The housing recovery has stalled, but the gravy train rolls on for the government-appointed saviors of the housing market, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The top executives of the taxpayer-backed companies stand to make millions of dollars in salary, deferred pay and long-term incentive awards for 2010 – including substantial sums that are performance-based, at least in name.

Fannie covering?

Fannie () CEO Michael Williams and Freddie () chief Charles Haldeman each stand to make some $6 million this year, going by company  that broadly outline 2009 pay and 2010 guidelines.

Using the same data and assuming no one got a pay cut -- we can't risk , after all -- their top lieutenants could make between $2 million and $3 million each.

This for a year in which the companies saw their shares from the New York Stock Exchange, posted $28 billion in losses through three quarters and ran their tab at Treasury to a startling $150 billion. Your taxpayer dollars at work.

Of course, it's not quite fair to judge the companies by their sagging financials. Since their government takeover two years ago Fannie and Freddie have been dedicated to keeping mortgages available, in the name of propping up house prices.

"Today, Fannie Mae's focus is on preventing foreclosures, making mortgages and rental housing as affordable as possible, and supporting the housing recovery," the company says on its Web site.

But the vital signs in the housing market – after being briefly revived by an injection of tax-credit steroids – have been dropping too. Foreclosures are and prices in many markets are . House prices now seem headed for the dreaded double-dip, which stands to deepen an already unbearable foreclosure crisis.

This isn't to blame Fannie and Freddie for the latest housing downturn, which is being driven by much larger forces such as near-10% joblessness and overstretched consumer balance sheets.

And to be fair, the companies don't even fully control their pay guidelines. They are set by the government via the companies' regulator, the Federal Housing Finance Administration.

We won't know for sure what the Fannie and Freddie execs get till February, when the companies are due to file their annual reports. However large Fannie and Freddie's executive pay numbers might seem, surely they will be dwarfed by many of the paychecks cashed by .

Still, the prospect of million-dollar payouts at these companies shows how empty the pay-for-performance talk at big companies can end up being.

In addition to their base salaries, Fannie's officers are eligible this year for deferred pay (check issuance is delayed by a year) equal to about three times the base pay and long-term incentive awards that amount to more than double base pay.

Part of those payouts is contingent on hitting corporate goals tied to company performance and that of the housing market. That is, admittedly, a step up from the 2009 practice of paying for what Fannie delicately calls "service" – that is, the act of showing up in the morning.

Even so, Fannie's 2010 goals are so squishy that it is hard to imagine anyone's pay is in serious danger of being docked.

Fannie says its goals are to:

• "achieve our mission of providing liquidity, stability and affordability to the U.S. housing and mortgage markets";
• "build a more streamlined, higher-performing company"; and
• "build a stronger service and delivery model to support the housing finance market."

Talk about setting the bar low.

There is no doubt Fannie has provided liquidity to the housing and mortgage markets. It is so obvious that Fannie, Freddie and the Federal Housing Administration are the only things standing between us and the utter collapse of the housing markets that even the House Republicans are .

Similarly, building a higher-performing Fannie or Freddie shouldn't be hard, given that the companies have managed to blow through over the past three years. And who even knows what it means to build a stronger "service and delivery model," so it's hard to see anyone being held to account on that one.

Fannie and Freddie referred questions to the FHFA, which declined to comment.

The easy comparisons aren't a huge surprise, given the companies' brush with death two years ago and the spluttering Washington debate about just what to do with them and the dysfunctional U.S. mortgage subsidy.

"For companies in transition, it's not entirely unusual to see less fundamentally driven goals," said Andrew Mandel, a compensation expert at Buck Consultants in New York. "Once they get their act together, you'll usually see more financial drivers for these compensation decisions."

And indeed, next year Fannie will replace this year's nebulous goals with numerical ones. The top three call for the company to "reduce fixed general and administrative expenses; reduce credit-related expenses; achieve risk-adjusted return on economic capital targets."

Freddie's 2010 goals include some financial targets, mixed in with objectives tied to supporting administration housing programs, implementing appropriate accounting standards and operating its technology infrastructure "in an efficient fashion."

It's tempting to wish the companies, now shorn of the profit motive that informed some of their misguided decisions during the bubble era, would be free too of seven-digit executive payouts.

