A watchdog group has found that the U.S. Treasury Department allowed big raises for executives at three firms being bailed out during the financial crisis. The special inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program published findings that show the Treasury approved 18 requests for paydays around $100,000 -- and even up to $1 million -- for leaders at General Motors, American International Group and Ally Financial, despite rules that limited pay. Together, the three firms received close to $250 billion in bailout money. The Treasury official who approved the raises said the pay wasn't excessive.

Via:

The Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program said Treasury approved all 18 requests it received last year to raise pay for executives at American International Group Inc., General Motors Corp. and Ally Financial Inc. Of those requests, 14 were for $100,000 or more; the largest raise was $1 million.

Treasury also allowed pay packages totaling $5 million or more for nearly a quarter of the executives at those firms, the report says.

Also noted: A $200,000 raise was approved for an executive of Ally’s mortgage-lending subsidiary Residential Capital LLC just weeks before ResCap filed for bankruptcy protection. Ally was GM’s financial arm until it was taken over by the government in the bailout.

“We ... expect Treasury to look out for taxpayers who funded the bailout of these companies by holding the line on excessive pay,” said Christy Romero, the special inspector general for TARP. “Treasury cannot look out for taxpayers’ interests if it continues to rely to a great extent on the pay proposed by companies that have historically pushed back on pay limits.”

The report says Treasury bypassed rules under the 2008 bailout that limited pay. Treasury approved raises that exceeded pay limits and in some cases failed to link compensation to performance, it notes.

As infuriating as this news is on its own, I find it serves to underscore how ridiculously difficult it is just to get our states to raise the minimum wage to a living wage for all of those who aren't corporate CEOs, out here in real America.

The Bailout: By The Actual Numbers

by Paul Kiel ProPublica

Quick, how many billions in the red are taxpayers on the bailout of GM? AIG? Fannie and Freddie? Is it true that the government has reaped a profit from bailing out the banks?

It should be easy to find answers to such questions. But while it's a snap to find rosy administration claims about the bailout, finding hard numbers is much more difficult. That's why, since the bailouts began in 2008, we've maintained a frequently updated site to provide them. Now we've retooled our database to make it even easier to find these sorts of answers.

So you can effortlessly discover that it's $27 billion for GM, $23 billion for AIG, $91 billion for Fannie, $51 billion for Freddie, and yes, the bank investments have so far returned a profit of $19 billion.

We also make it easy for you to see which investments have resulted in losses (39 so far in total) and to sort bailout recipients by how far in the red or black they are. As always, our scorecard page adds it all up and shows where both bailouts — the Troubled Asset Relief Program, better known as TARP ($55 billion in the red) and Fannie and Freddie (negative $142 billion) — stand right now.

Ultimately, the bailout of GM seems likely to result in the TARP's single biggest loss. But since the government still holds about a third of the company's stock (currently worth about $10 billion), we don't include it on our list of losers yet. It's possible the government will sell the stock for more than it's currently worth, recouping more of its investment.

For now, the reigning bust is the $2.3 billion investment in the bank CIT, which landed in bankruptcy less than a year after its bailout. Second on the list is Chrysler, which resulted in a $1.3 billion loss.

"The government's financial stability programs are expected to cost far less than many had once feared during the crisis, and we're continuing to make significant progress recovering taxpayer investments," said a Treasury spokesman.

Over time, that list of losing investments is likely to grow far beyond 39, because many of the smaller banks that have yet to repay the government are struggling. Although more than 300 banks have exited TARP (often repaying with money from another government bank program), nearly 400 remain. Of those, 162 are behind on their dividend payments to the Treasury Department. According to the GAO, the banks that are languishing in TARP tend to be weaker than those that have left, and at least 130 appear on a secret "problem bank" list kept by regulators.

The TARP's main bank program was supposed to be reserved for healthy banks, but among the losing investments are banks that were troubled even when they first received the money. Central Pacific Financial, a Hawaii bank, got its $135 million in early 2009 despite regulators having just ordered it to raise additional capital. As we reported then, the approval came two weeks after staff for Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, who had helped establish the bank and owned a large amount of the bank's stock, inquired about the bank's application for funds. Both regulators and Treasury denied that the inquiry affected their decision. Taxpayers ultimately lost $61 million from the investment.

Also notable among the failed investments is South Financial Group. The bank received a $347 million government investment in 2008 about a month after its former CEO, Mack Whittle, retired with a $18 million golden parachute. Taxpayers ultimately lost $200 million while the CEO kept his package. Contacted by ProPublica, Whittle said, "I founded [South Financial Group] in 1986 and take offense that anyone would imply that retirement benefits were not warranted." He added that the benefits had been negotiated long before he announced his retirement in the summer of 2008 and that he'd retired by the time the bank applied for TARP funds.

Of course, the government has already turned a profit on its bank investments overall, because the biggest bailouts — particularly Citigroup and Bank of America (each received $45 billion) — resulted in large profits. None of the banks remaining in TARP have net outstanding amounts over one billion dollars.

