plus 4, US pay czar OKs changes for 2 top BofA executives - WTVF

US pay czar OKs changes for 2 top BofA executives - WTVF
The Saturday Word: When Guests Drop In … - New York Times Blogs
DJ Hatoyama, Shirakawa To Discuss Japan Economy Next Week -Kyodo - Investors Business Daily
More Business - San Francisco Chronicle
Food banks nationwide report more1st timers - WDBJ7.com

US pay czar OKs changes for 2 top BofA executives - WTVF

Posted: 28 Nov 2009 08:44 AM PST

NEW YORK (AP) - Bailed-out Bank of America amended the salaries of two senior executives after a review by the White House pay czar, according to a regulatory filing.

Chief Financial Officer Joe. L. Price and mortgage unit President Barbara J. Desoer will earn less salary in 2009 than they did last year following approval by the officer of the special master for TARP Executive Compensation, Bank of America said in papers filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The Charlotte, N.C.-based bank remains under scrutiny after receiving $45 billion in bailout funds as part of the Treasury Department's $700 billion financial rescue package. Unlike some rivals, it has not said when it will pay back the government the money from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP.

In the filing submitted late Friday, Bank of America said it amended the 2009 compensation agreements for Price and Desoer.

Price's salary was trimmed to $500,000, retroactive to Nov. 1. He earned a salary of $800,000 for 2008, according to a separate filing submitted in March.

The CFO will also receive stock unit awards valued at $5.3 million for the full year 2009. According to the March filing, he received stock awards worth $2.3 million and options awards valued at $1.5 million for 2008.

Desoer, president of Bank of America mortgage, home equity and insurance services, will also see her annual salary trimmed to $500,000 from the $800,000 reported for last year. She will receive 2009 stock unit awards of $3.95 million. She received $2.3 million in stock awards and $1.53 million in options awards for 2008.

Both executives are also limited to $25,000 in other compensation, which often includes items like tax preparation, payment of insurance premiums, use of corporate aircraft, matching charitable contributions and other perks. In 2008, Price received $41,000 in perks. Desoer received $2.66 million in perks, including $1.5 million in relocation benefits when she moved from Charlotte to Calabasas, Calif., to take over the home lending and insurance business.

If either has already received more than $25,000 in perks this year, they must repay the difference, the filing said.

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The Saturday Word: When Guests Drop In … - New York Times Blogs

Posted: 28 Nov 2009 08:01 AM PST

With Thanksgiving behind it, the White House now turns to the important foreign and domestic questions that will define the coming week — the least of which is how a pair of aspiring reality-show stars ended up face-to-face with President Obama in the receiving line at his first state dinner.

Also on tap, preparations for the speech Mr. Obama will give at West Point on Tuesday night detailing his plan for sending additional troops to Afghanistan.

If you haven't seen it yet, The Economist's cover story asks a question on the minds of liberals and conservatives alike: Are the bold, but delayed, plays Mr. Obama is about to make in Afghanistan and Copenhagen signs of naive dithering or deliberate strategy? In its analysis the magazine writes that "as the months drag on, the 'weak' case has been gaining the upper hand. Mr. Obama has yet to show he has the staying power to take on a dangerous, stubborn and occasionally bad world."

The Photo: The nation has now seen the photo of Michaele and Tareq Salahi greeting Mr. Obama and his wife, Michelle, which the White House released Friday night. As the administration struggles to avoid criticizing the Secret Service, why publicize the agency's failing with an impossible-to-forget image of a beaming Ms. Salahi clasping Mr. Obama's hand? (Politico points out that Mark Sullivan, director of the Secret Service, was also in charge when an Iraqi journalist threw a shoe at former President George W. Bush.)

This holiday weekend it appears the White House (and the Republicans) have decieded to skip their weekly address.

Score! Chalk one up for ACORN in the saga that seems never to turn in their favor. The Justice Department has determined that the Obama administration can lawfully pay the community group can for services provided before feds put them on notice earlier this year, reports The Times's Charlie Savage

Money in the bank doesn't mean jobs on the payroll. The Washington City Paper writes that ACORN is laying off 240 and determining which offices will close in the coming days. So far no one in the Washington office has been let go.

Separate Spotlight: Jenny Sanford, the wife of Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina, seems to be capitalizing on her husband's infidelity, molding herself into a prominent public figure with interviews in Vogue, a conversation with ABC's Barabara Walters scheduled to be broadcast, a Web site — Jennysanford.com — and a memoir, writes The Times's Robbie Brown in a profile this morning.

Free Speech Attacked: The Berkeley Daily Planet in California is coming under fire from a group angry about the number of reader letters the newspaper publishes that are critical of Israel. The group has set up a Web site and is waging a successful campaign to drive away advertises from the recession-strangled company.

Kennedy Card: In the race to become the next Massachusetts senator, playing the Kennedy card may not have the expected weight, writes The Times's Abby Goodnough. Of the four candidates for the Democratic nomination, the one who has avoided Kennedy references, Martah Coakley, the state's attorney general, holds a firm lead.

Record Expense: Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg spent $102 million of his own money, or about $183 a vote, to win a narrow re-election earlier this month, making his bid for a third term the most expensive campaign in municipal history, sib-blog City Room reports.

