Mae and 

Freddie Mac—or the Enterprises, as I will refer to them—in conservatorship has raised numerous issues, many similar to those 

arising at other federally-assisted institutions, but some unique to 

the Enterprises. 

Our principal aim in addressing these issues has been that Enterprise compensation be sufficient to attract and retain the executive leadership needed to ensure ongoing functioning of the Nation’s secondary mortgage market, while minimizing taxpayer 

losses. 

At the inception of the conservatorships, the incumbent CEOs 

were replaced. They received no severance payments. Because most 

of their compensation had been in the form of Enterprise stock, 

10 

roughly two-thirds of their previously reported pay during their 

tenures vanished with the collapse of the market price of their 

shares. 

Ultimately, five of the six highest-paid Fannie Mae executives 

and the top four Freddie Mac executives left in one fashion or another, but none of them received severance or other golden parachute payments. 

While today’s hearing is on executive pay, I would like to add 

that many of the more than 11,000 Enterprise employees also had 

large portions of their life savings in Enterprise stock, and suffered 

accordingly. 

In developing a new compensation structure for senior Enterprise 

executives, FHFA consulted with Mr. Feinberg on how we could 

adapt the approach he was developing for TARP institutions to the 

Enterprises. In making that adaptation, a major consideration was 

that compensating Enterprise executives with company stock would 

be ineffective, because of the questionable value of such stock. 

Further, large grants of low-price stock could provide substantial 

incentives for executives to seek and take large risks. Accordingly, 

all components of executive compensation at the Enterprises are in 

cash. 

Another consideration is the uncertain future of the Enterprises 

as continuing entities, which is in the hands of Congress and beyond the control of Enterprise executives. 

It is generally best to focus management’s incentives toward its 

institution’s performance over the long run, rather than just the 

near term. In the case of the Enterprises— 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. DeMarco, let me interrupt you briefly. 

Mr. DEMARCO. Certainly, sir. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Feinberg has arrived, and I just want to 

thank him—it hasn’t been an easy day for him—and just reassure 

him that the next witness will be Mr. Alvarez, so he will have at 

least 7 or 8 minutes to collect himself. We understand that there 

was, literally, a train wreck, and we thank you for making every 

effort to come here. 

I apologize, Mr. DeMarco. Please continue. 

Mr. DEMARCO. In setting target compensation for the most senior positions, we considered data from consultants to both Enterprises, the data received earlier from our own consultant, and the 

reported plans of TARP-assisted firms. It was important to set pay 

at levels sufficient to compete for quality talent, because the Enterprises had many key vacancies to fill, potential departures to avoid, 

and pay had been a significant issue in some cases. FHFA settled on a target of $6 million a year for each CEO, $3.5 million for the chief financial officers, and less than $3 million for 

executive vice presidents and below. I know $6 million is a considerable sum of money, but that amount rolls back Enterprise CEO 

pay to pre-2000 levels. It is less than half of target pay for Enterprise CEOs before the conservatorships. And for all executive officers, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have reduced target pay by an 

average of 40 percent. 

The basic compensation structure for senior executives at both 

Enterprises, as at institutions receiving exceptional TARP assistance, comprises three elements: base salary; a performance-based 

11 

incentive opportunity; and deferred salary. My written statement 

details these components. 

In my judgement, we have achieved the right balance between 

enough compensation to acquire and retain quality management, 

while preventing compensation from exceeding appropriate bounds. 

In sum, the directors and senior executives tied to the financial 

collapse at each Enterprise are no longer with the companies. The 

group of senior executives who remain, as well as those who were 

recently hired, are essential to the Enterprises fulfilling their important and challenging responsibilities. And in attempting to do 

so, the Enterprises must operate with an uncertain future that will 

be the source of much public debate. 

As conservator, I believe it is critical to protect the taxpayer interests in the Enterprises by ensuring that each company has experienced, qualified people managing the day-to-day business operations in the midst of this uncertainty. Any other approach puts at 

risk the management of more than $5 trillion in mortgage credit 

risk that is supported by the taxpayers. 

Thank you and I am pleased to answer questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. DeMarco can be found on page 

53 of the appendix.] 

The CHAIRMAN. Next, Mr. Scott Alvarez, General Counsel of the 

Federal Reserve. 

STATEMENT OF SCOTT G. ALVAREZ, GENERAL COUNSEL, 

BOARD OF GOVERNORS OF THE FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM 

Mr. ALVAREZ. Chairman Frank, Ranking Member Bachus, and 

members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to discuss incentive compensation practices in the financial services industry. 

Compensation arrangements serve several important and worthy 

objectives. For example, they help firms attract and retain skilled 

staff, and promote better firm and employee performance. However, 

compensation arrangements can also provide employees with incentives to take excessive risks that are not consistent with the longterm health of the organization. This misalignment of incentives 

can occur at all levels of a firm, and is not limited to senior executives. 

Having experienced the consequences of misaligned incentives, 

many financial firms are re-examining their compensation structures to better align the interests of managers and other employees 

with the long-term health of the firm. 

For firms that have received assistance from TARP, that includes 

ensuring their compensation structures are consistent with the 

Special Master’s rules designed to protect the financial interests of 

taxpayers. 

The Federal Reserve has also acted as a prudential supervisor. 

In October, we proposed supervisory guidance on incentive compensation practices that would apply to all banking organizations 

that the Federal Reserve supervises. The guidance, which we expect to finalize shortly, is based on three key principles. 

First, compensation arrangements should not provide employees 

incentives to take risks that the employer cannot effectively identify and manage. Financial firms should take a more balanced apVerDate Nov 24 2008 16:13 Jun 30, 2010 Jkt 056767 PO 00000 Frm 00015 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 K:\DOCS\56767.TXT TERRIE
12 

proach that adjusts incentive compensation, so that employees bear 

some of the risks, as well as the rewards associated with their activities over time. 

Second, firms should integrate their approaches to incentive compensation arrangements with their risk management and internal 

control frameworks. Risk managers should be involved in the design of incentive compensation arrangements, and should regularly 

evaluate whether compensation is adjusted in fact to account for 

increased risk. 

Third, boards of directors are expected to actively oversee compensation arrangements to ensure they strike the proper balance 

between risk and profit on an ongoing basis. 

Recently, the Federal Reserve also began two supervisory initiatives to spur the prompt implementation of improved practices. The 

first is a special horizontal review of incentive compensation practices at large, complex banking organizations. Large firms warrant 

special supervisory attention, because the adverse effects of flawed 

approaches at these firms are more likely to have consequences for 

the broader financial system. 

Although our review is ongoing, we have seen positive steps at 

many of these firms. However, substantial changes at many firms 

will be needed to fully conform incentive compensation practices 

with principles of safety and soundness. It will be some time before 

these changes are fully addressed. Nonetheless, we expect these 

firms to make significant progress in improving the risk sensitivity 

of their incentive compensation practices for the 2010 performance 

year. 

The second initiative is tailored to regional and smaller banking 

organizations. Experience suggests that incentive compensation arrangements at smaller banks are not nearly as complex or prevalent as at larger institutions. Accordingly, review of incentive compensation practices at these firms will occur as part of the normal 

supervisory process, a process that we expect to be effective, yet to 

involve minimal burden for the vast majority of community banks. 

Incentive compensation practices are likely to evolve significantly 

in the coming years. This committee’s efforts in developing and 

passing H.R. 4173 will promote the uniform application of sound 

incentive compensation principles across large financial firms beyond those supervised by the Federal Reserve. In this way, H.R. 

