The leaders of some of the top banks in the country may be replaced in the wake of last week's stress tests, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) Chairwoman Sheila Bair said Friday.
"Management needs to be evaluated," Bair told Bloomberg's Al Hunt in an interview to be broadcast this weekend. "Have they been doing a good job? Are there people who can do a better job?"
Bair's words signal a sustained interest by the Obama administration in cleaning house at some of the various companies in which the government has taken a financial interest after last fall's bailouts.
The administration most notably asked for -- and received -- the resignation of General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner.
"There will be an evaluation process," Bair said. "We're requesting it as part of the capital plan."
When asked about whether chief executives would be replaced, Bair said "yes."
Bank-issued gift cards could disappear in some states and become more expensive in others if the credit card reform bill before the Senate becomes law, the banking industry warned Thursday.
Companies warned that if a section, "Title IV," of the Senate version of the Credit Card Holders' Bill of Rights became law, states could create a patchwork of regulations to replace the single standard that had governed the companies up until now.
Under the legislation, the prepaid cards -- which are often given as gifts -- would become prohibitively expensive in some states, banks allege, particularly where regulations prevent maintenance fees and extend expiration dates.
"At the end of the day, some consumers in states with more onerous or restrictive laws just won't be able to have these products," an industry representative said, who declined to be identified because they were not authorized to speak on behalf of their company.
The representative said the cards would be almost immediately unavailable in as many as four states if not more if the bill became law.
Congress should take up an effort to set limits on executive compensation not just for financial companies, but for all publicly held companies, House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) said Thursday.
Frank said that there should be limits on compensation "not in terms of dollars but in terms of rules," arguing that the current compensation structure enjoyed by financial executives incentivized risk-taking that led to the current crisis.
"Remember, we're not talking about purely private companies -- people forget this -- we're talking about public corporations," Frank said in an interview with Bloomberg News. "When you become a public corporation, you're availing yourselves of a framework of law that gives you limited liability, protects you in various ways."
Frank expressed a preference that Congress institute a mandate for federal regulators to take a more aggressive tack against companies. He also said he'd like to see the regulations extend beyond companies in the financial sector.
Frank did not address specifics of a compensation package, but seemed to indicate that legislation would open the door to federal regulators playing a role in bonus structuring. He specifically rejected caps on salary, but called also for more constraints on the amount of money firms are allowed to leverage in investments.
"This is not a situation where these poor, private individuals are going about their business and being interfered with," Frank said.
47 actors, musicians, comedians, and other performers released a web video Thursday pushing for the passage of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA).
The web video by the group "Artists for Workers Choice," organized in part with Hollywood's own unions and guilds, takes aim at "corporate greed," and asks viewers to urge their congressmen to pass EFCA.
"The best way for working men and women is by uniting with our coworkers and joining a union," an amalgam of performers say in the video, which was also organized by the AFL-CIO.
"It gives workers a choice of how to unionize," the video says, strongly asserting that the bill would not eliminate the right to a secret ballot, a key claim made by opponents of the legislation.
"This isn't a red state issue or a blue state issue -- it's a worker's issue," they say.
The performers include: F. Murray Abraham, Polly Adams, David Alan Basche, P.J. Benjamin, Amy Brenneman, Kate Burton, Gabrielle Carteris, James Cromwell, Stephanie D'Abruzzo, John Cunningham, Emilio Delgado, Andre De Shields, Kevin Dobson, Mike Farrell, Sam Freed, Ed Fry, Jason George, Nancy Giles, Elliott Gould, Holter Graham, Valerie Harper, Don Hastings, Gregory Jbara, Anne-Marie Johnson, S. Marc Jordan, Kevin Kilner, Michele Lee, Kate Linder, James Lurie, Richard Masur, Anne Meara, Esai Morales, Robert Newman, Kathleen Noone, Nancy Opel, Robert Pine, Roberta Reardon, Sam Robards, Alan Rosenberg, Ned Schmidtke, Charles Shaughnessy, Chris Shiflett, Kate Shindle, Connie Stevens, Jerry Stiller, Paul F. Tompkins and Mark Zimmerman.
The Obama administration is "drowning" the U.S. in debt, a new Republican National Committee (RNC) video to be released online this morning alleges.
The ad takes aim at both the political and the personal, targeting President Obama for spending money on the stimulus package and for controversial promotional photos of Air Force One -- as well as spending $500 on courtside seats to a Washington Wizards' game and $2,000 on the new First Dog, Bo.
"Drowning your country in debt: Priceless," a narrator concludes in the ad, modeled on Mastercard's popular "priceless" line of ads.
"There are some things your money shouldn't buy, but that's not gonna stop him from trying," the ad concludes.
"President Obama has decided to take credit card companies to task when his own administration and Congressional Democrats are responsible for the record breaking $1.84 trillion federal budget deficit," RNC Chairman Michael Steele said in a statement accompanying the video.
