Editor's Choice for the Week of November 23, 2009: Housing, the Fed, and Compensation

The House and Senate are in recess until November 30, but before the lawmakers left town, Chris Dodd, the Senate Banking Committee chairman, said confirmation hearings for Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke’s second term will be held on December 3. While Obama Administration pay czar Kenneth Feinberg canceled a speech set for November 23 in Washington at the National Press Club, researchers at Harvard Law School’s Program for Corporate Governance reported that at least in the case of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers, top executive did not feel any compensation heat as their firms failed.

Finally, speaking of failures and bailouts, the special inspector general for the TARP program, Neil Barofsky, issued a report November 17 that sharply criticizes the Federal Reserve and the then-president of the New York Fed, now Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, for their actions before and during the AIG bailout.