The Wall Street Journal reports (subscription required) that "A top Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: C) trader is pressing the financial giant to honor a 2009 pay package that could total $100 million, setting the stage for a potential showdown between Citi and the government's new pay czar."

The trader involved is Andrew J. Hall, who heads Phibro LLC, a Citi-owned energy trading division. But here's the kicker: His compensation is determined by the profitability of his unit so if he is to receive a $100 million payout, it will be because he generated far more than that in profits for Citigroup.

The Obama administration proposed legislation yesterday that would require fully-reporting publicly traded companies to give their shareholders a non-binding vote on executive compensation. Under the proposal, directors would have to ask shareholders what they think before going ahead and doing what they were going to do anyway.

Administration insiders predicted that the measure would pass Congress easily, but that isn't stopping the Chamber of Commerce and the even more infamous Business Roundtable from opposing the measure.

Why would anyone what oppose a non-binding vote is beyond me. Why are they so opposed to taking a straw poll of their shareholders to find out what they think about their pay practices? Why are they so opposed to companies soliciting the opinions of their shareholders?

If anything, this measure doesn't go far enough. What's needed in the boardrooms of America is a revolution -- where shareholders take back their company from lazy, incompetent and just plain crooked directors who bankrupted General Motors, sent Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) onto the welfare rolls, and turned American International Group (NYSE: AIG) into America's most degenerate gambling addict. And non-binding resolutions will lead to a non-binding revolution, which is really no revolution at all.

President Obama and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner have selected Washington lawyer Kenneth R. Feinberg to serve as the executive pay czar. Feinberg will be charged with setting pay standards for top executives at the seven companies that received the most bailout money.

The New York Times reports that "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. For these 80 companies, the goal is to reduce excessive risk-taking by executives whose compensation is tied to company 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 pay."

The Securities & Exchange Commission may force public companies to disclose more information about how they compensate their lower-ranking employees, but there's a catch: They still wouldn't have to say how much they're paid.

The Wall Street Journal reports (subscription required) that "The Securities and Exchange Commission plans to propose that companies disclose in general terms how they compensate lower-ranking employees, expanding disclosures for the first time beyond the executive suite."

Widespread outrage over abusive executive pay practices has some companies going to unusual lengths to gain shareholder support for the way they compensate their top earners.

Amgen, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMGN) has invited its shareholders (subscription required) to fill out a ten question online survey assessing the level of executive pay, the clarity of proxy statement disclosures related to compensation, and how well pay practices are aligned with performance and shareholder value. Other companies are instituting similar programs, and more are expected to follow.

While American politicians whine self-righteously about corporate governance travesties at bailed out companies they had every opportunity to extract concessions from, Australia's government is actually taking steps toward long-term improvements in executive pay practices.

The Wall Street Journal reports that "Treasurer Wayne Swan said the center-left Labor government will amend the Corporations Act to require shareholder approval for any termination payments that exceed average annual base salary, which excludes additional compensation such as shares or stock options."

One of our reader's who blesses us with frequent comment's, B. Harrison, left the following tidbit for us recently (responding to: Buffett suffers big losses at Berkshire Hathaway) and I thought I would share it because this sentiment comes to us frequently.

• "And the American people are simply apathetically sitting back while our CORRUPT Congress who enabled and allowed all of the corporate FRAUDS, continues to allow the CORRUPT CEOs and Boards of Directors run those corporations, and to keep their ill gotten "weath" that they amassed while mismanaging the corporations, and orchestrating and perpetuating all of those FRAUDS."

I do not agree that the American people are "apathetically sitting back".... They are voicing their opinions on the web, in letters and emails to their representatives, they take to the streets and protest, they sell the stock of poorly run companies and file class action suits. The truth is that they are frustrated because our representatives have an unwavering singular focus, and that is to sustain themselves in office. Nothing takes a higher priority then that; it's called political self preservation.

The Wall Street Journal reports (subscription required) that "More than 40 financial firms have been hit with pay-related proposals, including Bank of America Corp. (NYSE: BAC), Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: C), J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM) and Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS). Most of the targets are recipients of government capital from the Troubled Asset Relief Program."

