Compensation Czar powers need legislation

With this debate about whether past contracts should be honored for TARP institutions, people seem to forget that most of these institutions would have been bankrupt if it had not been for those funds.

Most would agree that past compensation agreements were founded on wrong assumptions as to the risks taken by traders/executives with shareholder/taxpayer capital. And the usual concept that they are "upside oriented" -- the incentives are to take a lot of risk because there is a lot to gain if things go well and little to lose if things go badly (can usually just blame the markets).

Congress need to provide the compensation Czar with the powers to selectively declare contracts void -- just as if these institutions had gone through bankruptcy.