Here we go again. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are set to pay top execs retention bonuses ranging between $470,000 and $611,000.

The rest of the story writes itself, of course. The two firms have cost the taxpayers over $100 billion and are still burning piles of cash.

No doubt the firms will claim contractual obligation yadda, yadda, etc.

Bottom line: We need to come up with some guidelines on how nationalized (or de facto nationalized) institutions can deal with established compensation contracts, otherwise this will be the only thing politicians focus on and that's no good for anyone.