Retention Bonuses At Fannie and Freddie??? YOU BET!!
Fannie Mae is due to pay retention bonuses of as much $470,000 to $611,000 this year to some executives despite enormous losses at the government-backed mortgage company. Fannie’s main rival, Freddie Mac, also plans to pay such bonuses but hasn’t yet provided details.
Fannie’s bonuses are smaller than ones paid by American International Group Inc. that have caused a political firestorm for that company. Many AIG executives got retention payments of more than $1 million recently.
But the Fannie bonuses are still considerable and come at a time when Fannie and Freddie are receiving increasing amounts of funding from the Treasury. For 2008, Fannie and Freddie reported combined losses of about $108 billion, largely stemming from a surge in home-mortgage defaults. The U.S. Treasury has agreed to provide as much as $200 billion of capital apiece to Fannie and Freddie in exchange for senior preferred stock. The two companies already have said they will need a combined $60 billion of that money to cover their losses so far.
Hmmmmmm…. Funny how the hypocrats aren’t too pissed off about that.
Nothing to see here…. Move along…
HEY BARNEY!!!!!!!! oink….
