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Europe’s recovery almost came to a halt in the fourth quarter of 2009 as companies continued to cut investment while consumers held back spending, countering a gain in exports.

Corporate investment dropped 0.8 percent from the third quarter, when it fell 0.9 percent, while household spending was flat, the European Union’s statistics office in Luxembourg said today. Exports gained 1.7 percent and imports rose 0.9 percent. Gross domestic product rose 0.1 percent from the third quarter, when it increased 0.4 percent.

European governments are struggling to contain the fallout from Greece’s budget crisis as they phase out the stimulus measures used to pull the economy out of a recession. Economic confidence in the region fell last month and unemployment held at an 11-year high in January. Still, the EU forecasts growth will accelerate in the first quarter.

“Today’s figures clearly demonstrate that the euro-region recovery is still very much made abroad and that private domestic demand has yet to recover,” said Martin Van Vliet, an economist at ING Group in Amsterdam. “We suspect that first- quarter growth might only be slightly better than the fourth quarter’s meager performance.”

The euro pared declines against the dollar after the data, trading at $1.3681 at 12:33 p.m. in London, down 0.1 percent on the day. The yield on the German 10-year benchmark bond rose 0.1 basis point to 3.14 percent.

Government Spending

From a year earlier, euro-area GDP declined a seasonally adjusted 2.1 percent in the fourth quarter, the statistics office said today, confirming an initial estimate from Feb. 12. Government spending fell 0.1 percent from the third quarter, when it increased 0.8 percent, today’s report showed.

For the full year, GDP shrank 4.1 percent, compared with an earlier estimate of 4 percent. That compares with contractions of 2.4 percent in the U.S. and 5 percent in Japan last year, the statistics office said.

The German economy, Europe’s largest, stagnated in the fourth quarter after recording 0.7 percent growth in the previous three months, while Italian GDP fell 0.2 percent. France’s economic expansion accelerated to 0.6 percent from 0.2 percent. In Greece, the economy contracted 0.8 percent in the fourth quarter.

European companies are relying on exports to bolster sales as households in the region cut back spending. Consumer and executive confidence in the outlook worsened in February after unemployment held at 9.9 percent in January, the highest since November 1998.

European Environment

Carrefour SA Chief Executive Officer Lars Olofsson said on Feb. 19 that he doesn’t “see any change in the European environment for the next six months at least” after Europe’s largest retailer reported a 70 percent drop in 2009 profit free credit score.

The European Central Bank will probably keep its benchmark interest rate at 1 percent today, according to a Bloomberg survey. The ECB, which has started to phase out some of its stimulus measures introduced to fight the recession, will release its decision at 1:45 p.m. in Frankfurt.

“The phasing out of some unconventional measures should not be misinterpreted as a desire to remove policy accommodation,” ECB council member Athanasios Orphanides said in an interview on Feb. 12. “Policy accommodation continues to be needed in light of the very subdued inflation outlook and the unevenness and weakness of the economy.”

EU Forecasts

While euro-region GDP is seen rising 0.2 percent in the current quarter from the previous three months, the economy may fail to gather strength for most of 2010, according to EU forecasts on Feb. 25. In the year, the economy will probably expand 0.7 percent after shrinking 4 percent in 2009, the EU projects.

Europe’s governments face a growing dilemma as they seek to bolster recoveries at a time when rising sovereign-debt burdens threaten to hobble economic expansion. The euro has declined 8.1 percent against the dollar over the past three months amid concern Greece’s budget crisis will spread to other countries.

Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou’s government yesterday approved an additional 4.8 billion euros ($6.6 billion) in deficit cuts after EU officials said the nation’s financial woes pose a threat to the entire region. The country, which has pledged to lower the budget gap beneath the EU limit of 3 percent of GDP by 2012, today started a sale of 10-year bonds amid street protests in Athens against the cuts.

‘Slow and Patchy’

“The recovery in the euro-area economy as a whole in 2010 will be slow and patchy,” said Colin Ellis, an economist at Daiwa Securities in London. “It is hard to see a strong engine of domestic growth in the euro-area economy, consistent with our view that exports may have to do the heavy lifting.”

