Mad-den Money. In this day and age, few people enjoy lengthy tenure — the promise of lengthy, guaranteed employment — except judges and college students. And Steve Madden, the founder and chief creative officer at the eponymous shoe company. Madden, who spent time in prison last decade after being convicted of stock fraud charges, can’t serve as CEO of the company. But he still works for the firm. And he just signed up for a nice deal that will keep him employed or another decade. The agreement, which runs through 2023, promises a base of $5.41 million per year, a raise of about $2 million per year for the next several years, and a cash bonus, a grant of restricted stock worth $40 million, and another grant of stock worth $40 million. With that kind of coin, you’d think Madden would be more than able to pay off any loans he’s taken out. But the company’s board also agreed to forgive a $3 million loan he took from the company in 2007.

Expatriate Games. Aon, the big insurance company, is pulling up stakes from Chicago and moving to London. I guess the top brass prefers fish ‘n’ chips to bratwurst. London isn’t typically regarded as a hardship assignment, but top executives will be compensated for the pain and expense of moving to one of the world’s great cities. On top o the usual moving expenses and relocation costs, CEO Greg Case is getting a $135,000-per year “annual foreign service allowance,” and another $28,000 months to cover housing and utilities costs. (Funny. Usually employees pay for their housing out of a thing called a “salary.”) But it isn’t all strawberries and cream for Case. The deal explicitly stipulated that he has to be pay or his own telephone and internet access.

Google Green for Greene. Being a corporate director is usually a pretty cushy gig. You get paid well to show up at a bunch of meetings and generally rubber-stamp the recommendations of top management. But being a director of a company like Google, which has a soaring stock price and healthy profit growth, is even cushier. Diane Greene, the founder of software firm VMWare, was appointed to Google’s board in January, becoming the first non-employee director named to the board since 2005. (If you were on Google’s board, would you want to leave?) Her compensation includes a $75,000 cash retainer, $350,000 worth of Google Stock Units (GSUs), and another $1 million worth of GSUs. No word on whether she’s also entitled to free meals in Google’s legendary cafeterias.

Sam’s Club Membership has its Privileges. Wal-Mart’s corporate culture is generally associated with frugality, penny-pinching, and low prices every day. But it is willing to loosen its purse strings when it comes to executive talent. In late January, Wal-Mart promoted Rosalind Brewer, the head of Wal-Mart’s U.S. east business unit, to president and chief executive of the company’s massive Sam’s Clubs division. If it were a stand-alone company, Sam’s Clubs would be one of the biggest retailers in the world (with sales of about $48 billion in 2010.) And so Brewer is being compensated accordingly. Her deal includes a (modest) base salary of $800,000, a cash bonus of $1.28-$1.6 million, $3.5 million in stock awards, plus two more performance-based stock awards worth more than $3.64 million. All in, the deal is worth more than $9 million. Membership in Sam’s Clubs does indeed have its privileges.

Daniel Gross is economics editor at Yahoo! Finance

Follow him on Twitter @grossdm; email him at grossdaniel11@yahoo.com

A stronger dollar also pressured gold and other metals. Investors discounted the move by gold’s main U.S. exchange operator to cut futures margin requirements on gold and other futures.

Gold futures for delivery in April (XCEC:GC2J) dropped $24.70, or 1.5%, to $1,716.60 an ounce on the Comex division of New York Mercantile Exchange. Gold had advanced $9.90, or 0.6%, in the previous floor session.

Most markets traded sharply lower, including commodities such as oil, and U.S. stocks.

Markets reacted poorly to news a final approval of a second Greek bailout, necessary to avoid a messy default, is delayed until next week as euro-zone finance ministers demanded the country’s parliament first approve another round of deep cutbacks. Read more on Greece.

The U.S. dollar rose against the euro, further weighing on commodities. The dollar index (IFUS:DX-Y.NYB), a measure of the greenback’s performance against six major global currencies, advanced to 70.042 from 78.582 late Thursday, with the euro (ICAP.C:EURUSD) and the British pound (ICAP.C:GBPUSD) both moving lower.

At the end of regular trading Thursday, CME Group said it would reduce the amount of collateral that traders must provide to trade commodities including gold, copper and crude oil. The margin required to open a position in gold futures was cut 12% to $10,125. Read more about the CME’s margin adjustments.

The drop in gold also came as China’s trade surplus for January widened more than expected because of a sharp decrease in imports. Read more about China’s January trade data.

Elsewhere in the metals complex, March silver (XCEC:SI2H) dropped 42 cents, or 1.2%, to trade at $33.46 an ounce.

March copper (XCEC:HG2H) declined 10 cents, or 2.6%, to $3.88 per pound.

Platinum and palladium also traded lower, with April platinum (XNYM:PL2J)down $21.10, or 1.3%, to $1,646.50 an ounce. March palladium (XNYM:PA2H).was off $10.05, or 1.5%, to $701.25 an ounce.

BANGKOK (AP) — World stocks rose Wednesday as Japan’s powerhouse exporters got a boost from hopes of new moves to weaken the yen while a deal appeared within reach between Greece and its creditors to cut the country’s massive debt load.

Benchmark oil rose above $99 per barrel. The dollar fell against the euro but was higher against the yen.