4173 would encourage financial firms, supervisors, shareholders, 

and others to develop incentive compensation practices that are 

more effectively balanced and reward and better align incentives. 

We appreciate the committee’s efforts in this area, and thank you 

for the opportunity to testify on this important topic. I would be 

happy to answer any questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Alvarez can be found on page 37 

of the appendix.] 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

And next, Mr. Kenneth Feinberg, who is the Special Master for 

TARP Executive Compensation at the Department of the Treasury. 

And I reiterate, Mr. Feinberg’s train was behind a train where 

there was an unfortunate accident. So it’s an unusually stressful 

day, and we are deeply appreciative, Mr. Feinberg, seriously, of 

your appearing. 

13 

And please go ahead. 

STATEMENT OF KENNETH R. FEINBERG, SPECIAL MASTER 

FOR TARP EXECUTIVE COMPENSATION, U.S. DEPARTMENT 

OF THE TREASURY 

Mr. FEINBERG. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is a distinct honor 

for me to appear before your committee, before you, as chairman, 

and the ranking minority member, and I thank you for the invitation. 

I will just summarize my written statement by pointing out highlights of what appears in the statement. 

First, as this committee well knows, my jurisdiction is extremely 

limited, by statute. Right now, I am determining compensation for 

just the top 25 compensated officials at 5 companies that receive 

the most TARP assistance: GM; GMAC; Chrysler; Chrysler Financial; and AIG. If one of those exceptional assistance participants or 

recipients has repaid all of what they owe the taxpayer, they are 

automatically removed from my jurisdiction. And, as a result, Bank 

of America and Citigroup are no longer subject to my 2010 compensation determinations. It is, by statute, a very limited role. 

I am also responsible, under the statute, for those 5 companies, 

for determining compensation structures for officials 26 to 100 in 

those 5 companies, only. Just those five. And again, we did that in 

2009. We are moving forward, doing the same for the 5 companies, 

1 to 25, 26 to 100, for 2010. 

The second point I want to emphasize is under the statute, there 

are some principles laid out that I am obliged by law to follow in 

determining my compensation decisions. And when you read the 

statute, there they are. We shall make sure that compensation determinations maintain the competitiveness of these five companies, 

so that key employees will be retained, the companies will thrive, 

and they will repay the taxpayer. 

But the compensation determination should be made in a way 

that avoids excessive risk-taking at these companies, that there 

will be an appropriate allocation between short-term compensation, 

in the form of cash, and long-term compensation, in the form of salaries and TARP stock that must be held for an extended period of 

time. The fortunes of the individual should rise or fall, depending 

on the performance and the fortunes of the company. 

I should examine comparable structures and payments at other 

companies. I should consider empirical data on compensation levels 

at various companies that are similar in kind to the companies that 

fall under my jurisdiction. I have enjoyed the benefit of expert 

input from professors at Harvard Business School and the University of Southern California in advising me and my excellent staff— 

most of whom are here today, by the way, behind me—in reaching 

these compensation determinations. 

As a result of the statute and the accompanying regulations promulgated by Treasury, there are a few basic conclusions that I 

have reached about executive compensation at these companies. 

One, guaranteed income should not be permitted. Compensation 

of key officials at these companies that owe so much to the American taxpayer should depend on performance, not retention contracts, not guaranteed bonuses. What you earn, other than your 

14 

base cash salary, should depend on long-term performance, objective metrics promulgated by the company, in consultation with my 

office. 

Second, base cash salaries should rarely exceed $500,000, and 

only then for good cause shown, and should be, in many cases, well 

under $500,000. 

Third, the Special Master reserves the right to claw back excessive compensation, which is granted based on what proved to be 

material misstatements. And we will exercise that authority to 

claw back excess compensation in appropriate cases. 

The final summary points I want to make concern an inquiry 

made by this committee, when the committee asked me to comment 

on a rather interesting question posed by the chairman and the 

members of the committee: What is unique about what I am doing? 

Are there unique features in this statute that really make the job 

I have undertaken particularly challenging? And I want to mention 

just a couple of those unique features that neither the Federal Reserve nor Fannie Mae have to deal with, the way I have to deal 

with it. 

One I have already mentioned. My role is extremely limited. 

The CHAIRMAN. If I may, we are over the time, so if you have 

already mentioned it— 

Mr. FEINBERG. Second, I have no authority to restructure or demand a restructuring of old retention contracts that were entered 

into long before the TARP law was implemented. 

And finally, I have the distinct challenge of actually calculating 

individual compensation for these top 25 officials in these 5 companies. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Feinberg can be found on page 

60 of the appendix.] 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. Let me begin. Mr. DeMarco, when 

did you take over? 

Mr. DEMARCO. September 1st of last year, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. All right. And I gather there has been continuity 

on the compensation issues between yourself and—was it Mr. 

Lockhart, basically, who was your predecessor? 

Mr. DEMARCO. I would say that is correct. 

The CHAIRMAN. Let me ask all of you. One of the things we have 

to deal with is people threatening to walk away if the compensation isn’t higher. How credible has that been? 

At some levels, it seems to me not too credible, at least at some 

levels that these limits were applied across-the-board, unless someone is a heck of a shortstop, and there is probably not another 

place where they are going to make equal amounts of money. 

But let me ask all of you. How credible? Do we have evidence of 

people walking away because they are inadequately compensated? 

Let me start with Mr. DeMarco. 

Mr. DEMARCO. Yes, Mr. Chairman, we do. As conservator of 

these two companies—let me put it this way; it was a business— 

a senior executive business line manager at one of the Enterprises 

who had a critical role at that company, specifically to manage and 

reduce losses on foreclosed mortgages and the properties that are 

then taken in by the company afterwards. And this individual left 

15 

the Enterprise to join another very large, well-known financial institution at a considerable increase in pay. 

The consequence of this individual’s departure is that the head 

of this area of management at the Enterprise was vacant for a 

number of months. We lost several of the lieutenants in that particular part of the company as well, given the upset in there, and 

the opportunities that those individuals had because this is a significant area and there are a lot of financial— 

The CHAIRMAN. All right, thank you. Let me ask Mr. Feinberg. 

I want to get to Mr. Alvarez last. Mr. Feinberg, what’s your 

sense— 

Mr. FEINBERG. I am dubious about that claim. Now, I will say 

this. First, the determinations we have made were only made last 

October, last December. We don’t see any exit of individuals from 

these companies. Whatever individuals were exiting these companies, I suggest exited long before compensation determinations 

were made by this office. There were quite a few vacancies when 

I took over this assignment. 

But I don’t see exiting. We have to take that into account. It certainly impacts our decisions on compensation. But I am rather dubious about that claim. 

The CHAIRMAN. Let me ask Mr. Alvarez. And I held you for last 

because, to the extent that we do these in a uniform way, and diminish competitive advantage in that, it’s helpful. Now, I notice 

two things. 

First of all, the Federal Reserve has promulgated, under its existing statutory authority, limitations. And again, am I correct? Not 

limited to TARP recipients. What the Federal Reserve Board of 

Governors—was there any dissent on the Board of Governors over 

that? 

Mr. ALVAREZ. No. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. So what we have is—because it has 

been appointed by several Administrations. 

So, the Board of Governors has imposed restrictions on all financial institutions that minimizes this as between—if the compensation restrictions are the same, you don’t get that. 