While the euro’s slide against the dollar is boosting some raw-materials costs for companies, it’s also improving the competitiveness of European exports just as the global economy gathers strength. Europe’s service and manufacturing industries expanded for a seventh month in February.

Volkswagen AG, Europe’s largest carmaker, is facing a “strong headwind” in Europe and a “tailwind” in the U.S. and China, CEO Martin Winterkorn said on March 1. BASF SE, the world’s biggest chemical company, last month forecast higher earnings this year.

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The dollar turned mixed Friday afternoon, with the euro recovering from steep losses, as U.S. stocks gained and traders continued to mull the Federal Reserve’s decision to raise its discount lending rate.

What prices are doing: The dollar fell 0.6% against the euro to $1.3609, after climbing to a nine-month high earlier in the day. But it gained 0.4% against the British pound at $1.5465. Against the Japanese yen, the dollar fell 0.3% to ¥91.82.

The dollar index (DXY), which measures the greenback against a basket of major rival currencies, rose 0.2% to 80.54.

What’s moving the market: The dollar rallied throughout the morning on expectations that the Federal Reserve could move to tighten monetary policy sooner than expected.

But the euro recovered in the afternoon as traders gravitated towards higher yielding assets. Stocks ended a choppy session higher, marking the fourth straight day of gains.

Some analysts said the euro’s rebound was due to a "short squeeze," which occurs when traders rush to unwind bets that a currency will fall.

"The price action in the forex markets is clearly indicative of a short squeeze," said Kathy Lien, director of currency research at trading firm GFT. "The recovery in the euro poses little threat to the dollar’s rally because fundamentally, the Eurozone is in worse shape than the U.S."

Meanwhile, investors continue to digest the Fed’s decision to increase its discount rate, which is what banks pay to borrow directly from the Fed, to 0.75% Thursday.

The increase is not expected to impact the price of consumer loans — such as mortgages and credit card rates — because the discount rate is what the Fed charges banks for emergency short-term borrowing.

The Fed left its benchmark lending rate, which has a bigger impact on the price of consumer loans, near zero. And given the sluggish labor market and tepid economic recovery, the closely watched rate will remain near its historic low for the foreseeable future.

Still, the increase in the discount rate is a small sign that the Fed thinks the market can begin to stand on its own. That confidence helped boost the dollar earlier in the day.

What analysts are saying: "Although the Fed went out of their way to say that this does not equate to a change in their monetary policy outlook, action speaks louder than words," Lien said. "Their decision to begin normalizing rates before the next central bank meeting indicates how hawkish they must be and how serious they are about tightening monetary policy."

Lien added that that the rate hike is a "game changer for the foreign exchange market" and will boost the dollar because it signals that the Fed is beginning to implement an exit strategy, which is not the case for other central banks.

Though the Fed’s action and strong U.S. economic data will continue to make the dollar a more attractive investment, Lien said the buck will also gain ground as investors focus on Europe’s debt crisis.

"At the end of the day, the U.S. dollar is still a safe haven currency, which means that as long as investors remain nervous, the dollar should hold onto its gains." 

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European Central Bank President Jean- Claude Trichet is struggling to convince investors that the euro region shouldn’t be punished for Greece’s budget problems.

As the Greek government tries to control its record deficit and the country’s bonds slide, Trichet yesterday said the economy of the 16-nation euro area is solid and its budget shortfall will probably be smaller than those of the U.S. and Japan this year. The euro nevertheless fell more than half a cent against the dollar and Spanish and Portuguese stocks dropped on concern they are in a similar predicament to Greece.

Trichet “did not convince me,” said Stuart Thomson, who helps manage $100 billion at Ignis Asset Management in Glasgow, Scotland. “Where does he think the Greek, Spanish and Portuguese economies will be three years from now? Their austerity measures will weigh on the euro area as a whole.”

