WASHINGTON -- Good news for the world economy! Yes, more Ford-Nixon retreads-turned-overpaid-mediocre-corporate executives have been recruited to oversee American economic policy.

First there's John Snow, the nominee for U.S. treasury secretary, who was a transportation secretary under Gerald Ford (alongside Donald Rumsfeld, then Ford's chief of staff, and Dick Cheney, then Rumsfeld's deputy).

Cheney left to run an oil company, Rumsfeld to be a pharmaceutical executive and Snow to run a railway giant, Virginia-based CSX.

Snow was a typical business hero, earning $50 million over a decade in which his company's sales and profits declined and its stock suffered. Snow's pay in these years, naturally, skyrocketed -- from $1.6 million in 1991 to $10.1 million by 2001. Makes sense ...

Remember all those Enron and WorldCom workers who bought the company stock for their retirement plans, then were left twisting in the wind? Snow reminds us that doesn't happen to the CEO class.

In 1996, he borrowed $25.4 million from CSX to buy company stock. (Imagine, dear reader, you yourself trying to borrow $25.40 from your employer.) This was part of a program designed, as The New York Times explained it, "to align the interests of the executives with those of the company." Apparently those interests weren't sufficiently aligned by skyrocketing multimillion-dollar paychecks for lousy performance.

But by 2000, CSX shares on Snow's watch had fallen by 40 percent. So did Snow take a bath? Of course not. CSX "canceled the program," according to The Times. Snow gave back that disappointing stock, and the company forgave the loan. Gee, why didn't they just do that with the Enron 401(k)s?

Now, of course, it's not just the CEO's fault. What about the board of directors? Forbes magazine notes that extending (and then forgiving) such seedy CEO loans has to be approved by a company's board -- and then reports that "William Donaldson, President Bush's pick to chair the Securities and Exchange Commission, is that kind of board member."

Donaldson, 71, is a long-time Bush family friend, and yes, he's another retread: He used to be undersecretary of state under Henry Kissinger. Now he's to lead "reform" of Wall Street.

Forbes recounts how in April 2002 -- that is, long after the collapse of Enron -- Donaldson was a board member at an Internet company, Easylink Services, that chose to loan $200,000 at 5 percent interest to its CEO. (Chump change by Snow's standards, but a lot for Easylink -- equal to 3 percent of what the struggling company has in the bank.)

Next, true to form for all of these company "loans," this one was forgiven, both principal and interest, on the stern condition the CEO stayed on the job through May 29. "He's still on the job," Forbes reports, "but he doesn't owe $268,000 anymore."

Again: Your loved ones could be dying of a curable disease, your home could burn down, you could leap forward to take an assassin's bullet in the gut to save your company chief -- but no matter your needs or circumstances, unless you yourself are in the executive suite, I doubt the company would offer you $200,000 at 5 percent interest.

Even if they did, I doubt even more they would then take you aside and say: "Look, just stay through May and we'll fuhgedaboutit." But maybe you live in a better world than I do.

Matt Bivens, a former editor of The Moscow Times, is a Washington-based fellow of The Nation Institute [www.thenation.com].