But also I gather—and I was gratified, frankly, that you expressed your support for those elements of H.R. 4173—I know the 

Federal Reserve is not for all elements of H.R. 4173, our financial 

regulatory bill—but that you do like the notion that we apply those 

across-the-board so that you would not have the theoretical competitive disadvantage, if there was one in retention, between the 

institutions that you regulate and other financial institutions. Is 

that accurate? 

Mr. ALVAREZ. That’s absolutely right. There is what the economists call a first-mover problem here. Many people recognize that 

incentive compensation structures need to be changed, that the incentives are not always aligned properly—sometimes very badly 

misaligned. But the first person who changes to fix those policies 

is concerned that they are going to lose personnel to others who 

don’t change the incentives. 

So, one of the things we can do—and you have helped us do— 

is to set a policy that broadly applies across the industry, has evVerDate Nov 24 2008 16:13 Jun 30, 2010 Jkt 056767 PO 00000 Frm 00019 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 K:\DOCS\56767.TXT TERRIE
16 

eryone subject to the same policies and principles, and that removes that difficulty. 

The CHAIRMAN. And my time is close, so I won’t start a new line. 

The gentleman from Alabama. 

Mr. BACHUS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. DeMarco, I know 

you were a career—had a career position. So I guess when the 

President asked you to take that position, you didn’t have a lot of 

choice, did you? 

Mr. DEMARCO. Well, Representative Bachus, I was honored that 

the President asked me. I still am a career official. I have spent 

my entire professional career as a civil servant at the Federal level 

at a variety of agencies. I am honored to serve as the Acting Director of FHFA, until such time as the President nominates and the 

Senate confirms a permanent director. 

I believe we are at a very critical juncture, and I am very honored to lead an agency that is working incredibly hard right now 

to oversee these companies and to help bring stability back to the 

housing— 

Mr. BACHUS. Thank you. That’s a good answer. I appreciate that. 

Mr. DeMarco, last year, the Administration’s Regulatory Reform 

Blueprint indicated that the Administration would present a reform plan for Fannie and Freddie this month. Yesterday, Secretary 

Geithner testified before the House Budget Committee that the 

plan would not be ready until 2011 at the earliest. Congressman 

Garrett made reference to that. 

Then, in testimony before this committee yesterday, Chairman 

Bernanke recommended we take steps to determine the future of 

the GSEs this year. 

With the American taxpayers exposed to literally hundreds of billions of dollars in losses from Fannie and Freddie to continue operations, do you agree with Chairman Bernanke that we cannot afford to wait until next year to decide the GSEs’ futures? 

Mr. DEMARCO. Congressman, I believe the time is now to be figuring out what are the proper questions we need to be asking and 

answering, for example, what is the proper role of the government 

in the housing finance system and what is the future structure and 

objectives of the housing finance system that policymakers believe 

is in the best interest of the country. 

I believe there are plenty of important questions and it is time 

to start asking and working towards answering those questions 

right now. 

With that said, I appreciate the difficulty and the challenges in 

getting to specific answers and getting to a final structure. I understand that is going to take a while. I believe we ought to absolutely 

take the time to get it right. 

I would be happy to work with this committee to start going 

through what some of those key questions are. I am ready for the 

discussion to get started. 

Mr. BACHUS. Thank you. If you look at August of 2008, when we 

first had the bailout of Fannie and Freddie, I think we have had 

an adequate amount of time. 

I appreciate you saying now is the time to start making those 

changes or at least advancing ideas. 

17 

Mr. Alvarez, in your testimony you said the misalignment of incentives is not confined to the top level executives. When the Federal Reserve or others start looking at these pay incentives, where 

do you stop? Do you include all employees of all financial institutions? 

Mr. ALVAREZ. Congressman Bachus, what we are speaking of is 

employees who are given incentive compensation. A lot of organizations do not provide incentive compensation to the vast majority of 

their employees. It is selected groups that receive targeted incentives. 

An example of the type of lower level non-executive employee 

that we would consider an organization should look at would be 

their mortgage brokers, where volume of mortgages produced— 

compensation is often tied to the volume of mortgages produced. 

We have seen in this crisis that can encourage some employees 

to generate mortgages with weak underwriting so they can increase 

their own compensation. 

Mr. BACHUS. When you get down to incentives for volume, would 

it not be better if they make bad loans, the bank would want to 

get rid of them? 

Mr. ALVAREZ. You are exactly right. We would not try to set the 

compensation for those employees. What we ask is that the bank 

have a procedure in place to monitor the incentives it is creating 

and to take action when those incentives are misaligned. 

Mr. BACHUS. I see. Mr. Feinberg, what did you think of the compensation packages awarded to the Fannie and Freddie executives 

that were announced Christmas Eve? 

Mr. FEINBERG. Very high, but Fannie and Freddie, although they 

are not on my watch, pose some unique problems that I do not 

have to address with the five companies I am now dealing with. 

First, the future of Fannie and Freddie is sufficiently uncertain, 

as you well know, so that attracting people to Fannie and Freddie 

with the talent necessary to administer that program is more problematic. Not impossible, of course, but more problematic. 

Second, it is not easy to develop a pay package that has longterm performance-based delay, like I have with the five companies 

before me, when long-term performance-based delay is uncertain 

with a company like Fannie and Freddie. 

You cannot simply say, we will pay you over 4 or 5 years out, 

when there is a question as to what Fannie and Freddie will look 

like 4 or 5 years out. 

Finally, a major component of what I am doing and what the Office of the Special Master is doing is tied to stock. The fortunes of 

the individual will depend on the fortunes of the company. Your 

stock’s value will depend on how well the company is doing. With 

Fannie and Freddie, there is no stock. It is cash. 

The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

Mr. BACHUS. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Kansas. 

Mr. MOORE OF KANSAS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Looking at 

executive compensation, Mr. Feinberg, I believe we share the view 

that for firms who repaid TARP, the government should not set 

specific pay levels for the private sector, but to better protect investors and taxpayers in the future, I believe we should look at pay 

18 

structure more broadly to ensure risk taking is properly aligned 

with rewards and does not impose a systemic risk. 

For firms like AIG, GM, and Chrysler who continue to depend on 

taxpayer assistance, I believe more scrutiny of executive compensation is warranted. 

I filed a bill, H.R. 857, the Limit Executive Compensation Abuse 

Act, that would limit compensation for employees of TARP firms to 

the same level of compensation the President receives. 

Mr. Feinberg, in your work, have any of the TARP firms you 

have worked with conducted a cost/benefit analysis or other analysis of any employee making more than what the President receives, $400,000, or anyone making more than $1 million annually, 

so we have a better idea of what kind of taxpayer returns we 

should get from these employees in exchange for the compensation 

packages? 

If not, would you provide a written response providing a cost/benefit analysis along those lines? 

Mr. FEINBERG. I will be glad to provide you a written analysis. 

I would say, Congressman, that we have examined the prospective 

data as to what type of individual should receive what level of compensation. 

It is a bit premature for us to draw any conclusions about the 

compensation determinations made just in the last few months because we will be monitoring that performance over time. 

Mr. MOORE OF KANSAS. Very good. I appreciate that. 

Same question to you, Mr. DeMarco, has FHFA performed any 

cost/benefit analysis of these compensation packages for Fannie 

and Freddie executives and would you be able to provide us details 

in writing along the lines I have discussed with Mr. Feinberg? 

