He was hired by the Obama administration to slash executive compensation at companies bailed out by the federal government. But now he’s involved in a salary controversy of his own. In a Washington corruption chronicles classic, the Obama administration can’t even shoot straight on the pay of its pay czar!

I’m speaking of Kenneth Feinberg, President Obama’s “Special Master for TARP Executive Compensation.” Judicial Watch recently received documents from the Treasury Department indicating that Feinberg received a $120,830 annual salary to establish executive compensation levels at companies bailed out by the federal government. We got hold of these documents pursuant to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request we filed on July 20, 2010.

Now there’s nothing necessarily unusual about a federal appointee hauling in six figures. But here’s the problem: These documents contradict multiple press reports that Feinberg would not be compensated for this work for the Treasury Department at all.

When President Obama appointed Washington lawyer Feinberg “Pay Czar” in 2009, the press reported that he would perform his duties pro bono. Dozens of mainstream media stories confirmed that Feinberg, founder and managing partner of the Washington, D.C., firm Feinberg, Rozen, LLP, would not receive a salary to set pay limits for more than two dozen executives at companies receiving government bailouts.

(more…)

We should be happy. The Bureau of Labor Statistics announced a 3.5 percent growth in this year 3rd quarter. Yet, most of us aren’t. At least I know I am not. Why? Because I have no faith in the numbers.

First, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) numbers include government spending. So, when the government pumps thousands of billions of dollars into the economy it will look as if GDP is growing.

What’s more, the way the GDP accounts for government spending is totally biased: It assumes that if the government is spending $200,000 on a contractor to repave a road in the middle of nowhere that it will create $200,000 of genuine economic value.  By contrast, GDP measures are tougher on private-sector spending. As my George Mason university colleague Garett Jones explained to me recently “So if Exxon Mobil pays an engineer $200,000 per year, that only shows up in GDP if the engineer finds an extra $200,000 of oil to sell, or builds a new machine that sells for $200,000, something like that.  So our GDP measures of “government spending” are awful–and when the government is in a race to spend money as quickly as possible, these measures are going to be even worse than usual.”

(more…)