European shares opened higher, following a rally in Asia. Britain’s FTSE 100 gained 0.4 percent to 5,911.84 while Germany’s DAX added 0.9 percent to 6,816.39. France’s CAC-40 rose 0.4 percent to 3,425.06.

In New York, stocks were set to rise ahead of the opening bell, with Dow Jones industrial futures gaining 0.3 percent to 12,866 while S&P 500 futures added 0.2 percent to 1,347.70.

Earlier in the day, Asian stocks posted sharp gains following a retreat of the yen that was welcomed by Japan’s mighty export sector. The Nikkei 225 index in Tokyo gained 1.1 percent to close at 9,015.59, its highest finish since Oct. 28.

South Korea’s Kospi rose 1.1 percent to 2,003.73 and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng surged 1.5 percent to 21,018.46. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 added 0.4 percent to 4,290.70.

Benchmarks in Singapore, Taiwan, Indonesia, New Zealand and India also rose. Mainland China’s Shanghai Composite Index jumped 2.4 percent to 2,347.53 and the smaller Shenzhen Composite Index gained 2.8 percent to 893.82.

Greece has been kept solvent for the last two years by euro110 billion ($145 billion) in international rescue loans. But the money was not enough and a second loan is urgently needed to avert bankruptcy.

International lenders, however, have refused to approve more aid unless Greece learns to live within its means and implements a strict austerity program. Without an injection of emergency money — some euro130 billion ($170 billion) is on the line — Greece will likely default on bond repayments due next month.

“People are hopeful there will be some resolution on Greece. Nothing dramatic is happening, but generally people are more confident that we will get a resolution on Greece and they will remain in the euro in the short-term,” said Andrew Sullivan, principal sales trader at Piper Jaffray in Hong Kong.

Meanwhile, Toyota Motor Corp. jumped 5 percent, a day after Japan’s top automaker raised its annual earnings forecast, saying a recovery is on track. A weaker yen helped other export-dependent stocks. Yamaha Motor Co. surged 5.2 percent and Mazda Motor Corp. soared 7.3 percent. Panasonic Corp. added 3.3 percent.

Earnings of many Japanese brand name companies have been battered in recent months by the yen’s strength against the dollar and the euro, which erodes foreign income when repatriated to Japan.

But the yen fell Wednesday, a day after Japan’s Finance Ministry released data showing that the country had conducted unannounced yen-selling interventions in early November, Kyodo News reported. Still, the yen remains significantly stronger than it was a year ago.

BHP Billiton Ltd., the world’s biggest miner, shed 0.4 percent after announcing a 5.5 percent drop in first-half profit. The Anglo-Australian company blamed the results on lower commodity prices as well as production constraints.

Australian mining companies’ burgeoning profits have prompted the government to introduce a new tax on iron ore and coal revenue starting in July.

Benchmark oil for March delivery was up 95 cents to $99.37 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract rose $1.50 to $98.41 per barrel on the Nymex on Tuesday.

In currency trading, the euro rose to $1.3268 from $1.3248 late Tuesday in New York. The dollar rose to 77.06 yen from 76.78 yen.

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Rogers has been a critic of the Fed’s quantitative easing programs and artificially low interest rates, pointing to the latter as something akin to QE3 in drag.

“They’re lying to us,” he says of the Fed. “One reason the markets are holding up so well is that they are printing money as fast as they can.”

As asserted on Breakout regularly, the Federal Reserve is operating in an almost complete leadership void due to an unprecedented level of gridlock among the the elected politicians charged with setting fiscal policy. Unless and until the public acts on their many vows to “throw the bums out” of D.C. the Fed will be free, indeed forced, to act alone in regards to doing something to change our economic condition.

In a pyrrhic victory for America, Rogers believes things will eventually get so bad that Americans will finally vote for real change and economic progress. Alas, the measures he feels are needed to cure our economy are so harsh that those same officials will also get tossed out when voters realize just how harsh the road back to prosperity is.

Regardless of the necessary suffering, spending cuts are needed in order to save the most fiscally responsible citizens, those whose savings are funding this disaster.

“What the Federal Reserve is doing now is ruining an entire class of investors,” says Rogers. By forcing rates down and keeping the economy on a flatline, he believes the Fed could cause another lost generation of investments. Suffice it to say, vaporizing those who faithfully accumulated savings over the years is no way to restore confidence in our financial markets.

Rogers isn’t simply a disgruntled American patriot, he’s an investor with a legendary record of success. That being the case, and having established what the depths of suffering the world is facing now, the obvious question is where Rogers is putting his money to avoid or even profit from the pain.

“I’m long commodities and currencies; I’m short emerging market stocks, U.S. technology stocks, and I’m short European stocks,” Rogers tells me after pronouncing himself a terrible market timer (author’s note: He’s nothing of the sort). His logic behind the portfolio is that he wins if the economy turns up due to commodity scarcity. And if the economy remains weak, Rogers’ short positions will more than offset his long positions.

As for gold, an investment he’s been holding for years, Rogers has a mixed view.

“Gold has been up 11 years in a row,” he says, adding it’s “very unusual for any asset in world history and I’d expect the correction to continue.” That said, he’s not selling any of his gold and would look to buy weakness, depending on the global situation.

He’s long select commodities and currencies, short Europe, tech and emerging markets. Is Rogers off base or is he underestimating the ability of the Fed to turn this thing around? Let us know what you think in the comment section below or visit our Facebook page.