The Treasury wants to get rid of those remaining bank investments as soon as it can — even when that means selling stakes in apparently healthy banks for a discount, as ProPublica's Jesse Eisinger reported last month.

What defines a profit? So far, the Treasury has allowed many banks to exit TARP after receiving most, but not all, of the amount owed. But in cases where the Treasury received enough other revenue (e.g. through dividend payments) from the bank to result in a net gain, we label that investment as a profit. So far, that's been the case for 26 banks.

The final cost of the TARP, the Fannie, or the Freddie bailout isn't possible to know.

For the TARP, it depends on the biggest remaining investments: AIG and the remains of the auto bailout, GM and GMAC (now called Ally Financial). The net outstanding amount of those three companies together is about $61 billion. At this point, it seems likely that Treasury will ultimately recoup its bailout of AIG. The auto companies, on the other hand, seem likely to result in a loss approaching $20 billion, according to both Treasury Department and Congressional Budget Office estimates.

Another big factor is the TARP's housing programs, its mortgage modification program chief among them. Although Treasury set aside more than $40 billion for its various initiatives, less than $5 billion has been spent so far, a testament to the limited reach of the programs. Since those are subsidies, none of that money will be repaid, and any spending ups TARP's tab. Earlier this year, the CBO estimated that ultimately $16 billion would be spent.

Of course, all of these numbers benefit from being put in a broader context. The Obama administration argues that the TARP should be credited with blunting the force of the financial crisis and saving "more than one million American jobs." Critics like former TARP inspector general Neil Barofsky say the program may have stemmed the damage from the crisis, but it did so by largely preserving the broken too-big-to-fail system that caused the crisis. It's also worth mentioning that the Federal Reserve played an enormous role in supporting the biggest banks and allowing them to exit TARP.

The fate of the Fannie and Freddie bailouts is even harder to figure, although the Treasury recently announced that all of the companies' profits from now on will be handed over to Uncle Sam each quarter. Their tabs should decrease, but how quickly and for how long they'll be allowed to exist is unclear.

For now, our site provides a snapshot of the two bailouts as they actually stand. We've been at it since 2008, and we'll continue to update it frequently.

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Moments after Paul Ryan's speech Wednesday night, Republican Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin got into a fiesty and heated exchange with the MSNBC panel. Walker defended Ryan's false claim that Obama failed to save a Wisconsin auto plant, and even appeared to claim that for Wisconsin workers, the Obama administration's auto bailout hasn't been a success.

The problem with Ryan blasting Obama for the closure of the Wisconsin General Motors plant is that the plant actually closed under George W. Bush.

Ryan said, "Right there at that plant, candidate Obama said, 'I believe that if our government is there to support you … this plant will be here for another hundred years.' That’s what he said in 2008."

"Well, as it turned out, that plant didn't last another year," Ryan continued. "It is locked up and empty to this day. And that’s how it is in so many towns today, where the recovery that was promised is nowhere in sight."

In June 2008, Ryan sent a letter along with his Wisconsin colleagues Senators Russ Feingold (D) and Herb Kohl (D) protesting the closure of General Motors plant in Janesville, Wisconsin.

“We ask that you reconsider the decision to close the Janesville GM plant and request a meeting with you as soon as possible to discuss OM’s plans for the Janesville plant, including the possibility of retooling the plant for different production lines,” said the letter from the three lawmakers to GM CEO Rick Wagoner.

Ryan actually voted for a Bush-era effort to expand government loans to GM, a plan that failed to save the Janesville plant.

In 2008, Ryan supported the Bush loans that Romney infamously opposed in an editorial titled “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt.”

Scott Walker was apparently trying to assist the Romney-Ryan campaign's efforts to re-write history, but as you can guess, Rachel, Ed, Al and company didn't let him off the hook.

Maddow kept her cool as she spoke to Walker, "It is surprising to hear you run down the American auto industry at a moment that it really has come back and to see such a bright spot in the economy, you talked as if things haven't worked out in the auto industry since the bailout," she said. "It's a surprise."

Schultz wasn't having any of it, and broke in hitting back at Walker's claims. "It was not Barack Obama's economic policies that closed that GM plant," he insisted. "That plant was closed in December 2008. That's in the Washington Post right now Governor. It has nothing to do with Barack Obama's economic policy whatsoever. You can't get away from that fact."

Walker smugly repeated the tired "managed bankruptcy would have been more effective" meme and Schultz quickly snapped back that Walker could not guarantee the plant would still be operating under that strategy.

Al Sharpton tried to enter the fray, but Walker retorted, "If you want to talk over and not let me talk that's fine. Apparently that's what you do a lot of."

If there weren't so much at stake this November for so many people, this would all be quite the comedy. *Sigh.*

[A scene from "Roger & Me," some language may not be suitable for work.]