Mr. DEMARCO. We have not done what I would call a cost/benefit 

analysis, Congressman. We have analyzed what the market for financial executives with the requisite expertise is, and that certainly was a key input into the pay setting that was done. 

We also have market experience in terms of the effort and what 

it has taken to recruit the senior executive positions that we had 

to fill at each company. 

I would be glad to provide some more information along that line 

to you in writing. 

Mr. MOORE OF KANSAS. I appreciate that very much, and I thank 

the witnesses for their testimony. Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Texas. 

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. DeMarco, I probably want to change the direction of this a 

little bit in that I really want to talk about what activities are 

going on at Freddie and Fannie right now. Basically, you have two 

entities that are insolvent. 

What is going on with their portfolios? How much portfolio 

growth are those two entities experiencing right now? 

Mr. DEMARCO. Since the time the conservatorship was established, Congressman, the portfolios have risen modestly, from the 

low- to the mid-$700 billion range. They are on a path for the portfolios to gradually decline. They have a dollar cap at which the 

portfolios must be at the end of each year. 

19 

For this past year, 2009, the cap had been at $900 billion. For the end of this year, it is $810 billion, and will continue to decline 

by 10 percent per year. 

I have made clear to the companies and I have communicated to 

the committee that it is certainly my objective as conservator to see 

that those reductions take place so the companies keep their portfolios within those caps. I believe the cap room they have today will 

be used principally for the purpose of pulling delinquent loans out 

of mortgage-backed security pools and to then seek loan modifications or other loss mitigation activity on that. 

That is what the net additions to the portfolio will be, working 

on delinquent mortgages and trying to minimize the losses on those 

delinquencies. 

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Is portfolio reduction just primarily principal 

reduction in the portfolio or have you been able to sell any of the 

portfolio? What kind of activities are going on in that area? 

Mr. DEMARCO. There is actually a fair amount of run-off every 

month in terms of the portfolios paying down. That leads to the decline. The additions are principally driven by loans coming out of 

mortgage-backed security pools so that they can be worked on. 

If I followed the first part of your question, you were asking 

about the approach taken with respect to loss mitigation. The first 

approach taken by the Enterprises is consistent with and follows 

HAMP, the Homeowner Affordable Modification Program, and that 

is driven principally by reductions in interest rates and extending 

the term of the mortgage to try to get to an affordable mortgage 

set at 31 percent of the borrower’s monthly income. 

If that does not work as a loss mitigation strategy, the Enterprises are quite active and rigorous in seeking, whatever the circumstance for that particular borrower is, what is the way to resolve that delinquent mortgage at the lowest cost to the company, 

and hence, the lowest cost to the taxpayer. And that could include 

a short sale, it could include deed removal and foreclosure or a loan 

modification that does not follow HAMP. 

But at the end of the day, if none of those are going to be able 

to produce a better outcome, then we will be moving expeditiously 

to foreclose on the mortgage and try to reduce the loss to the company and hence, to the taxpayer. 

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. What about the securitization activity? What 

are your volumes seen there? 

Mr. DEMARCO. Basically, they are securitizing almost all of the 

new business that they do, and they are responsible for about three 

out of every four mortgages that are being made in this country, 

with FHA representing most of the balance. 

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. What are the credit quality and underwriting 

standards being used? 

The CHAIRMAN. One minute remaining. 

Mr. DEMARCO. The credit quality of the new book is substantially superior to that of the middle part of the past decade. The 

loan to value at origination is lower. The credit scores of the borrowers are higher. These are much sounder loans. 

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Missouri. 

Mr. CLAY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

20 

Mr. Feinberg, have you examined companies like Goldman Sachs 

who received pass-through TARP funds from AIG? The American 

public had to endure announcements recently from Goldman of 

record profits and record bonuses. 

Can you determine if any of that pass-through money went toward paying those bonuses and if so, did you ever address it with 

them? 

Mr. FEINBERG. Goldman is not one of the companies that falls 

under my mandatory jurisdiction. Unlike the others, the other 

seven, now five, I have no mandatory jurisdiction over Goldman. 

There is a provision in the law that requires me to seek information about Goldman’s pay practices, which we will do, and we will 

examine that data. We have no mandatory jurisdiction to set compensation at Goldman. 

Mr. CLAY. Do you think any of the pass-through money went towards posting their profits and paying out record bonuses? We had 

to wait to see with bated breath, I guess, for most, what Mr. 

Blankfein’s bonus was going to be, when the average American is 

trying to pay their mortgage. 

Mr. FEINBERG. I share that concern. My role is somewhat limited, Congressman. I do have this one opportunity to inquire shortly, and we will do so. 

Mr. CLAY. Thank you for that response. As a follow-up, what did 

you finally decide was fair compensation for AIG employees, and 

did you take any action toward their Financial Products Division, 

the sector of the company at AIG that devised and traded derivative swaps? 

Mr. FEINBERG. We certainly did. There is a company that does 

fall within my jurisdiction. The retention contracts that were entered into are grandfathered, legally binding contracts that I could 

not invalidate. 

I asked AIG Financial Products to roll those contracts forward, 

like other companies did. Instead of asking for the cash, put it into 

long-term stock, so that whether what it may be worth will depend 

in the long term on the future of the company. 

Mr. CLAY. On the performance, did they follow your advice? 

Mr. FEINBERG. They did not follow my advice. In 2009, last year, 

since they did not follow my advice, we slashed the base salaries, 

which I could do under the law, and reduced substantially the overall compensation of those officials, mainly in the 1–25 group, that 

refused to roll those retention contracts over. We are now in 2010, 

with Financial Products, in negotiations to do the very same thing. 

Mr. CLAY. Thank you. I hope it goes well. 

Citi comes under your jurisdiction also, right? 

Mr. FEINBERG. Citigroup did come under my jurisdiction last 

year, Congressman. They have repaid the taxpayer all they owe 

and they are no longer within my jurisdiction in 2010. 

Mr. CLAY. While they were under your jurisdiction, did they have 

compensation issues that you had to negotiate? 

Mr. FEINBERG. Yes. We did negotiate with Citi. We did roll over 

their grandfathered retention contracts to long-term stock. 

The CHAIRMAN. One minute left. 

21 

Mr. FEINBERG. We did negotiate and work out appropriate com- pensation at those levels, all under $500,000, base cash salary, 

which we were comfortable with. 

Mr. CLAY. I am glad to hear that. Thank you so much for your 

responses. Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from California, Mr. Royce. 

Mr. ROYCE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. DeMarco, I mentioned the legal defense bills paid by the taxpayers to the ousted executives at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. 

Is the $6.3 million figure from September 6, 2008, to July 21st of 

last year accurate? 

Mr. DEMARCO. Yes, sir. 

Mr. ROYCE. That is the total amount that has been paid out to 

date? 

Mr. DEMARCO. To my understanding. 

Mr. ROYCE. How is paying out $6.3 million for the legal defense 

of former executives consistent with the conservatorship which requires you to preserve and conserve assets and property and to put 

the company in a sound and solvent condition? 

Mr. DEMARCO. The payment here is covered under indemnification agreements that were in place and are in place, and that is 

the grounds for it. We also have considered looking at the ongoing 

litigation and the issues that are in play at the moment, i.e., what 

is the approach that best satisfies those goals of conservatorship. 

It is our judgement, Congressman, that proceeding as we have is 

the appropriate course of action. 

