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9/11 ‘special master’ appointed czar to oversee executive pay
Jerry Mazza
Online Journal
Friday, June 12, 2009
Irony of ironies! The once “special master” of the 9/11 Victims Compensation Fund, Kenneth Feinberg, has been appointed Czar to Oversee Executive Pay by the White House. Thus spake the New York Times, June 10, 2009.
But before I give you Feinberg’s new job description, here’s some backstory on his last government post.
In fact it’s from my Online Journal article: The 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund: cui bono? I wrote, “Eligibility for the Victim Compensation Fund required victims’ ‘physical harm or death’ as a result of one of the crashes, or being the personal representative of a deceased victim. But the hook, the big quid pro quo is [was] the waiver of a claimant’s right to file suit if he or she filed for fund money. The moment he or she submitted an application for fund money, he or she could forget about a suit against the airlines or the government.
“Also, the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund of 2001 was the last part of the three-part Air Transportation Safety and System Stabilization Act of 2001 [ATSA) issued at President Bush’s order. It was issued only 12 days after the tragedy and most probably not closely read by most members of Congress who passed it.
“Part one was a $10 billion dollar handout in federal credit instruments to air carriers. Part two was an additional $5 billion boost to compensate air carriers for direct losses, either from being grounded and/or incremental losses beginning September 11, 2001, ending December 31, 2001, as a direct result of the attacks.
“Thus the airlines received a $15 billion subsidy to keep them from going under. There was just one stipulation calling for limiting pay raises to employees or officers whose total compensation exceeds $300,000.” How tough on execs is that?
- A d v e r t i s e m e n t
I also wrote, “If victims or survivors decided not to take the money, the law said they could ‘bring in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York an exclusive cause of action for damages based upon the substantive law, including choice of law principles, of the State in which the crash occurred unless such law was inconsistent with or preempted by Federal law.’ In plain English, it meant they could file a lawsuit for damages right in this courthouse.”
Alas, “The man to evaluate all appeals was the fund’s special master, Kenneth R. Feinberg. He was appointed by then Attorney General John Ashcroft on November 26, 2001. In his Final Report of Fund activities, Feinberg said with no due modesty, ‘in my view, the Fund was an unqualified success: 97 percent of the families of deceased victims who might otherwise have pursued lawsuits for years have received compensation through the Fund. . . . ’
“In total, the Fund distributed over $7.049 billion to survivors of 2,880 persons killed in the September 11 attacks and to 2,680 individuals who were injured in the attacks or in the rescue efforts conducted thereafter. The average award for families of victims killed in the attacks exceeded $2 million. The average award for injured victims was nearly $400,000. . . .
“Bottom line: the airlines received over twice as much as 9/11 victims and their families.
“As Truthout.org reported on December 23, 2003, the actual cut-off date of the two-year application period, “as many as 73 families see the process of U.S. government compensation as an attempt to protect those who should be held accountable for what they believe was mass murder. They ignored a midnight deadline last night, their last chance to apply for government cash. And today, they begin a new stage in an arduous odyssey and will sue their government, airlines and state and local authorities.’
“Think of the consequences of an open trial of plaintiffs against the airlines and/or government. Think of the discovery, of all the facts which could used to prove those thousands of 9/11 deaths were murders, conceivably by home bodies with foreign allies. The cost would be the heads of the big kahunas of our government and their associates. Thus the $7.049 billion in Victim Fund’s payout was a small price to pay for the silence it produced.
(ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW)
“Amazingly, after five and a half years, not one single victim’s case from 9/11 has even been heard in a court of law -- in spite of the fact that the US is known as a litigious society with an abundance of aggressive lawyers. Many thought the relatives of the 9/11 victims would go for justice and compensation in the courts. Not so, particularly under the pressure of the VCF.”
Since the date of that article, June 22, 2007, I haven’t heard of a 9/11 victim family granted a trial in Judge Alvin Hellerstein’s courtroom in the Daniel Patrick Moynihan United States Courthouse at 500 Pearl Street in New York. Having done three other articles on the subject, including the ongoing travails of Mrs. Ellen Mariani seeking a trial for her husband, Neil Mariani, who died on Flight 175 on 9/11, it seems Special Master Feinberg, Judge Hellerstein, et al, have been successful to date in silencing any dissent from any family. I would welcome any news to the contrary, either from Mr. Feinberg, the Honorable Judge “Money Is the Universal Lubricant” Hellerstein, his court, or the Motley Rice law firm representing the plaintiffs.
So, it should be really interesting, almost an eerie kind of justice, that now D.C. attorney Kenneth Feinberg will be sealing the financial fates of the fat cats of Wall Street. Will the Streeters be meeting another wall in attaining justice, as the 9/11 victims’ families did? The good news for Wall Street is the victims did receive a substantial amount of hush money in total: $7 billion plus. And the airlines got twice that.
That said, let’s flash forward to the Times reporting, “The Obama administration on Wednesday appointed a compensation czar who will have broad discretion to set the pay for 175 top executives at seven of the nation’s largest companies, which received hundreds of billions of dollars in federal assistance to survive.
