Financial Headlines 4/1/2010

• CEOs watched in horror as their pay declined for a second year in a row, according to the WSJ. Average comp for the 200 CEOs in the analysis declined by 0.9% to $6.95 million. Really, I have no idea how anyone can expect to get by on so little coin.
• The Federal Reserve has released the details of the crap, I mean securities/other stuff, it purchased from Bear and AIG in its attempts to keep financial markets from imploding in 2008. I scrolled through the cusips and lack of cusips contained in Maiden Lane I (i.e. former Bear Stearns garbage barge) and wondered if it was as worthless as it looked (i.e. reams of unsecuritized loans on hotels and other commercial properties.) But I'm pretty sure I knew it was worthless back in March 2008 when Jamie Dimon said "We'll take that and that but, um, we're not gonna take any of THAT."
• Speaking of Jamie Dimon, he regrets ever using the FDIC to guarantee $40 billion of JP Morgan's debt during the crisis. "We didn't need it" Dimon claims, although he goes on to say that it did "save us money." Curiously, he doesn't regret the zero interest financing that JP Morgan probably also didn't need. Also unloading Bear's $30 billion in crap collateral onto the Fed? I'm pretty sure none of us needed that.
• Most importantly, everybody gets the long Easter weekend to think about the non-farm payroll number which is set to be released on Good Friday.