Tonight, Tuesday, April 24th, the Film Society of Lincoln Center (the group that presents the New York Film Festival each year) will be having a special screening of Michael Moore's first film, 'Roger & Me.' The film festival turns 50 this year, and to celebrate, they've chosen a handful of films from the over one thousand that they've shown to present at their theater at Lincoln Center, the Walter Reade. Showtime is 8:00 PM and the screening is open to the public (if you happen to be in the New York City area). For more information click here:

It may be “halftime in America,” but for the once prosperous GM town of Flint, Michigan, the game ended long ago. In his explosive—and explosively funny—debut feature, Michael Moore returns to Flint (where he grew up in better times) in the wake of massive layoffs at the local auto factories and surveys the damage with his signature mix of razor-sharp satire and profound compassion. His primary objective: to land an interview with elusive GM chairman Roger B. Smith. But along the way, Moore introduces us to an unforgettable cast of eccentric locals, including a woman who sells rabbits as “pets or meat” and Flint native son Bob “Newlywed Game” Eubanks. The first of Moore’s always prescient investigations of business-as-usual in America, Roger & Me feels as relevant in the “Occupy” era as it did 23 years ago.

“A phenomenal film debut... Moore fails to convince the chairman to visit Flint, but triumphantly succeeds in exploring the dark irony of a city where the Miss America parade shows the beauty queen waving at boarded-up storefronts and the homeless lining the streets.” —NYFF27 program note

“Mr. Moore makes no attempt to be fair. Playing fair is for college football. In social criticism, anything goes, as it goes triumphantly in Roger and Me.” —Vincent Canby, The New York Times

[I'm sharing this note from Michael Moore]

Friends,

On this day 25 years ago, in 1987, I became a filmmaker. It was around ten in the morning and the first-ever roll of Kodak 16mm film for my first-ever movie was loaded into my friend's camera to shoot the very first scene of 'Roger & Me.' I had no idea on that morning in Flint, Michigan what my life would be like after that, or what would happen to Flint, or to General Motors. It all felt fairly ominous, though -- after all, GM, which was posting record profits at the time, was closing its first Flint factory (the first of what would become many) and unemployment in Flint had officially been listed as high as 29%. Surely things couldn't get much worse.

That morning, 25 years ago today, a group of autoworkers had come together on the lawn of the soon-to-be-closed Buick-Oldsmobile-Cadillac assembly plant to raise their voices against the closing -- and to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Great Flint Sit-Down Strike, which had begun at that very factory. That strike, in 1936-37, was actually an occupation. Hundreds of workers took over the factories in Flint and refused to leave for 44 days until GM capitulated and recognized their union. The strike inspired thousands of other workers across the country to stage their own occupations and, before you knew it, in the years to follow, factory workers were paid a living wage, with benefits, vacations, and a safe working place.

The middle class and the American Dream were born 75 years ago today, on February 11, 1937, the day the Flint workers won their struggle. And for the next 44 years, working people everywhere got to own their own homes, send their kids to college and never worry about going broke if they got sick. That belief, that life would be good if you were a good citizen and a hard worker, now seems out of reach for nearly half the country which is either living in or near poverty. Perhaps people wouldn't mind it as much if the burden were being evenly shared. But everyone knows that's not the case. In a time of record personal bankruptcies, record home foreclosures, record family and student debt, there are a group of people having the best years of wealth and profit ever recorded in human history. And it is those very people who have made the decisions to export our jobs, to decimate unions, to make college unaffordable, to start wars and to pay themselves with gluttonous joy while paying little or no tax -- this is the 1% that has created the burden so many Americans (and people around the world) now share.

And so, 75 years after the victory in Flint, the battle is now being fought all over again. But this time it's not just about getting paid a dollar an hour, or having Sunday off, or reducing the chance of your hand being crushed in the metal stamping machine. This time, the stakes are even greater: Who is going to own America and control the basic functions of our democracy -- the richest 1% who buy the politicians to get what they want, or the 99% who don't have much these days and live in anxiety or fear of what's around the bend.

I believe that justice will win out again, in the end, just as it did 75 years ago today in Flint in 1937.

I have no special plans to mark this day of anniversaries other than to post a short story I wrote called 'Gratitude.' You may have read it in my book, but if not, here it is to freely download and enjoy:

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/must-read/gratitude

If you'd like to hear me read it in my own voice, click here:

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/must-read/gratitude-audio

It tells, in part, the story of that day I first placed that roll of Kodak film into a movie camera. I am proud of the town I was born in, and I'm proud of my uncle who participated in the Sit-Down Strike. I am grateful to those of you who have gone to my movies over the years, and I thank all of you who have been inspired by the Occupy Wall Street movement to speak up on behalf of the 99%.

There's no turning back now. Onward!

Yours,

Michael Moore
MMFlint@MichaelMoore.com
@MMFlint
MichaelMoore.com