But that change will come only with action from Congress, which sooner or later is going to have to decide what it wants to do with these companies. Many happy New Years waiting for that one.

The top execs *may* be getting big bonuses, but that distorts the picture a bit: In 2010, both companies laid off more than 10% of their employees, delisted their stocks, and froze all salaries for the foreseeable future. Not exactly a gravy train, either.

Posted By Andrew Myred, Charlotte, NC: December 31, 2010 3:49 pm

12 billions CHF total bonus has made UBS bankrupt in 2008! Never cancelled!

Posted By Jean-Francois Morf, Charrat, Switzerland: December 31, 2010 2:50 pm

Maybe if all the deadbeats in the country would start paying their mortgages, these institutions could return to profitability and not have the rest of us taxpayers bailing out the companies who are in trouble solely because people refuse to pay their mortgages.

Posted By Alexis, Cleveland Ohio: December 31, 2010 2:37 pm

Well the biggest problem here is nobody seems to know what they are talking about. The reason we still have a foreclosure problem is because ONLY Fannie & Freddie are trying to help people. It is hard for them to fix it when they only have about 5% of the bad loans. While B of A has about 60% of the bad loans & are helping NOBODY! In fact 70% of the houses they are taking to foreclosure auction are people they are lying to, and telling them they are working with them. They were in the middle of Loan Modifications, and short sales. The best way for us to get out of this mortgage crisis would be for Wikileaks to bring the CROOKS at B of A down. I have a real plan for fixing the crisis. But nobody will listen to me. Why should they? I only have 11 years experience helping people avoid foreclosure. I have dealt with over 1,000 people before and after the crisis. The problem is, we keep listing to people with NO experience what-so-ever. If we keep letting CROOKS like B of A, run this country, we will continue to suffer in this crisis.

Posted By Floyd, Phoenix Arizona: December 31, 2010 2:01 pm

"This isn't to blame Fannie and Freddie for the latest housing downturn" - Colin

No, I just blame it for the majority of the current financial crisis (you know, the one that *caused* the unemployment). The vast majority of the bad loans that led to all the bank losses would *never* have been made without the backstop of Fannie/Freddie in place. The remainder were forced by the CRA.

Posted By Scott, Westfield, IN: December 31, 2010 1:56 pm

Foreclosures soaring...shares down...a chimp could do that....Fed rates and six clerks to process applications could do as well

Posted By Anonymous: December 31, 2010 1:42 pm

I sincerely hope the attorney generals of all states ban together to prosecute the whole mortgage modification/ foreclosure scam emcompassing loan servicers, banks, and Fannie and Freddie. This is probably the biggest scam and fraud ever perpetrated on the American public. My fear is the so called regulators are the bought and paid for part of the problem rather than the relentless investigating that will be the solution. The media won't attack it because Sarah Palin is a bigger media draw. The media is a joke. They in many ways are as guilty as the Banks. Welcome to the New World order of selling out your country for individual profit of the few at the sacrifice of the many.

Posted By Scott Frohbieter, Dallas,Tx: December 31, 2010 1:23 pm

A Disgrace! I will never understand, unless it will always be a given that our politicians are idiots, guess this is not going to change

Posted By Mike Jeenani: December 31, 2010 1:02 pm

Fast forward 2 years. Austerity fails here in the US, and violent social unrest becomes uncontainable. Total economic collapse. Williams, Haldeman, and other execs become marked men. 80 million plus gun owners, citizen militias, lone pissed off wackos hunt them down. Justice will be served.

Posted By Incognito financier, NY, NY: December 31, 2010 12:41 pm

Lets put things into perspective. Wall Street misbehaves and we bail them out to prosperity. We take the fall for them. Our credit is destroyed making us non-credit worthy when we go back to work. Credit takes up to a decade to recover. Yet, we are shown no mercy. Wall Street keeps fleecing and stealing from us and nothing happens to them except for Madolf. It is time to put the recovery to we the citizens by forgiving our debts and bad credit. Then you will see an economic recovery. QUIT GIVING IT TO THE BANKERS MAKE THEM EARN IT THROUGH DOING BUSINESS WITH US. The recovery will not happen until the people can participate in the recovery.