Trichet has been forced to fend off questions about the survival of the euro as investors doubt Greece’s ability to cut its deficit from 12.7 percent of gross domestic product to below the European Union’s 3 percent limit. As concern spreads to Spain and Portugal’s rising debt burdens, Trichet will try to stress the need for fiscal prudence without inflaming skepticism that it can be achieved.

“Something has to happen to turn credibility around,” said Paul Mortimer-Lee, head of Market Economics at BNP Paribas in London. “The market’s just saying it’s not believable. It might have to get worse before it gets better.”

Markets Shudder

Spanish stocks dropped the most in 15 months yesterday and Portugal led declines in government bonds. The euro fell to $1.3728, its lowest level against the dollar since last May. It has dropped more than 9 percent since Nov. 25.

Greek bonds have tumbled in the past two months, pushing the yield on the country’s 10-year debt above 7 percent, the highest since 1999, the year the euro was introduced. The premium investors charge to hold Greek 10-year bonds over the benchmark German bund has widened to 356 basis points, about 10 times what it was two years ago.

The ECB yesterday left its benchmark rate at a record low of 1 percent and Trichet signaled the bank is in no rush to raise borrowing costs as the economy recovers gradually from its worst recession since World War II.

Still, Trichet said the “solidity” of the euro area “is not necessarily very well known” and its situation compares “very flatteringly with a number of other industrialized countries.”

Gradual Recovery

The euro-area economy will grow 0.8 percent this year and 1.2 percent in 2011, according to the ECB’s December forecasts. It contracted 4 percent last year, the European Commission estimates.

“Trichet is still trying to persuade markets that they should be looking at the euro area as a whole, which does not look that bad, rather than at individual countries, some of which look extremely fragile,” said Marco Annunziata, chief economist at UniCredit SpA in London.

Spain’s public debt will rise to 74 percent of GDP by 2011 from 54 percent last year, according to European Commission forecasts. Greece’s debt will increase to 135 percent of GDP from 113 percent, and Portugal’s will increase to 91 percent from 77 percent, the EU estimates.

Greece’s consolidation plans, which call for about 10 billion euros ($13.7 billion) of spending cuts and revenue increases this year, are more ambitious than any budget reduction achieved by euro-region countries since the 1970s, according to ING Group.

Greece’s biggest union yesterday approved a second mass strike this month to protest the spending cuts and tax collectors began a 48-hour walkout, illustrating the difficulty Prime Minister George Papandreou faces in implementing his plan.

“We expect and we are confident that the Greek government will take all the decisions that will permit them to reach that goal,” Trichet said. Additional proposals announced by Greece this week to freeze public-sector wages and revamp the pension system “are steps in the right direction,” he said.

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The U.S. dollar may come under renewed pressure from emerging market currencies and the euro after a meeting of the world’s top finance officials failed to take concrete action on rebalancing global money flows.

Finance ministers and central bank governors of the Group of 20 major countries, meeting in Scotland at the weekend, launched a "framework" in which they will discuss how to reduce trade and savings imbalances between nations.

But their communique talked only in general terms about rebalancing economies, and implied they might not agree on specific policies for individual countries to adopt before the end of next year at the earliest.

The result may be a continuation of heavy fund flows into emerging markets, boosting currencies there. And central banks intervening to slow currency appreciation may keep investing much of the money they obtain in the euro, pushing up that currency too.

"We’re probably looking at fresh dollar weakness in the short term" in the wake of the G20 meeting, said Kenneth Broux, senior markets economist at Lloyds TSB.

China, Brazil

At the center of the currency issue is China’s reluctance to permit appreciation of its tightly controlled yuan, which it has kept flat against the dollar since mid-2008.

That has prompted additional fund flows into emerging market currencies that do trade freely, such as the Brazilian real, which has soared over 30% this year. Last month, Brazil slapped a 2% tax on foreign investments in fixed income and stocks in an effort to slow the real’s rise.

Last week, Brazilian officials said they would discuss this problem at the G20 meeting. But the G20 communique made no reference to the issue, and Brazil appeared to get little sympathy from a senior official of the International Monetary Fund, which is a key player in the global rebalancing campaign.

