p and now cejen feinberg -- and now kenneth feinberg may start imposing new salary restrictions for some of the top earners at the bank. apparently he's going to be giving out stock instead of cash. your thoughts on this? >> i guess the idea is to give long-term incentives. i have think it gets messy when the government gets involved in deciding what a company should pay his top executives it seems to be unwieldy at the best. steve: is that government's job? >> well, it seems to me -- i don't always agree with my former colleague. but in this case it seems like the market should really determine that. steve: absolutely. >> there are shareholders. there are members of the board. they should be held accountable. i'm all for accountability. you guarantee that. but i think for the government to go in and set pay scales it opens up a huge problem. steve: this is one of the perils of getting in bed with the government if you need bailout money. brian: i can't speak for gretchen, but i think you're showing off. al qaeda, pay czar and now bernie madoff! come on, you bring your a-game. >> i'm a r

kenneth feinberg is the pay czar, and he is trying to figure out what is fair here. so imagine that instead of being paid in cash next year, part of your salary was in stock. that is how we're getting the idea of this limit and what it might look like. you have aig, bank of america, general motors, citi, gmac, and chrysler financial. those are the companies being looked at. we think that executive compensation will be tied to stock, you will not cash in for several years, and the whole purpose is to get these executives committed to long- term success of the companies they are a part of. there are risks to this approach. a lot of these companies are in trouble. bank of america is looking for a new ceo. so if you're a top executive considering that, you have to decide if you want those restrictions. as taxpayers, bank of america has $45 billion of our money. so we willw out the top guy or girl in that position -- so we want the top guy or girl in that position to get us our money's worth. it is questionable whether people will want to step in with this oversight. ther

president obama's pay czar, ken feinberg coming out with new rules and regulations when it comes to payfirms who were bailed out by you the u.s. taxpayer. the current pay structure is inconsistent with public interest and that is why we are changing it. the new rules take effect next month affecting the top paid 25 executives at citigroup, aig bank of america, general motors and chrysler and the two finance arms gmac and chrysler financial. now all of those firms together, take a look have gotten $350 billion in bailout money. they will see annual salaries for those top execs falling 90% compared to a year ago. total composition stocks, bonuses, perks will fall 50%. we noticed on a release from the treasury department. there will be exceptions to this rule. those exceptions on pay where it may be higher will come in where necessary to retain talent and protect taxpayer interest. potentially a loophole we are going to watch closely. people are calling in and asking questions. i understand we have calls. let's go on the line with brendan in pittsburgh. >> caller: the government or these e

as for the compensation portion of this, pay czar ken feinberg will be making compensation recommendations. that only applies to firms that have not yet paid back t.a.r.p. money. much more. >>> going to update you on this shooting that happened at a walmart in mount pleasant, wisconsin. been telling you about this for a few minutes now. the racine journal times says that mount pleasant police have been responding to the shooting. they are looking for a man in his 20s. he's bald, wearing glasses, a gray hoodie and blue jeans and local radio is reporting a man of shot in the upper right shoulder. newspaper reports he was last seen driving away from the scene in a white car kind of like a ford ford contour. we'll keep you posted on that. >> so was the runaway balloon incident a hoax? the larimer county sheriff doesn't think so. he says at this time there's no indication the heene family planned yesterday's wild balloon flight. 24 hours ago we were anxiously tracking the runaway helium balloon thinking the worse that a 6-year-old boy from colorado was on board. turns out falcon was at home hid

yesterday afternoon that's when ken feinberg came out with the rules governing executive pay.uestion is really what role does the u.s. government -- what should they play in terms of handling compensation or regulating pay at these american businesses. bailout or not. that's a question that jessica yellin posed to the pay czar. >> it's not a good idea for the united states government to start micromanaging compensation practices at american businesses. but that's not this case. these are under the statutes seven specific companies that are in effect oldwed to the taxpayers of the united states. that's a much different situation. >> he's exactly right. a much different situation. essentially saying these businesses, richelle, wouldn't be standing if it were not for taxpayer money propping them up. as for the cuts we're talking about, look at the screen. when you look at the panes, citigroup, total compensation for the top 25 execs at the firm down 70% compared to a year ago. down 65.5% at bank of america. at aig down more than 57%. and general motors, the automaker that has eme