Rolling Up the TARP on H-1B Visas

The U.S. Senate voted on February 6 to limit the number of high-skilled foreign workers to be hired by recipients of the Troubled Asset Relief Program. Many TARP recipients had hoped to use bailout money to hire cheap foreign labor and bring them to the United States via H-1B visas. Seeing this potential problem, the Senate has put restrictions on the amount of overseas labor which can be employed.

Well over 600,000 employees were laid off in January 2009 and 2.6 million people lost their jobs in 2008 nationwide. To stem the tide of rising job losses, the Senate chose a course of action which it hopes will encourage the hiring of American workers. This provision is in essence a “buy American” clause for corporate America. Congress holds the purse-strings for the remaining bailout funding, and is likely to put more restrictions on it in the future.

Even if you're not a fan of TARP ya gotta like this, right?

Executive Pay Limited to $500K? Poor Babies.

President Barack Obama imposed tough new rules on Wednesday to rein in corporate pay, capping executive compensation at $500,000 a year for companies receiving taxpayer funds as he seeks to put the struggling U.S. economy onto a new foundation.

"In order to restore our financial system, we've got to restore trust. And in order to restore trust, we've got to make certain that taxpayer funds are not subsidizing excessive compensation packages on Wall Street," Obama said, calling such lavish compensation packages "the height of irresponsibility."

If these companies are going to take tax-payer money, then they should have to live by rules like these. Kudos to the president for trying to implement some controls around these "bailouts." Of course, some are whining about it. For example, as reported in the New York Times: “That is pretty draconian — $500,000 is not a lot of money, particularly if there is no bonus,” said James F. Reda, founder and managing director of James F. Reda & Associates, a compensation consulting firm. “And you know these companies that are in trouble are not going to pay much of an annual dividend.”

Oh, poor, poor babies. You ran an entire industry into the ground and now you have to squeak by on only half a million a year. Wah, wah, wah, you fucking whiners!