Youssef Boutros-Ghali, who chairs the International Monetary and Financial Committee, the IMF’s policy steering committee, told Reuters that Brazil’s tax was unlikely to work and that "we should not be fixated on currencies".

Officials from several countries, including Brazil, Japan and Indonesia, urged China on the sidelines of the meeting to let the yuan move more flexibly.

But as a group, the G20 did not press China on the sensitive issue, G20 sources said. British finance minister Alistair Darling told reporters: "We didn’t discuss the renminbi payday loans for bad credit. I think that’s a question for China rather than us."

In fact, China appeared in a combative mood. Finance Minister Xie Xuren and central bank governor Zhou Xiaochuan, speaking to the official Xinhua news agency after the meeting, made no mention of the yuan and instead warned developed countries to focus on the quality of their own policies.

Xie said countries with global reserve currencies should work to maintain the currencies’ value, to avoid destabilizing the global economy — implying it was up to Washington, not Beijing, to resolve the issue of the weak dollar.

The silence on the yuan in Scotland suggested countries accepted the G20 was not a forum in which to press China. The other main global economic forum, the Group of Seven nations, last met in October; it did mention the yuan, but only in the softest terms, "welcoming China’s continued commitment" to free up the yuan without referring to a timetable.

Rebalancing

The G20 did publish a detailed, unprecedented timetable for countries to discuss the economic rebalancing that could eventually bring more stability to global currency markets.

In an appendix to the communique, G20 countries were asked to submit descriptions of their monetary, fiscal and other policies and plans to the IMF by the end of January 2010. The IMF would produce an analysis of the global economy by April.

G20 countries would then "develop a basket of policy options" in June, and G20 leaders would consider recommendations for policies at a summit in November 2010.

But this plan is clearly constrained by diplomatic sensitivities. For example, the appendix said that, in the first half of next year, the IMF would not recommend policies for specific countries but merely for "groups of countries facing similar circumstances" — apparently ruling out an explicit recommendation to appreciate the yuan.

So in the short term, currency market trends look as if they will be left to continue, said Simon Derrick, senior currency strategist at Bank of New York Mellon in London.

"It is hard to imagine a level playing field for currencies without resolving the issue of the yuan," he said. 

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Mexico’s central bank kept its benchmark interest rate unchanged for the first time in eight months today and said it will “extend the pause” in borrowing costs amid an economic recovery.

The bank’s five-member board, led by Governor Guillermo Ortiz, held the rate at 4.5 percent, matching the forecasts of all 23 economists surveyed by Bloomberg. The bank had cut borrowing costs at seven previous meetings this year, lowering the rate by 3.75 points from 8.25 percent at the end of 2008.

Policy makers voted to pause as Mexico is showing some signs of recovery from its deepest economic slump in at least three decades, said Francisco Diez, director of currency trading at RBC Capital Markets. The language in today’s statement signals the bank will hold rates for the rest of 2009, he said.

“They are optimistic things will improve, but cautious about weakness in the labor market,” Diez said from New York. “By saying they will extend the pause, they’re saying they may hold until next year.”

After last month’s quarter-point cut, Banco de Mexico said it planned to pause amid signs of economic recovery.

“The board has decided to extend the pause announced in the last press release,” the bank said in today’s statement.

Mexico’s peso strengthened 0.45 percent to 12.8280 per U.S. dollar at 3:35 p.m. New York time.

Economy

The bank said in its statement that the economy will improve in the second half of the year after it shrank 10.3 percent in the second quarter. The contraction in the three months through June was the biggest quarterly decline in gross domestic product since at least 1980, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Auto production figures showed “an important increase” in July, bank policy makers said. Output of cars and light trucks fell 25 percent in July from a year earlier, compared with a 48 percent decline in June from the same month in 2008.

A recovery in employment will be gradual and will depend on an improvement in the global economy, the statement said.