Mr. ROYCE. Let me ask you this, if Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac 

move into receivership, should these institutions move into receivership, would you be able to do anything about those funds? 

Mr. DEMARCO. I do not know the answer to that question at this 

moment, Congressman. I would have to look at that. 

Mr. ROYCE. Again, I raise this issue not because this $6.3 million 

is going to make Fannie and Freddie solvent again, but because as 

we look at the housing boom and bust, which caused the financial 

collapse, one of the roads leads to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. 

Some of us were raising alarms about these institutions long before their failure and well before their accounting scandals, and we 

understood the fundamentally flawed structure of socialized losses 

and privatized profits. We saw the overleveraging and the build-up 

in junk loans there. 

Frankly, the Federal Reserve came and warned us about it. We 

had an obligation to the taxpayers to prevent their failure, but we 

failed, largely because of Chuck Hagel’s bill the Fed had requested 

which passed out of committee on the Senate side and was blocked 

by the lobbying of Fannie and Freddie. 

Fannie and Freddie executives leaned in and said no, in terms 

of those portfolios, in terms of the issue of the overleveraging and 

the arbitrage which the Fed was trying to get a handle on, we want 

to block that, and that legislation was blocked. 

Now, because of that failure, the taxpayers own 80 percent of 

those companies. We now have an obligation, I think, to see that 

those most responsible for this failure are held accountable. 

If the FHFA fails to take action to: first, get the money back 

from the legal defense fees; and second, curb these executive payVerDate Nov 24 2008 16:13 Jun 30, 2010 Jkt 056767 PO 00000 Frm 00025 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 K:\DOCS\56767.TXT TERRIE
22 

outs, then I hope Congress would intervene. These are wards of the 

state. In my view, at the end of the day, they should be treated as 

wards of the state. 

I will yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. DEMARCO. If I may, Congressman, just to respond, FHFA 

did, as a follow-up to its special examinations of both Fannie Mae 

and Freddie Mac, pursue former executives of those companies and 

reached settlements for certain payments. 

To your larger point, Congressman, I would just like for you to 

be assured that it is personally my goal and it is absolutely the 

goal and the endeavor of the employees of FHFA to assure that the 

operation of the conservatorships of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac 

are done in a way to meet the goals of conservatorship as Congress 

has set forth in the statutes. Those are to preserve and reserve the 

assets of the company, but most of all, we are focused on doing everything we can to minimize the losses that the taxpayer ends up 

incurring as a result of what has happened with these companies. 

Everything we do is directed at that objective, of minimizing 

these losses. We have made that quite clear to the new Boards of 

Directors and the new senior managers. 

I view what we are doing in the area of bringing in new executive leadership of these companies as part and parcel of that overriding objective, of minimizing losses. 

Mr. ROYCE. Thank you, Mr. DeMarco. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. The gentlewoman from New York. 

Mrs. MCCARTHY OF NEW YORK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is 

good to see you, Mr. Feinberg. 

I was sitting here when you came in, and I am wondering, how 

do you get these jobs? Mr. Feinberg, very graciously, you took over 

the 9/11 Fund and did a tremendous job with those victims, and 

we have you here in front of the committee again working on these 

issues. 

I think you explained what your mandatory jurisdiction is, and 

I think a lot of people need to understand that, especially with the 

exceptional assistance that you are doing with the TARP recipients. 

My concern is the companies that are not in that status and may 

have resumed the excessive compensation structure, and if I understand this correctly, a company needs to be competitive in compensation for retention purposes. 

However, if banks are free to start diverting increased revenues 

towards compensation, that leads them down the road to being less 

capitalized and ultimately unstable once again. 

The question is, how are the financial institutions who are now 

not under your regulatory power handling compensation? Do you 

see them reverting back to their old ways or are they going along 

with your guidance? 

Just to follow through, we all know you want top people at the 

top of the company, but when you have seen this whole financial 

mess starting going back, is there one person actually who deserved any of the compensation, being that they got this whole 

country and in my opinion, the world, into the mess we are in right 

now. 

Mr. FEINBERG. First, I would like to think that much of the private sector that is not within my jurisdiction is adopting many of 

23 

the prescriptions that fall in my jurisdiction, low base cash salaries, stock rather than cash, no guaranteed bonuses. 

Goldman, Morgan Stanley, Wachovia, Wells Fargo, I get the 

early signs that in terms of the criteria for compensation, they 

seem to be following voluntarily the prescriptions I have entered 

into. 

In terms of long-term compensation, what I am doing is really as 

you know, Congresswoman, merely one small part of a much broader menu that the chairman and the committee know a great deal 

about, corporate governance reform, regulatory reform, the G-20 

principles promoted by the Secretary, to make sure that foreign 

government corporations are doing what we are doing. 

The Federal Reserve, Mr. Alvarez’s efforts. The FDIC, the legislation of the chairman, there are a lot of other initiatives out there 

that can have an impact on those companies that are not part of 

my jurisdiction, including some advanced by the Administration 

concerning bank fees and other initiatives. 

I take no position on all those other than to say that if you examine all of the items that are out there, that are being considered 

by this committee, it seems to me there is an appreciative opportunity to reign in some of that excessive pay that we see now that 

partly got us into this mess. 

Mrs. MCCARTHY OF NEW YORK. I agree. 

Mr. Alvarez, following up a little bit on that, especially when we 

start talking about the international community, we saw that 

France and the U.K. have put a fine onto their high bonuses, a 50 

percent tax. 

The CHAIRMAN. One minute remaining. 

Mrs. MCCARTHY OF NEW YORK. Additional British action, they 

have put a one-time tax on the bonuses. 

How do you think that might work with our companies that are 

international over there? Do they have to look at basically what we 

are saying to them to do? Do they have to bring that over to the 

foreign land? 

Mr. ALVAREZ. A U.S. company that has an international presence, how it would have to deal with compensation rules abroad depends on its structure. 

For example, if it were to own a bank, a U.S. bank owns a bank 

in France, the bank in France would likely have to abide by the 

compensation structures in France. 

If it had a branch or some other extension of itself that was not 

a separate corporate entity, it would abide by the U.S. compensation standards on a worldwide basis. 

That is one of the things that we tried to do in our guidance, to 

have the management focus on incentive compensation on a worldwide basis. 

The CHAIRMAN. The gentlewoman from Illinois. 

Mrs. BIGGERT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Feinberg, you are the pay czar? 

Mr. FEINBERG. That is the characterization. I do not like that 

characterization, but that appears to be sticking in the public 

minds. 

24 

The CHAIRMAN. If the gentlewoman would yield, if his grandparents heard him referred to as a ‘‘czar,’’ they would be very 

upset. 

[laughter] 

Mrs. BIGGERT. Who is the job czar? Is there a job czar? 

Mr. FEINBERG. I have enough trouble keeping track of my ‘‘czarism.’’ 

Mrs. BIGGERT. I wish we would focus on the unemployed workers. I guess there is no job czar. 

Mr. DeMarco, as your staff indicated, you reviewed the legislation; is that right? 

Mr. DEMARCO. Yes, Congresswoman. I have taken a quick look. 

It has just come out. I am looking forward to looking at it in more 

depth and talking to you about it. 

Mrs. BIGGERT. It is having the Inspector General reporting to 

Congress, the FHFA Inspector General reporting to Congress about 

a couple of things. For example, a description of the total Federal 

Government and taxpayers’ liability of Fannie Mae and Freddie 

Mac. 