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DJ Hatoyama, Shirakawa To Discuss Japan Economy Next Week -Kyodo - Investors Business Daily

Posted: 28 Nov 2009 08:58 AM PST

DJ Hatoyama, Shirakawa To Discuss Japan Economy Next Week -Kyodo

Posted 11:54 AM ET

Nov 28, 2009 (Dow Jones Commodities News Select via Comtex) -- DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

Japan Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama and Bank of Japan Governor Masaaki Shirakawa will meet in the first half of next week as the country's economy is mired in deflation and the yen's exchange value has been shooting up, Senior Vice Financial Services Minister Kohei Otsuka said on a TV show Saturday, Kyodo News reported.

The meeting appears to be designed to coordinate the government's fiscal policy and the central bank's monetary policy in light of the state of the economy, the report said.

The government said last week that the nation's economy is in mild deflation in its monthly economic assessment report.

The government plans to shortly compile a second supplementary budget for fiscal 2009 to carry out additional stimulus measures.

Japan's fiscal and monetary authorities are also concerned about the recent sharp appreciation of the yen against other major currencies. On Friday in Tokyo, the U.S. dollar, slipped into the Y84 zone for the first time in 14 years and four months, threatening to deal blows to the Japanese economy largely dependent on exports.

The rate move induced calls for countermeasures to fend off the yen's further appreciation.

Hatoyama and Shirakawa last met on Oct. 15 at the prime minister's office.

-Dow Jones Newswires; 212-416-2800

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

11-28-09 1154ET

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More Business - San Francisco Chronicle

Posted: 28 Nov 2009 08:44 AM PST

In the filing submitted late Friday, Bank of America said it amended the 2009 compensation agreements for Price and Desoer.

Price's salary was trimmed to $500,000, retroactive to Nov. 1. He earned a salary of $800,000 for 2008, according to a separate filing submitted in March.

If either has already received more than $25,000 in perks this year, they must repay the difference, the filing said.

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Food banks nationwide report more1st timers - WDBJ7.com

Posted: 28 Nov 2009 07:46 AM PST

By SOPHIA TAREEN
Associated Press Writer

CHICAGO (AP) - Prentice Jones worked construction jobs around Chicago for most of his 60 years and is quick to boast of a foreman job he once held at a revamped city college and 23 years at a steel company.

But these days, work has been so scarce that the man with a penchant for cowboy hats has been forced to move in with his mother and do something this week he never expected - visit a food pantry.

"There's no work now," Jones said while waiting in line at St. Columbanus Parish for a frozen turkey and bags of apples, bread and potatoes. "I pray it's temporary."

A surge in first time visitors has contributed to the greatest demand in years at food banks nationwide, according to Feeding America, a Chicago-based national food bank association. Many of the first timers were middle class but lost jobs or had their wages cut.

"They were doing pretty well," said Ross Fraser of Feeding America. "They've completely had the rug pulled out from under them."

Federal agencies and national organizations have just started tracking first timers. But anecdotal evidence and statistics from individual pantries is clear: More and more new faces are appearing among the approximately 25 million Americans who rely on food pantries each year.

St. Columbanus Pantry, which serves about 500 people a week on Chicago's South Side, has had up to 50 new people sign up each week since February.

The Friendly Center in Orange, Calif., serves 80 families a day, with about 20 new people trying to qualify each day, far more than last year.

And at the Community Kitchen and Food Pantry of West Harlem, N.Y., about 250 of the 1,000 people who show up each day - up from 750 this time last year - are newcomers.

"The line has grown so long that when you walk outside, it's overwhelming," said Jesse Taylor, senior director at the pantry. "A lot of people are coming out in suits, they're carrying brief cases."

Food banks across the country report about a 30 percent increase in demand on average, but some have seen as much as a 150 percent jump in demand from 2008 through the middle of this year, according to Feeding America.

Reliance on food banks and the number of Americans using food stamps - at least 35 million currently - are two indicators of hunger. The U.S. Department of Agriculture said earlier this month that 49 million people, or 14.6 percent of U.S. households, struggle to put food on the table, the most since the agency began tracking food security levels in 1995.

First timers to food banks have worries others might not experience.

For starters, they may not know what to do.

"Some don't have the coping skills, they've never been in this situation," said Elizabeth Donovan, a director at the Northern Illinois Food Bank, which serves 13 counties. "Asking for help is difficult."

Jones was cajoled into coming into the food pantry by a friend who knew where to go, where to wait and how to apply for services.

But others say the experience is fraught with shame, confusion or anger.

"We're hearing from more and more middle class who have never in their life gone to a food pantry," said Diane Doherty, an executive director at the Illinois Hunger Coalition. "They're very, very frustrated and angry."

About half of the almost 40,000 families who have been fed at Holy Family Food Pantry in Waukegan, Ill., about 40 miles north of Chicago, are new, services director Barb Karacic said.

They include Gail Small, a 55-year-old school bus driver who got laid off from her $16 an hour job at the Waukegan Public School District earlier in the year and hasn't been ableto find work since.

"It was very embarrassing," Small said. "I didn't tell my children. I didn't tell my dad."

Others say at some point, the need to survive trumps emotions.

Linda Herrera, 59, went to All Saints Parish on Detroit's southwest side for the first time this week. Herrera, who is on state assistance, said the embarrassment of having to pick up food was offset by her empty cupboards.

"We were down to practically nothing," she said, carrying out bags containing juice, mashed potatoes, dried milk, rice and beans. "I'm trying to just make it now 'til the end of the month, until I get my check."

___

Associated Press Writer Corey Williams in Detroit contributed to this report.

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