“The weaknesses in the economy won’t be as severe as they were in April and May, so it’s not necessary to cut rates,” said Luis Flores, senior economist at IXE Grupo Financiero SA in Mexico City.

Retail sales fell 5.1 percent in June from the same month a year earlier, the country’s statistics agency said today how to get a free credit report. Economists expected a 7.2 percent decline, according to the median of 14 forecasts in a Bloomberg survey.

Record Low

At 4.5 percent, the rate is the lowest since Ortiz began targeting the overnight lending rate in 2005. Previously, Banco de Mexico implemented monetary policy by targeting the money supply through a system known as the “corto.”

Lower interest rates can help prompt businesses to invest and consumers to buy on credit. Cheaper loans also can spur inflation by strengthening demand.

Mexico’s economic slump deepened in the second quarter and job losses accelerated as the recession in the U.S., which buys about 80 percent of Mexican exports, sapped demand for its products.

Latin America’s second-biggest economy will contract the most this year among the region’s largest economies, Claudio Loser, former Western Hemisphere director for the International Monetary Fund, said on a conference call yesterday.

The central bank forecasts GDP will shrink as much as 7.5 percent this year, which would be the most since 1932. Brazil’s economy will only contract 0.34 percent this year, according to a survey by that country’s central bank.

Inflation

Inflation has slowed according to forecast and will continue to do so, the bank said today. The annual rate fell to 5.44 percent last month from 5.74 percent in June, the lowest in a year.

The central bank forecasts inflation of no more than 5.25 percent in the third quarter, slowing to as low as 4 percent by the end of the year. The bank’s inflation target is 3 percent by the end of 2010.

A widening fiscal deficit may lead the government to increase costs for public services such as electricity and water, which would fuel inflation, said Alejandro Ascencio, an economist at Bursametrica Management in Mexico City.

Morgan Stanley said in a report this week that the government would have to boost gasoline and diesel prices as much as 15 percent next year to cover an expected revenue shortfall through higher fuel prices, assuming oil prices of $60 a barrel.

That would add 0.6 percentage point to annual inflation, putting the rate at about 4.5 percent by the end of 2010, the report said.

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Austria’s economy contracted for a fourth consecutive quarter after investments and exports tumbled because of the world financial crisis.

Second-quarter gross domestic product, the value of all services and goods, contracted 0.4 percent from the first quarter, when it fell 2.7 percent, the Vienna-based Wifo economic research institute said today. Compared with a year earlier, the economy weakened 4.4 percent.

“The Austrian economy was badly hit by the economic downturn,” Wifo said in an e-mail fast cash loans. A 0.4 percent increase in consumption, helped by government incentives to buy new autos, helped slow the economic deceleration, according to the institute.

Exports decreased 1.1 percent in the second quarter, the fifth consecutive decline, the report said. Imports fell 0.2 percent, the sixth straight quarterly drop.

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Banks in the United States are poised to make $38.5 billion in customer overdraft fees this year, the Financial Times said, citing research by Moebs Services.

A large portion of the revenue is likely to come from the most financially stretched consumers, according to the paper.

It said the research showed that many banks have increased charges on overdrafts and credit cards in order to boost profits.

The median bank overdraft fee rose this year by one dollar to $26, the paper said, citing the Moebs data.

“Banks are returning to a fee-driven model and overdraft fees are the mother lode,” Mike Moebs, the company’s founder was quoted by the paper as saying no teletrack payday loan lenders.

Overdraft fees accounted for more than 75 percent of service fees charged on customer deposits, the paper cited Moebs as saying.

Last year the U.S. Federal Reserve approved credit card rules to curb “unfair” practices such as surprise fees and interest rate hikes, and new mortgage lending rules are expected this summer. It is also mulling rules to give bank customers the chance to opt out of overdraft schemes that can involve fees.

(Reporting by Ajay Kamalakaran in Bangalore; Editing by Greg Mahlich)

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I’m a bit intimidated entering IBM’s research center in Hawthorne, New York. After all, the company’s sales totaled $104 billion…yes, billion…last year.