Would you have a problem with that? 

Mr. DEMARCO. Actually, as I have looked at some of the things 

you are interested in having reported, one of the things I am looking forward to going through with you is how much of that we are 

doing today. I can help indicate where this information is available 

now, and if it would be more useful to provide it in a different format or structure or to make it more readily known, some of this 

data is already being published either by FHFA or by the companies themselves. We would look forward to doing that and going 

over that with you. 

Mrs. BIGGERT. This would be in statute. We have SIG TARP that 

reports to us. Is there any difference between SIG TARP and the 

Inspector General? 

Mr. DEMARCO. TARP is not a supervision program. The Special 

Inspector General for TARP has a somewhat different function 

than the Inspector General for FHFA will have. 

The thing to make clear about this is I am looking forward to the 

Administration nominating an Inspector General for us. The role of 

that Inspector General, though, will be to monitor and evaluate 

and report both to me and to the Congress on the efficiency and 

effectiveness of FHFA carrying out its responsibilities. 

FHFA in turn is the Federal agency responsible for monitoring 

and overseeing and reporting on the activities of Fannie Mac, 

Freddie Mac, and the Federal Home Loan Banks. 

Yes, I do think the structure Congress originally envisioned does 

include an IG, and I look forward to that piece of the structure 

being put in place. 

Mrs. BIGGERT. Would not the GSEs with the conservatorship already be doing all these things? Reporting these things? 

Mr. DEMARCO. Much of it they are reporting and a good bit of 

the information— 

Mrs. BIGGERT. The problem is that Congress never really was 

able to question them about it. 

25 

Mr. DEMARCO. That is what I look forward to, figuring out what 

we can be doing, without waiting for additional legislation. I would 

be happy to see what we can be doing to get the information out. 

Mrs. BIGGERT. Just like the bonuses and compensation paid to 

Fannie and Freddie, if this would come up on a quarterly basis 

with the Inspector General, it seems it would solve a lot of problems that we are having right now. 

Mr. DEMARCO. Okay. In the meantime, as I said, I will be glad 

to respond to you or any other member who would like to have 

more information. 

The CHAIRMAN. One minute. 

Mrs. BIGGERT. Can you tell us what losses Fannie Mae and 

Freddie Mac have incurred to date? 

Mr. DEMARCO. They have run through all of the shareholder equity they had pre-conservatorship, and combined between the two 

of them, through the third quarter of 2009, they have drawn $111 

billion from the senior preferred stock purchase agreement with 

the Treasury. 

They have run through all of their initial shareholder equity and 

an additional $111 billion. 

Mrs. BIGGERT. Are there any other anticipated losses? 

Mr. DEMARCO. I would expect there will be additional draws on 

the senior preferred agreement. 

Mrs. BIGGERT. Do you think those losses could be more than 

TARP? 

Mr. DEMARCO. TARP was initially authorized at $700 billion. If 

you are asking that, I would say it is not my expectation that combined we will be seeing $700 billion as to Fannie and Freddie. 

The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Indiana. 

Mr. DONNELLY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Feinberg, when we look back, Goldman was very close to 

going over the cliff. Morgan Stanley was very close to going over 

the cliff. They were saved by money from everybody’s paycheck in 

this country. 

When you talk to them about these bonuses, what I was wondering is, did you ever ask them if they felt, as they were talking 

to you about these bonuses, any obligation to the people of this 

country to not conduct themselves this way? 

Mr. FEINBERG. The answer is ‘‘yes.’’ First, remember that Goldman is not on my watch. 

Mr. DONNELLY. I understand that. 

Mr. FEINBERG. Goldman and some others have asked my advice 

in following the prescriptions that I have laid out for the companies 

that are under my watch. I have at the request of Goldman and 

others not on my watch urged them to take into account the very 

reality that you are pointing out; yes. 

Mr. DONNELLY. Obviously, they have the choice to do what they 

want, but they owe their very existence to the people who are 

riding the bus and heading to work every day. 

Did they feel it was at all unseemly that when these small businesses, people who enable them to survive, cannot find credit because of the very actions that were taken, that it was inappropriate 

for these bonuses to be given? 

26 

Mr. FEINBERG. I do not know if that discussion took place. I do 

not think I am the right person to ask as to what they felt or what 

they thought. 

Mr. DONNELLY. Did they ever express that to you? 

Mr. FEINBERG. I do know that Goldman, for example, has tried 

somewhat to accommodate the principles I have annunciated with 

my office, with no cash bonuses, bonuses that will be paid in stock 

over many years, the CEO of Goldman refusing to take any cash 

at all. The CEO of Morgan Stanley refusing to take any cash bonus 

at all. 

I think there is some effort. Whether or not that effort is satisfactory in light of the financial uncertainty you posit is a very fair 

question, but I think it has to be directed at them, not me. 

Mr. DONNELLY. If you see them in your travels, as Mrs. McCarthy said, you are a widely traveled man, in your travels, the biggest problem we find is the ability to obtain credit, and we have 

company after company, not only in my home State of Indiana, but 

elsewhere, who cannot employ additional people because they cannot get the credit to go out and buy an additional piece of equipment or because their line of credit has been reduced, that if these 

funds were used for credit purposes instead of bonus purposes, it 

would be a great way to let the American people know we are all 

in in bringing this economy back. 

If you have $20 billion plus in bonuses that are given out, if that 

was used for lending purposes, think of the job creation that could 

cause. 

The only other question I have for you is this, I read an article 

where it said a gentleman that you talked to about compensation 

and the mention of $9 million, and he said to you, why don’t you 

like me? 

Is there any connection between the reality of what the rest of 

the people in this country go through and this kind of mindset? 

Mr. FEINBERG. Not much connection. I am amazed in my work, 

Congressman, at the perception of Wall Street versus the perception of Main Street. It is one of the most difficult gaps that I am 

trying to bridge in doing what I am obligated to do under the statute. 

Mr. DONNELLY. Thank you very much for your service, sir. Thank 

you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Texas. 

Mr. HENSARLING. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. DeMarco, I do have to ask this question, and that is the 

Christmas Eve question, when many Americans were singing, ‘‘over 

the river and through the woods, to grandmother’s house we go,’’ 

we end up with this release saying that the executives of Fannie 

and Freddie are going to end up with millions of dollars of bonuses, 

and then across town, we have the United States Treasury saying 

oh, by the way, U.S. taxpayer, we were only going to use $400 billion and now it is unlimited, the sky is the limit. 

I would like to at least understand, since conventional wisdom 

would seem to indicate if you send out a press release on Christmas Eve when you do not want anybody to pay attention, what was 

the timing of this announcement? 

27 

Mr. DEMARCO. The timing of this announcement was rather regrettable, Congressman. That was not the original target date. The 

original target date that my staff and I had for making the compensation announcement was the previous Friday, December 18th. 

We set that date several weeks in advance. We knew it was an 

aggressive date. We had a lot of work to do to try to get it out by 

then. 

Congressman, it did not happen. 

Mr. HENSARLING. I understand. Let me ask you another related 

question. I think the gentlelady from Illinois was trying to find out 

what your estimate was of ultimate taxpayer losses for the GSEs. The Congressional Budget Office estimates $389 billion over 10 years. Originally, there was a $400 billion limit. Clearly, the Administration thinks it is going to be north of $400 billion. Otherwise, why did they go to unlimited taxpayer exposure. 

