FHFA director to Sen. Grassley:Retain Freddie and Fannie bonuses to keep key employees & attract new workers.

Employees at government-controlled Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are slated to collect $210 million in bonuses between 2008 and 2010, in part to keep them from leaving.

James B. Lockhart III, director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, outlined the bonuses in a letter to Sen. Charles Grassley, a Republican from Iowa who sits on the Senate Finance Committee.

Lockhart said in the letter that the bonus plan was developed with the help of an outside consultant. He said it was designed to keep key employees -- without rewarding poor performance - and to attract new employees to fill vacancies.
With the financial services industry laying off tens of thousands of people and the national unemployment rate at a 25-year high, critics are asking where Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac think that workers who leave their ranks could find jobs.
Read on.

I really doubt that the Treasury Secretary and President Obama going to allow this given the fact that AIG CEO gave retention bonuses recently to execs because as AIG CEO Libby said that the bonuses were vital to retain good employees to stay at the company. Only to find out that some of the recipients that received 1 million bonuses already left AIG. I don't think Geithner would want history repeating itself.