So not only am I traveling into the heart of one of largest tech companies in the world, but I’m about to face off against Watson, the natural language processing system that is due to appear on the television quiz show "Jeopardy!" some time next year.

The sprawling complex is filled with rooms assigned generic numbers, separated by swaths of black, gray and blue-colored carpets. A quick right turn out of the elevator puts me in front of Lab 2SG85.

The lab is shoddier than I would have expected — paneled walls, rickety desks and low ceilings with florescent lights, like it hadn’t been updated since the 1970s.

In the small room where I’ll be battling wits with Watson, there’s a glowing red emergency electrical shut-off switch on the wall. (HAL, anyone?) There are algorithms scribbled on a white board that show how Watson arrives at a particular response.

The presentation, set up by IBM researcher David Ferrucci, isn’t working. Ferrucci, who also heads up the Watson team, neglected to plug the projector into his ThinkPad laptop.

"You’d think we’d be wireless by now," he quips.

He plugs the projector in, and a Jeopardy! board pops up on the screen.

Alright. Ready to go. Finger on the buzzer. Watson picks geography for $400.

This should be easy, I’m thinking.

"Eighty percent of Algeria is covered by this desert."

I know this one! I buzz in quickly.

"Player two, Watson."

Huh?

"What is Sahara?" says the computer’s simulated voice.

Too fast for me.

How Watson works. The computer and software system, named after Big Blue founder Thomas Watson, marks an impressive big step on the path toward being able to talk with computers.

Interestingly, the researchers did not load Watson up with countless databases, but rather taught it to search through text, and use context to "understand" how words relate to each other. For example, talking about a character in a novel is vastly different from talking about someone’s personal character.

To get an answer, the computer considers many factors, from simple keyword matching and arithmetic, to complex, often ambiguous solutions like metonymy (substituting one concept for another, related one), and statistical paraphrasing ("Big Blue" is the same thing as "IBM").

Watson is able to do this in a fraction of a second because the program’s hardware is an IBM Blue Gene/P — one of the fastest super computers on the planet.

That doesn’t mean it has all of the bugs worked out — it responded with "Barbara Streisand" to the Jeopardy! answer "This Ziegfeld star was portrayed in the film ‘Funny Girl cash loans till payday.’" It was close, but the correct response is Fanny Brice. Streisand played Brice in the film. (It’s okay, Watson, I didn’t know the answer either.)

The other reason why IBM didn’t just load Watson up with data is because it wants the technology to be accessible to any person or company looking for quick answers.

Watson, coming to a business near you. The possibilities for commercial use of the technology would seem endless. If Watson can answer complex Jeopardy! questions, then perhaps it could help doctors treat patients, bankers mitigate risk or consumers plan a dinner menu at a grocery store.

"The scalability of Watson combined with IBM’s drive toward cloud computing could result in everything from answering children’s queries to doing crisis management," said Richard Doherty, research director for the Envisioneering Group, which does some consulting for IBM. "Watson is going to be deployed, and not just to the Warren Buffetts and Bill Gateses of the world — mom & pop shops will be able to use it too."

IBM (IBM, Fortune 500) certainly seems to thinks so.

"The future of Watson is to get it embedded in IBM’s solutions and products to help customers deal effectively with unstructured content," said Ferrucci.

Experts agree, saying that Watson has the capability to help a broad range of customers.

Near universal access to Watson would, on the surface, seem unlikely, given the fact that few businesses have the wherewithal to buy the super computer it takes to run the program. Furthermore, Doherty estimates that the project costs roughly 5% to 10% of IBM’s entire $6.3 billion R&D budget each year, putting Watson’s three-year development price tag at roughly $900 million to $1.8 billion.

That’s where cloud computing, or software as a service, comes in.

Doherty believes that IBM will be able to open up Watson’s capabilities to all types of businesses and consumers by offering Watson on a kind of "time share." Got a question for Watson? Let IBM know, and for $100 per minute of use, they’ll give you the answer.

And some businesses and agencies may want the whole thing to themselves. For instance, the U.S. Department of Energy is currently using a Watson test model for weather prediction.