Posted By Fred, Salt Lake City, Utah: December 31, 2010 12:24 pm

And news like this is buried on page 12 of the site?? Why not the front page?? Because we need to know the bloopers from 2010, where celebrities are ringing in the new year and how to lose 10 pounds. Does the dumbing down of our society reflect the way our media communicates information or does the media simply reflect how stupid we've become?

Posted By PJ Standson, Philly PA: December 31, 2010 11:45 am

FannieMae has just announced they will increase the risk based premium in 2011 for borrowers with good payemnt histories, documentable income and credit scores as high as 800.Helping themsleves at the expense of homeowners, We've created a monster

Posted By Anonymous: December 31, 2010 11:41 am

When you see stuff like this no wonder people cheat on their taxes. Why fight them just cheat and grab all you can get as quick as you can.

Posted By Bill Rose Toledo Ohio: December 31, 2010 11:39 am

This is absurd...how can you run a loss over three consecutive quarters and still make a salary at those levels? Seriously, where is the accountability these days?

Posted By Jay Portland, OR: December 31, 2010 11:15 am

Freddie and Fannie insure or invest in about 1/2 of all outstanding mortgages. The serious delinquency rate is about 4% for those loans.
The serious delinquency rate for the other half of the outstanding mortgages that the GSEs don't participate in averages about 9%.
So how can it be that Fred and Fan caused the mortgage crisis?

Posted By Gary, Round Hill, VA: December 31, 2010 11:03 am

Public Floggings would be more appropriate than payouts for these politically connected porcine, pocket stuffing incompetents. Why not let the rewards fit the performance! Just another example of Your tax dollars working to make life better for select others. Welcome to the NEW AMERICA

Posted By Justin, Norwich, Vermont: December 31, 2010 10:39 am

FANNIE AND FREDDIE ARE THE PLACE THE GOVERNMENT SENDS EMPLOYEES NEEDING TO BE PAID OFF, ELECTION CAMPAIGNS NEEDING FUNDING, CONGRESMEN'S FAMILY MEMBERS NEEDING MORTGAGES. SO WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM, GUYS? jANE PEPPER, CINCINNATI,OHIO

Posted By Anonymous: December 31, 2010 10:13 am

Unbelieveable!! Our taxpayer dollars hard at work again--when is this government going to get it??? They are running us into the ground. As to the comment about Wall Street paychecks--at least we are not paying those paychecks as the majority of banks and firms that received TARP funds have paid them back (with interest) and the Wall Streeters at least work for their money--not sure about the government drones!

Posted By Annemarie, Springfield MA: December 31, 2010 10:04 am

We are screwed, no end in sight!

Posted By chiu, orlando, FL: December 31, 2010 8:54 am

This is disgusting. They should receive pay cuts for their poor performance. When rats set the performance goals, the rats will always get bonuses. Impeach Barney Frank and Obama.

Posted By Bob, Ft Myers, FL: December 31, 2010 7:54 am « CNNMoney.com Comment Policy: CNNMoney.com encourages you to add a comment to this discussion. You may not post any unlawful, threatening, libelous, defamatory, obscene, pornographic or other material that would violate the law. Please note that CNNMoney.com may edit comments for clarity or to keep out questionable or off-topic material. All comments should be relevant to the post and remain respectful of other authors and commenters. By submitting your comment, you hereby give CNNMoney.com the right, but not the obligation, to post, air, edit, exhibit, telecast, cablecast, webcast, re-use, publish, reproduce, use, license, print, distribute or otherwise use your comment(s) and accompanying personal identifying information via all forms of media now known or hereafter devised, worldwide, in perpetuity. .

Colin Barr has covered finance for Fortune.com since November 2007. Previously he was a writer and editor for TheStreet.com, winning a 2006 Society of American Business Editors and Writers award for "The Five Dumbest Things on Wall Street," and for Dow Jones Newswires. He is a 1991 graduate of Penn State and lives in Port Washington, N.Y., with his wife Meena Bose and their two kids.Subscribe to Street Sweep:

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Company	Price	Change	% Change
	4.74	-0.02	-0.44%
	13.36	0.08	0.60%
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Data as of 3:41pm ET

Index	Last	Change	% Change
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	3.30	-0.06	-1.90%

Data as of 3:56pm ETSponsored by

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