“The mandate [ah, the inevitable mandate] given to the new compensation official, Kenneth R. Feinberg, a well-known Washington lawyer, reflects the federal government’s increasingly intrusive role in the corporate affairs of troubled companies,” tough talk from the Times. “From his nondescript office in Room 1310 of the Treasury building, Mr. Feinberg will set the salaries and bonuses of some of the top executives in America, including Kenneth D. Lewis, the chief executive of Bank of America; Vikram S. Pandit, the head of Citigroup, and Fritz Henderson, the chief executive of General Motors.”
I can almost hear the laughter from hell, the devil wringing his hands at these little devils getting Feinberg. There’s no way he wouldn’t be as tough on the Streeters as the grieving 9/11 families. Or is there?
The Times continues, “The compensation of executives at some companies receiving aid provoked a firestorm of political outrage earlier this year. In revising an earlier proposal to set pay limits, the Obama administration has decided to take an approach that will leave the success or failure of the effort to curtail high compensation at the assisted companies in the hands of Mr. Feinberg. (Mr. Feinberg himself will not receive any government compensation.)” Ah, but it will add a notch to his legal belt and keep his law firm’s name in the public eye.
Regarding Feinberg’s firm, as I wrote in my article, quoting writer Christopher Bollyn, “Special Master Kenneth Feinberg’s legal firm is listed as one of the top ten supporters of the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies for 2004-2005. The Institute is an Israel-based Zionist organization that supports the construction of the illegal wall of separation across Palestine.” Fancy that.
I added, “Feinberg was appointed by then Attorney General John Ashcroft, a dedicated conservative Christian-cum-Zionist sympathizer, backing groups such as Stand for Israel. Most notably, Ashcroft now runs a lobbying firm, whose most stellar client is Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI), Israel’s major military aerospace company. It hired the former US attorney general to help secure US government approval to sell an Israeli weapons system to the South Korean Air Force. They hired Ashcroft to raise their chances against an American-made system from Chicago-based Boeing Company.” You don’t say.
“Ironically, Ashcroft was born in Chicago. When he headed the Justice Department, his dual-citizenship Israeli-American assistant was Michael Chertoff, who directed the FBI non-investigation of the events of 9/11. Chertoff is now secretary of Homeland Security.” Interesting!
And, “Sheila L. Birnbaum, the special mediator for Hellerstein, is a partner in Skadden Arps, one of the leading corporate law firms with business ties to Israel. Skadden Arps is one of the legal advisers to Israeli companies doing business in and raising capital outside of Israel. It offers bi-lingual English/Hebrew personnel as well.” Perhaps it’s best if you read the whole article, if you haven’t already.
The Times adds, “For 80 other financial institutions that have received federal assistance, Mr. Feinberg will develop the overall compensation structure, but without setting the exact level of pay [leave some bargaining room]. For these 80 companies, the goal is to reduce excessive risk-taking by executives whose compensation is tied to performance. Mr. Feinberg will also determine whether it would be in the public interest to force any executives at companies receiving assistance who might have been overpaid to return some of that pay.” It’ll be a cold day in hell before we see that.
As said earlier, “Mr. Feinberg became a nationally known figure after the Bush administration assigned him to help settle possible lawsuits by the families of victims of the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11. His job was to put a value on the lives of the victims and offer government settlements to avoid lawsuits [notice the delicate wording]. Mr. Feinberg met with many of the families and spoke around the country about how intellectually challenging and emotionally difficult the assignment became. He often sought refuge [from his conscience?] by cloistering himself in a room in his home to listen to his extensive opera collection.” Might I recommend Pagliacci? It’s a heart-breaker.
Now let’s round out Mr. Feinberg’s conflict-resolution resume: “Before that assignment, he was appointed by federal district judges to help resolve several difficult product liability lawsuits. He played central roles in resolving cases involving victims of asbestos, Agent Orange and the Dalkon Shield, a birth control device that injured more than 200,000 women. He was also one of three arbitrators who determined the fair market value of the Zapruder film that captured the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, resolving a dispute between the heirs of Abraham Zapruder, who shot the footage, and the government, which acquired the 26-second film.” Hmmm, quite a span of interests there . . . and finally . . .
“The announcement is the third attempt by Washington to respond to public outrage over high pay at companies receiving taxpayer assistance. On Feb. 4, the administration announced a proposal to set a $500,000 cap on cash compensation for the most senior executives at troubled companies getting ‘exceptional assistance,’ and restrictions on cashing in on stock incentives.” I suspect they could struggle along on that.
Yet, given all the doubletalk, I can only say good luck, America. Luck with the Feinbergs, Geithners and Larry Summers’s of the world, supposedly guarding our Treasury, economy, and 9/11 victims’ families. And luck with Wall Street having at us, manipulating our money. In fact, once again we seem to be in troubled waters looking for that mythic bridge over them. As Billy Holiday would sing, “God bless the child that’s got his own.”
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