Though competing on "Jeopardy!" will be challenging for IBM, it will also allow it to showcase Watson’s capabilities for potential customers. Though IBM was reluctant to give a timeline, experts say Watson could be deployed as early as 2011. 

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The Obama administration moved forward Wednesday on curbing runaway corporate pay practices, proposing new legislation aimed at giving shareholders a greater voice on executive pay and appointing a new so-called "pay czar."

The White House’s two-part proposal would give shareholders a voice on executive compensation, or a "say on pay" for senior management.

The legislation, which would effectively be carried out by broadening the powers of the Securities and Exchange Commission, would also attempt to establish greater independence for board members responsible for setting executive pay packages. This is similar to what the Sarbanes-Oxley Act established for audit committees in the wake of the Enron scandal earlier this decade.

If approved by Congress, the proposals would affect all public companies, not just the banks and other financial firms that had a direct role in the current economic crisis.

Separately, the White House also officially named Washington attorney Kenneth Feinberg as the administration’s "pay czar" on Wednesday.

Feinberg, who previously oversaw the federal compensation fund for September 11th victims, will be responsible for approving major expenses for banks, automakers and insurers that took government funds under the Treasury’s Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP.

Setting a low bar

Wednesday’s announcement marks the latest attempt by the Obama administration to tackle the issue of pay in corporate America.

In February, the administration unveiled a broad set of guidelines for financial firms that took taxpayer money under TARP. That included limits on executive salaries and the creation of so-called "clawback" provisions which would reclaim pay from workers whose actions may damage the firm’s long-term financial health.

Some of those policies became law as part of an amendment authored by Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn. that was added at the last minute to the $787 billion stimulus package passed in February.

In a series of remarks published Wednesday, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner urged companies, not just those in the financial services sector, to act responsibly, suggesting that they align executive pay packages with the long-term performance of their businesses.

"This financial crisis had many significant causes, but executive compensation practices were a contributing factor," Geithner said in a statement.

Critics have charged that bankers were tempted by the lure of short-term gains, namely big bonuses, instead focusing on the long-term health of their firms. Such bets were believed to contribute to the downfall of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers.

At the same time, soaring compensation packages and outsized bonuses have become lightning rods of debate for lawmakers and taxpayers.

Public furor erupted earlier this year over the $165 million in annual bonuses that AIG (AIG, Fortune 500) paid to employees, after the government stepped in numerous times to prop up the insurance giant.

Some close observers of executive pay trends were skeptical about just how effective Wednesday’s announcement would be, particularly the legislative proposal which would give shareholders a "say" on executive pay.

Shareholder activists have had little success in getting companies to change their ways in recent years. At the same time, the "non-binding" vote means that companies do not necessarily need to heed investors’ wishes.

"It seems pretty timid," said Sarah Anderson, executive pay analyst at the Institute for Policy Studies. " ‘Say-on-pay is about the lowest bar they could possibly have set."

Some answers, but still more questions

The issue is clearly not going away anytime soon freecreditreport. The House Financial Services is holding a hearing about executive compensation on Thursday.

In addition, hundreds of banks and other troubled firms remain stuck in the TARP program and will continue to wrestle with the issue of compensation limits until they return taxpayer funds to the government.

Late Wednesday, the Treasury Department issued an interim final rule for companies in that very position. Bonuses paid to senior executives and other highly-paid employees at TARP recipients will be limited to one third of their total compensation.

For small community-based lenders that took just a sliver of taxpayer aid, only the CEO might be affected. But for institutions that received over $500 million in aid, including big banks Citigroup (C, Fortune 500) or Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500), the rules would affect the top five senior officers and the 20 most highly compensated employees.

Both bank leaders and pay experts contend that the crackdown has already prompted top performers at Wall Street firms that have received taxpayer assistance to jump ship for other firms that are not beholden to government restrictions. There are fears that the trend could persist given the latest pay restrictions.