This is great news and represents an increase of more than 60% over last year, according to RiskMetrics. Of course, it doesn't matter nearly as much as it should: The "say on pay" votes are really just advisory: All that they do is put a little box on the proxy ballot where shareholders can say how they feel about their company's egregious executive pay practices.

President Barack Obama is planning to cap executive compensation at companies receive large amounts of TARP money at $500,000 per year.

"Tomorrow, I'm going to be talking about executive compensation and changes we're going to be making there," he told Anderson Cooper. "We've now learned that people are still getting huge bonuses despite the fact that they're getting taxpayer money, which I think infuriates the public."

President Obama announced that he wants to impose compensation limits on executives that receive government financial rescue funds. These proposals are said to include the following provisions:

• A $500,000 cash cap on annual compensation for senior executives
• Requiring top executives at financial institutions to hold stock for several years before they cash out
• Requiring nonbinding "say on pay" resolutions giving shareholders more say on compensation

These provisions would only apply to firms receiving government funds and would be applicable until they are repaid to the government.

This is a dramatic intervention into corporate governance, but then again the government bailouts are also unprecedented as well. Several are claiming that this is another step into more socialist America.

Can President Obama force CEOs to take a massive pay cut? While many others in the economy -- particularly the millions of regular Joes and Janes who have lost their jobs -- are helping to push down wages, CEOs have been immune from the pay cuts. But if Obama forces CEOs who take government money to limit their pay to $500,000 -- 25% more than Obama takes in -- will that cause all CEO pay to tumble? I think the answer is "no."

Why? Many reasons. First, no CEO in his or her right mind would volunteer to take government money given the ensuing pay cut. For example, if the CEO of a car company made $14 million in 2008, why would that same CEO volunteer to make $500,000 in 2009? Instead, the CEO would seek a position with a company that did not take government money and therefore did not limit the CEO's pay.

Over the past 12 months, shareholders in Ambac (NYSE: ABK) have lost more than 90% of their investments as the bond insurers ill-advised forays into structured finance have resulted in massive losses.

But for some reason the company's compensation committee deemed that performance worthy of $3 million in bonuses for 4 of Ambac's top executives. The company's latest proxy statement shows that CFO Sean Lenorard received a $950,000 cash bonus and Executive Vice President Douglas Renfield-Miller got $550,000. Chairman Michael Callen received $975,000 and Chief Executive Officer David Wallis took home $500,000

Just when you think you've heard it all, you hear more. In the last year, Wall Street -- or more specifically, the brokerage units of New York financial companies -- lost $35 billion. (Worldwide, financial institutions have taken $1 trillion in write-offs of bad assets). Those firms received a large proportion of the $350 billion TARP and persuaded the Treasury to guarantee losses from hundreds of billions worth of their financial toxic waste. Their reward? $18.4 billion in bonuses.

How much of the TARP went to paying for those bonuses? The banks have cleverly neglected to report that. But let's face it -- money is fungible. So if they did not use the money from the deposits they received from the Treasury to pay bonuses, our tax dollars freed up cash they may have had from other sources that did go to paying those $18.4 billion in bonuses.

An era of greed that began with the election of Ronald Reagan has come to an abrupt end. That means that the seething emotions of greed and envy that come along with bonus time at investment banks will have fewer dollars attached to them. And talent will flow to government and academia rather than Wall Street. This could be good for the U.S.

Some of those masters of the universe in the investment banking industry have seen the value of their stock tumble (and many of them are going without bonuses this year). Here are some of the "casualties":

With stock prices plunging, many investors are mad as hell and they're not going to take it anymore.

Brad M. Barber, a professor of finance at the University of California, Davis, Graduate School of Management told (subscription required) The Wall Street Journal that hedge funds are sparring with management more because it "gives them someone else to blame for their misfortune."

Maybe that's part of it, but I don't think it's just a rationalization thing. The reality is that the vast majority of companies would likely benefit from a large activist hedge fund smacking people around and keeping things honest. Most public companies have seen their operational and stock price performance tumble over the past year but executive compensation hasn't budged. Corporate governance in America is essentially a joke and if a bear market brings about a renewed focus on managerial neglect and incompetence, that's a good thing.

It might well be that many fund managers are motivated by frustration at their declining performance and are lashing out at anyone who had anything to do with it but in many cases investors are victims of bad and self-serving management.