I think I just heard you say you believed some number south of $700 billion. Do you have an estimate of the ultimate taxpayer loss 

for Fannie and Freddie? 

Mr. DEMARCO. We are regularly running scenarios and examining the range of potential losses still to be incurred by these companies, still to be recognized, probably already incurred. 

Mr. HENSARLING. If you do not have an estimate, I am just asking, is there no estimate at the moment that you have? 

Mr. DEMARCO. There are a range of estimates, many of them 

rather conservative, that would suggest that for each company, the 

total losses will remain less than the $100 billion per company, 

Congressman. 

Mr. HENSARLING. The less conservative estimates range up to? 

Mr. DEMARCO. Most of the range stays below that 200 number, 

Congressman. I would say the Treasury Department needs— 

Mr. HENSARLING. That is fine, Mr. DeMarco. My time is limited. 

If I could move on, recently there was a story in the Wall Street 

Journal on February 9th. I think there was an interview with 

Freddie Mac’s chief executive, Charles Halderman. 

In that Wall Street Journal article, Mr. Halderman is quoted as 

saying, ‘‘We are making decisions on loan modifications and other 

issues without being guided solely by profitability that no purely 

private bank ever could.’’ 

What does that tell us about taxpayer protection? 

Mr. DEMARCO. I will have to check that quote and talk to Mr. 

Halderman. The approach that is being taken in modifying loans 

is to minimize the loss on that loan, and loan modification is typically going to be a— 

Mr. HENSARLING. If this article is accurate, he clearly has a different opinion. 

Mr. DEMARCO. That is fine. I do not believe he does. He and I 

talk regularly about the objectives we have, and it is to minimize 

losses and loan modifications. They are a key instrument in doing 

that. 

Mr. HENSARLING. Perhaps the Wall Street Journal got it wrong. 

Perhaps it was taken out of context. 

Mr. DEMARCO. One of the ways that happens is if these loan 

modifications result in a recognition of accounting losses. 

The CHAIRMAN. One minute. 

28 

Mr. HENSARLING. Apparently, he was also quoted in the same article as saying, ‘‘They—which I assume is Freddie Mac—were fortunate to have such a clear mission,’’ the governance foreclosure prevention drive, and we are doing what is best for the country.’’ 

As I look at the foreclosure mitigation programs, apparently we 

have HOPE for homeowners, the last information that I have seen, 

fewer than 100 families helped, authorized up to $300 billion; making homes affordable, 116,000 permanent modifications out of 3 to 

4 million predicted; $75 billion, $50 billion from TARP, $25 billion 

from the GSEs. 

I believe the last report I saw from SIG TARP, it was estimated 

the taxpayer would get zero, zero back from these programs. 

Once again, it would seem to me to suggest that at least this 

GSE, Freddie Mac, does not have taxpayer protection anywhere in 

its business plan. 

I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Minnesota. 

Mr. ELLISON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Forgive me if other members have asked these questions. We are 

running back and forth. 

One of the complaints that I have heard from some folks who object to Congress weighing in on executive compensation is that it 

will chase away financial talent and send it overseas. 

Could you offer your views? Have you heard this observation, 

and if you have, what do you think about it? 

Mr. FEINBERG. I stated earlier, Congressman, in a question from 

the Chair, that I am dubious about that in my work. However, the 

statute does require that in my role in determining compensation, 

I must at least take that into account in determining appropriate 

compensation for the top 25 officials and compensation structures 

for some others. 

It is a factor. It is a factor annunciated in the statute. I have not 

yet seen that as a result of compensation decisions, there is a mass 

exiting of people. 

Mr. ELLISON. Would either of the other two gentlemen care to 

comment on the question? 

Is greater scrutiny on executive compensation from the U.S. Congress going to cause us to bleed financial talent? 

Mr. ALVAREZ. That is a slightly different question than the first 

one, I think. 

Mr. ELLISON. Answer the one you like. 

Mr. ALVAREZ. There certainly is a lot of fear about losing people 

built into the compensation decisions that organizations are doing. 

We are hearing this quite a lot. 

There has not been much time to see if it really is true. We have 

only had bad times for now 2 years. Everyone is experiencing that 

bad time. 

I understand and feel the same as Mr. Feinberg does, we hear 

this but we have not seen it. It is clearly built into the calculus. 

That is one of the things we are trying to strain out of the calculus, 

so that it is not such an important part of the decision. 

Mr. ELLISON. I have heard it. I think everybody has heard it. I 

doubt it. It just seems like it is self-serving, do not scrutinize my 

pay because I might go to Borneo, but nobody is going to Borneo. 

29 

If you find information on that, I would be interested in looking 

at it. 

Another question is, how would changing corporate governance 

help align the risks properly such that we did not undercompensate 

executives and we did not overcompensate them, they just got compensated based on the market signal? 

It seems to me there might be some things we could do in corporate governance to have a better, more accurate reflection of 

what compensation should be. 

Do you have any ideas about that? 

Mr. ALVAREZ. That is at the heart of what we are trying to do 

with our guidance, to have a system that takes the risks that employees take into account and when those risks mature and companies lose money, that is reflected in the compensation that is given 

to the employees. 

Mr. ELLISON. I understand that is what you are doing. I guess 

what I am curious to know, and perhaps I can send you a question 

on this, but what is the range of ideas, what is the menu? What 

are our options? 

We have worked on pay. There are other things. I am curious to 

know what the full range of thinking is. Maybe we can get together 

on that. 

Mr. ALVAREZ. I would be happy to. There are a lot of ideas. In 

fact, we have listed some in the guidance, but we would be happy 

to discuss more with you. Mr. Feinberg has pioneered a lot of 

those. 

Mr. ELLISON. One more question I better get out because my 

time is running short. We are talking about executive pay at the 

top higher echelon. 

The CHAIRMAN. One minute remaining. 

Mr. ELLISON. One of the things that concerned me is I was 

speaking to some people who were working at the bank and these 

folks were just regular folks, like managers at the bank. They were 

saying they were getting low pay but high incentives to sell people 

accounts they may not need and push different kinds of financial 

products they do not need. 

I know that is probably not within your purview, but have you 

thought about this and how does that impact the issue of risk, particularly for the individual, but maybe even economy-wide. 

Mr. ALVAREZ. That is one of the things we do in our guidance. 

We go beyond just the executives to any employee or group of employees that take on extra risk for the organization. We would say 

compliance risk is part of the risk the organization should be 

checking on. 

Mr. ELLISON. Have you seen this as a phenomenon? Is this something you have picked up, some of these lower echelon workers are 

being paid a little bit but being given this bonus structure so they 

can move product? 

Mr. ALVAREZ. We have seen that, and in fact, we brought enforcement actions against organizations where they have encouraged violations of law, for example, because their compensation 

was so motivating towards volume. 

Mr. ELLISON. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from New Jersey. 

30 

Mr. LANCE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good afternoon to you all. 

I have been following this in my office as I have also been following the health care debate. Thank you for your participation in 

this important panel. 

I tend to be a free market Republican and do not like overregulation by the Federal Government in private matters. I certainly believe, however, regarding the GSEs, since the American people now 

own such a high percentage of them, it is somewhat different. I am 

sure this area has been well discussed in the hearing. 

Specifically regarding deferred compensation, Mr. Feinberg, as I understand it, the compensation was roughly $900,000 in base salary with another $3.1 million in deferred compensation. 

Could you explain, sir, in a little greater detail what is meant by 

‘‘deferred compensation’’ and why that amount was chosen? 