Steele also asserted that Obama and the Democratic Congress are " sinking America deeper into an ocean of debt" by virtue of their spending practices.
Republican senators are "nervous" departed-Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) may switch his stance on the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) and back the labor legislation.
"We're very nervous about some of the public statements he's made," Ensign told a group of conservative bloggers Wednesday, as reported by the American Spectator.
Specter had announced that he wouldn't back EFCA (or "card check") before having switched parties last month to pursue reelection as a Democrat. Since then, members of the business and organized labor community have both heavily lobbied Specter to either deny or attain the critical votes to overcome a filibuster of the bill.
"We hope he honors not just the leter of his pledge, but the intent of the pledge," Ensign told the bloggers.
A compromise on a key component of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) could risk losing the votes of the bill's most ardent supporters, Rep. Phil Hare (D-Ill.) warned Wednesday.
Hare said that the binding arbitration component of the bill was a must-have element of the final version of the bill.
"WIthout that, you're taking the engine out of the automobile," Hare said in a conference call organized by American Rights at Work. "It looks nice but it's not going anywhere."
The arbitration provision would refer an employer and union to a federal mediator after 90 days of collective bargaining and invoke arbitration after 30 additional days, the decision from which would be binding for two years. Both parties could agree to delay those deadlines.
Hare said EFCA "may very well" lose votes if that section is watered down or removed.
"I can't speak for other people in the House, but I can say the people that I've talked to, including my committee chairman -- we're very locked in on this," he said. "But the people I know that support this bill, they want to see binding arbitration stay in the bill."
Still, Hare cautioned that he would have to see what compromises, if any, are made before deciding whether or not to hold his vote.
The Obama administration owes organized labor a lot for its victory in the presidential election, Vice President Biden said Tuesday, and will continue to push for the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) and other union-backed measures.
"Everybody looks back on the election now and says it was a piece of cake," Biden said during a speech before a conference of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME). "But let me tell you: You made it cake."
"We Bidens, we owe you," Biden said of the union's support for his political runs and for his son Beau Biden's run for attorney general in Delaware.
Biden said there is "no way" for the administration to work to restore the middle class without strengthening organized labor.
"That's why we need to pass the Employee Free Choice Act," the vice president said. "You know, I think it should be pretty simple. If a union is what you want, then a union is what you should get."
Biden also suggested that as long as the Obama administration has labor's support, the administration will support labor.
"It's simple. Look, I'm taking too much of your time, but here's the deal, folks," Biden told AFSCME conferees. "You know, if we want to achieve our goals, we, the president, and me, this administration, we need to make sure you achieve your goals. It's really that basic."
Labor groups also expressed optimism after religious leaders pushed for EFCA, citing a "moral imperative" for equitable work conditions. The editor of Sojourners Magazine, which puts a Christian perspective on social justice issues, joined an Episcopalian bishop and other religious leaders to push Congress to pass the act, and launch a new website, http://faithforworkplacefairness.org/.
EFCA "continues to lose ground with Senate Democrats because they understand the American people do not support the legislation," Katie Packer of the Workforce Fairness Institute, an anti-EFCA group, responded.
The Obama administration's deal with healthcare providers to lower costs over the next 10 years is a "farce," Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) argued Tuesday.
"That, to me, was a meaningless photo opportunity," Cornyn told Bloomberg News about the meeting at the White House yesterday at which healthcare providers and insurance companies agreed to suppress its costs by $2 trillion over the next 10 years.
"It's a farce to say we're going to somehow save $2 trillion off of additional increases in healthcare over the next 10 years by voluntary compliance," Cornyn said Tuesday.
Cornyn said that the billions of dollars spent yearly by Americans on healthcare should be spent more efficiently, which he alleged the administration's announcement fails to achieve.
"I didn't hear anything that was suggested yesterday that would allow us to do that -- only these sort of vague, unenforceable promises," he argued.
The Texas lawmaker, who heads Senate Republicans' campaign efforts in 2010, also downplayed the effect GOP skepticism of the plan might have at the polls next fall, repeating talking points about how Republicans are seeking to "maintain the sacred relationship between patients and their doctors."
Any direct assistance for ailing newspapers doesn't seem to be in the cards, according to one of the chief proponents in the Senate of newspapers' survival.
"I'm against a bailout for the newspapers. I think that'd be terrible -- start to interfere the government in newspapers," Sen. Bed Cardin (D-Md.) told liberal talk radio show host Bill Press. "I am very much opposed to any direct federal help."
Cardin has introduced a bill that would allow news organizations that have been struggling with a changing business model to restructure as nonprofits.
He said that while bloggers and television and radio reporters are important, the fundamental source for news -- and investigative journalism -- is in the newspaper industry.
"Most of our news comes from the local newspaper. Bloggers are important -- editorializing on the internet is important," Cardin said. "But the source of news, the investigative reporting, is critically important -- not only to the development of news but accountability in a democratic society."
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