Ken Lewis started at Bank of America 40 years ago, working his way up from junior credit analyst to the CEO suite. His employment contract at the nation's largest banks obviously predates the government's bailout of Bank of America. Yet pay czar Kenneth Feinberg may have a say on whether he cashes in on retirement benefits and accumulated compensation worth $125 million.

Some argue it is simply inappropriate for Feinberg to try to tackle Lewis' retirement package.

"A fair reading of the situation would be he is getting what he is entitled to and game over," said Alan Johnson, a Wall Street compensation consultant.

But to many, Lewis is a poster child for the crisis that struck Wall Street banks last year, nearly collapsing the financial sector and resulting in taxpayers spending hundreds of billions of dollars to bail out firms like Bank of America.

"The Obama administration has to use every tool at its disposal to fix the pay problem, particularly the golden parachute for failed executives," said Richard Ferlauto, director of corporate governance and pension investments for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, one of the largest U.S. labor unions.

Should Lewis get his retirement package in full? Leave your answer in the comments section.

The first step in any recovery program is admitting that you have a problem.

For most people, nothing says failure or hitting bottom like a $50-billion government bailout or bankruptcy -- or both.

But you might not know that from the tone of GM officials on Monday as they discussed the automaker's future after filing the biggest industrial bankruptcy in U.S. history.

In a filing with a New  York bankruptcy court, GM blamed "the economic collapse and liquidity crisis that began to surface during the end of 2007 and exploded in 2008" for its financial crisis.

It also pointed to "exigent economic circumstances" that compelled it to seek a government bailout to "avoid a potentially fatal systemic failure" that would have hurt GM, and hundreds of thousands of others in the auto industry.

Missing from the explanation was an admission of management responsibility for choosing to rely on sales of large vehicles or for backing an ultimately failed course of gradual reform and cost-cutting that failed to turn the tide against $88 billion in losses over four years.

Just hours after GM's Chapter 11 filing, GM CEO Fritz Henderson went as far as to call the bankruptcy a "once in a lifetime opportunity."

(A 98-page affidavit submitted by Henderson also steers clear of the question of responsibility for GM's crisis. In fact, the only use of the term "responsible" is to make the point that GM is "not responsible" for certain retiree benefits.)

Henderson, a 25-year GM veteran installed as CEO after the Obama administration ousted Rick Wagoner in late March, said bankruptcy could sweep away the problems of too much debt, too many dealers and too many workers that have absorbed the attention of senior managers in recent years.

That would free up "mindshare" to focus on the challenge of making fewer but better cars and winning back consumers, he said.

"The GM that many of you knew, the GM that let too many of you down, is history," Henderson said. "Today marks the beginning of what will be a new company, a new GM dedicated to building the very best cars and trucks, highly fuel-efficient, world-class quality, green technology development."

Kent Kresa, GM chairman and a director since 2003, agreed that government-backed bankruptcy for GM was the best course to settle the restructuring issues that have absorbed the time and attention of managers and the board.

"All of these things have been a major source of energy to manage over the years," he said.

Until GM admits more clearly that some of its distress has been self-inflicted, skeptics may question its ability to see its last and best chance at restructuring through to the final step.

Dan Primack is the editor of peHUB, a Thomson Reuters publication.

The New York State Pension Fund kickback scandal is making new headlines. The Wall Street Journal reported that Steven Rattner, the head of the Obama administratino's auto task force, was one of the executives involved with payments that are under scrutiny, citing a person familiar with the matter.

On Thursday, New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo filed a criminal complaint against Raymond Harding, former chair of New York’s Liberal Party, for scheming with the already-indicted David Loglisci and Hank Morris. Cuomo also coaxed a guilty plea and financial remuneration out of Barrett Wissman, a crooked former hedge fund manager.

All of this got me to thinking more about the issue of raising fund capital from public pension systems, a process that often is just begging to be corrupted. Inexperienced and smaller general partners (GPs) can have real difficulty getting in front of a pension system’s investment staff, because there is rarely a transparent or streamlined process.

The result is that many of these GPs hire a “finder,” which is typically a politically-connected individual who can gain access from the top-down. Most of these finders aren’t splitting their fees with the pension system’s investment staff – a quid pro quo that allegedly occurred in New York – but even the most above-board of these relationships boils down to influence peddling from my humble perspective.

Here’s how one GP explained it: “We hire finders because there’s sometimes no other way to get our 20 minutes in front of someone from the [pension system’s] investment staff. We’re not paying the finder for the fund commitment, but just for the opportunity to make our case and then have the system or its consultant conduct due diligence on us.”

So let me make a modest proposal: Public pension systems should participate in a modified version of M&A deal-flow circuits. For the uninitiated, deal-flow circuits are structured networking events (often featured as part of industry conferences) in which a group of buyers (bankers, PE investors, etc.) get introduced to a group of sellers (CEOs, PE pros with portfolio companies to shop, etc.). Each buyer typically sits at his/her own table, and the sellers sit with them for pre-determined periods of time, before rotating to the next buyer. Kind of like financial speed-dating.

The same format could be applied to the GP/LP dynamic. Rent out a ballroom for two days, and invite senior staff from lots of public pension systems (and some private LPs too, if they’d like to participate). They would be the buyers, and would each get their own table. Then invite GPs who are actively looking to raise fund capital, with some sort of pre-qualification process to screen out the nutjobs. Then let the GPs make their 15 or 20-minute elevator pitches to the LPs. Not in order to get an immediate commitment, but just to get the face-time. Then the LPs can reflect on their meeting sheets, and determine which opportunities are worthy of further due diligence.

Most GPs can accept striking out with a particular LP. What frustrates them is when they don’t even get an at-bat.

A fund-raising circuit could assuage that frustration, and remove some of temptation to use politically-connected finders (and thus reduce both actual corruption and the appearance of corruption). It wouldn’t be a total panacea, but it would be a start.