Mr. FEINBERG. In most cases, ‘‘deferred compensation’’ means 

stock, not cash. 

Mr. LANCE. Yes, sir. 

Mr. FEINBERG. That stock, if it involves one of the top 25 individuals in the company, like the CEO, by law that Congress enacted, 

that stock must vest immediately at the same time that individual 

gets a paycheck but we have established rules that defer the transferability of that stock. 

Stock that is issued that is part of compensation cannot be sold 

or redeemed; one-third after 2 years from date of grant, one-third 

after 3 years from date of grant, and one-third after 4 years. We 

want to try and tie the long-term performance of the company to 

the individual compensation that goes to that official. 

Mr. LANCE. I believe that this compensation is extremely generous, to put it mildly, whether or not it is immediate or deferred. 

You are stating to us that there is a statutory framework under 

which these companies must operate, the deferral has to be as you 

have suggested, and that is by statute? 

Mr. FEINBERG. That is not by statute. That is by our interim regulation. The statute talks about the vesting requirements that are 

required in the law. 

Mr. LANCE. Would you recommend, sir, and perhaps you have 

covered this in previous testimony, amending either statutory law 

or the regulations as have been promulgated? 

Mr. FEINBERG. It might be a good idea if we were starting over 

to allow a delay in how soon that compensation stock can vest, so 

that a corporate official has to stay on the job for a certain period 

of time before he or she even has a right to that stock, but the law 

prohibits that now. The law requires that salarized stock vest immediately. 

Mr. LANCE. Thank you. An observation regarding companies that 

are largely owned by the government, GSEs, largely in my judgement, since the President of the United States makes what he 

makes, it is not clear to me that the compensation should be so 

generous. 

I distinguish between those who are involved in any way in governmental service and I believe those at Fannie Mae and Freddie 

Mac certainly are, given the current ownership by the American 

people, and distinguish that from the private sector, where I repeat, I tend to be free market in my views. 

31 

Certainly, regarding these amounts of compensation, given the 

fact that the Federal Government is so heavily involved now— 

The CHAIRMAN. One minute. 

Mr. LANCE. This certainly is an area where I think we should review the situation. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I yield back the balance of my 

time. 

The CHAIRMAN. I will recognize the gentleman from Missouri and 

will take 10 seconds to note that in fact the House voted on a bill 

that came out of this committee giving power to control the salaries 

at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. It was unfortunately a partisan 

vote. For some reason, my Republican colleagues opposed it. 

It dealt only with TARP recipients and Fannie Mae and Freddie 

Mac, and then died in the Senate. It is still alive in the Senate. 

Maybe my Republican colleagues who voted against it will tell the 

Senate they changed their minds. Maybe their example will inspire 

them. 

The gentleman from Missouri. 

Mr. CLEAVER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I was going to mention 

what you just mentioned. 

I have been going to town hall meetings. I had two last week 

where obviously people are concerned about this subject. I do not 

have any answers beyond what we have from the experts and from 

the legislation that the House has already approved. 

Is there a culture on Wall Street in the financial centers that is 

different from the American culture? 

Conscience is that thing which hurts when everything else feels 

good. I know they feel good about the bonuses and the compensation. I just wonder whether they hurt knowing that we have almost 

10 percent unemployment, 17 percent African-American unemployment, 13 percent Hispanic unemployment, and then if we start 

dealing with underemployment and people who are on the rolls, it 

just explodes. 

I would like to understand the culture. The three of you ought 

to write a book on the culture. I want to understand why these people can do what they are doing in the face of what is taking place 

in our country. 

Mr. FEINBERG. I will start my third of the book by simply stating, Congressman, that you have articulated a truism for me. In 

my work, I do see a real cultural divide between Wall Street thinking and Main Street thinking. 

The reason for that divide or the genesis of that divide, I am not 

sure why. I do see that when we sit and meet with companies and 

talk about the requirements of the law, that we compare competitive salaries and competitive compensation, take that into account, 

there is a view constantly expressed by the companies under my 

jurisdiction that they are entitled to more and more and more. 

That is the competitive market data they provide us. We have 

substantially reduced sometimes by up to 90 percent the cash that 

these individuals received, and up to 50 percent slashed their compensation overall, but there is this divide and this different perception on what is worth for a job. That is just the way it is. 

Mr. CLEAVER. I understand that is the way it is. What I want 

to be able to say is that is the way it used to be. I guess the strugVerDate Nov 24 2008 16:13 Jun 30, 2010 Jkt 056767 PO 00000 Frm 00035 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 K:\DOCS\56767.TXT TERRIE
32 

gle is how do we get to that point where we can put it in past 

tense. 

Mr. FEINBERG. Well, we are trying in the Office of the Special 

Master to reduce this compensation, provide benchmarks and criteria and principles. 

I think Mr. Alvarez and the Federal Reserve are trying to do the 

same. 

I am sure Members of Congress will be watching to see if there 

is a trend towards more reasonable compensation. 

Mr. ALVAREZ. That is absolutely right. I do think there is a divide, and there are other pockets of this, movie stars, athletes. 

There are different parts of our society who think differently about 

themselves than the rest of us. 

One of the things that is at the heart of what we are doing is 

to try to make sure that the pain that companies feel as a result 

of the action of employees is actually reflected in the salary of the 

employees. It is not only heads, I win; tails, you lose. If there is 

a loss, that loss is then taken back to the employee. 

That is a new mindset. It is going to take some time to change 

that mindset. We are definitely working in that direction. 

Mr. DEMARCO. I would concur with that. One thing that has 

struck me is the fixation or concern about compensation by those 

who are the most highly compensated in a financial institution. 

I do think as Mr. Alvarez just said, and Mr. Feinberg before, we 

are in a transition and coming to, I believe, perhaps a different understanding about the role of compensation and thinking about 

both its size and its structure. 

I think the gentlemen on my left have done a terrific job in providing leadership and helping to provide those guideposts and helping that transition along. I would like to see it continue. 

Mr. CLEAVER. I would agree. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. I would just ask for 30 seconds to pose one question to all three of you. One of the arguments we get is well, if we 

overregulate, the United States will be at a competitive disadvantage. 

I am pleased to say with general regulatory reform, that does not 

appear to be the case, with great consensus. 

With regard to compensation, you three gentlemen may have 

some idea, my impression is we do not have to worry about that 

because we are so far ahead of other countries in compensation at 

this level of activity, that there is no danger that the kind of restrictions we are talking about are going to drive people to other 

countries. 

Mr. Feinberg, you looked at this. 

Mr. FEINBERG. First, I think that is absolutely right. Secondly, 

I note the work of Secretary Geithner in trying to coordinate executive compensation decisions and principles with the other members 

of the G-20. 

I think in both respects, you are correct, and again, I am dubious 

that there is going to be an exit of talent to foreign companies. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Alvarez, is that something the Federal Reserve has to take into account? 

33 

Mr. ALVAREZ. Absolutely, it is. In fact, we have been working 

with the Financial Stability Board in Europe to try to get the same 

kind of principles and standards that we are implementing here. 

It is something we have to watch. It is something we have to 

work on globally. 

The CHAIRMAN. You have confidence that what you are proposing 

now, I assume, is not going to do us that kind of damage? 

Mr. ALVAREZ. That is right. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. The hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 3:51 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.] 

(35) 

A P P E N D I X 

February 25, 2010 

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