On Monday, 10 banks, including Goldman Sachs (GS, Fortune 500) and JPMorgan Chase (JPM, Fortune 500), won approval from the agency to pay back money received as part of the program. Once these banks do so, they will no longer be obligated to abide by many of the pay restrictions the administration outlined earlier this year.

Firms that remain under the government’s thumb would also have to put in place a so-called "luxury expenditure" policy. That would require top executives to get board approval for the purchase of big-ticket items.

Several banks came under fire from politicians in recent months after large expenditures came to light. Most notably, Citigroup drew the ire of the Obama administration earlier this year once its plans to take delivery of a $45 million corporate jet were made public.

Regulators also said that the seven firms which received "exceptional" government assistance — AIG, Citigroup, Bank of America, General Motors, GMAC, Chrysler and Chrysler Financial — would be required to live under a set of more severe compensation restrictions to be overseen by Feinberg.

In his new role, Feinberg will have the power to review compensation for the top 100 salaried employees at those firms. That means he will get the final say on salaries that might be deemed excessive or inappropriate, a White House official said.

One expert warned, however, that it would be troubling if Feinberg was given too much power.

"Should [Feinberg] oversee, supervise and control compensation at these companies? Sure. Should he actually be designing programs and setting individual pay levels? That’s concerning." said Susan O’Donnell, managing director at compensation consultancy Pearl Meyer & Partners.

Geithner, however, attempted to silence criticism that the administration was overstepping its bounds in the affairs of private firms.

"I want to be clear on what we are not doing. We are not capping pay," he said. "We are not setting forth precise prescriptions for how companies should set compensation, which can often be counterproductive."

–CNN’s Suzanne Malveaux contributed to this report 

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The other new members are D. Paul Jones, 66, who was chief executive of Alabama’s Compass Bancshares Inc before selling it in 2007 to Spain’s Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria, and William Boardman, 67, a retired vice chairman of Chicago’s Bank One Corp, now part of JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM, Fortune 500) guaranteed payday loan.

Regulators had pushed Charlotte, North Carolina-based Bank of America to overhaul its 18-person board. The addition of board members with banking experience recalls a similar shuffle at Citigroup Inc (C, Fortune 500), which also took $45 billion from the federal Troubled Asset Relief Program. Bies and Powell have also held senior roles at banks.

"The runway has become shorter" for Lewis, said Dan Genter, president of RNC Genter Capital Management in Los Angeles, which invests $2.8 billion. "Any control that Lewis had or any allegiance that he had gets diluted. He’s going to have to start to gain some altitude, or in essence they’re going to want him fired."

Lewis on Friday agreed to appear before the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on June 11 to discuss when he knew Merrill was on its way to a $15.84 billion fourth-quarter loss, the government role in the purchase, and the $20 billion bailout.

Walter Massey, who became chairman after shareholders in April voted to remove Lewis from that role, had led a committee of outside directors looking for new board members.

In a statement, Massey said the new directors "will make our board even stronger as we move our company toward achieving its true potential."

Lewis, Massey and the new directors were unavailable for comment.

The bank has said three directors have left since April. The Wall Street Journal said two others who have not been identified have also left, and the board may shrink further.

Lewis, 62, has said he would like to remain chief executive perhaps until 2012. While Lewis’ departure "is not imminent," regulators asked Massey to think seriously about a succession plan, the Journal said, citing a person close to the process.

The identities of the new directors surfaced a day after Bank of America named Gregory Curl, who oversaw the purchase of Merrill and Countrywide Financial Corp, to replace Chief Risk Officer Amy Woods Brinkley, who was forced out.

Rep. Edolphus Towns, who chairs the House committee that will question Lewis, said he wants to ask how the Merrill transaction became "hinged on the receipt of taxpayer dollars," and how to avoid a repeat of the "financial disaster" the country has faced over the last year.

Regulators last month ordered Bank of America to raise $33.9 billion of capital as a buffer against a deep recession. Bank of America has said it raised nearly all of that sum.

Bank of America shares closed down 1 cent to $11.86 on the New York Stock Exchange. 

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