The Obama Administration is taking further steps to ensure that even after the U.S. economic activity returns to its pre-crisis levels it won’t be all business as usual for the American corporations.   The Administration is proposing new legislation that would increase the oversight of the executive pay at publicly traded firms by the companies’ shareholders and the SEC. The Federal Reserve today said that the outlook for the U.S. economy is… well, less bad.  The Fed’s June Beige Book showed signs of improvement in some economic indicators, even as the economic conditions deteriorated further between mid-April and May. One area where the picture is definitely not improving is trade.  U.S. April trade deficit has increased (yes, you read it right—increased!) even as the global demand for goods has continued to slow.  That is affecting the demand for U.S. goods worldwide, and the U.S. exports are falling.  However, China seems to be unaffected, as the U.S. continues to buy Chinese goods, increasing our trade deficit overall to $29.2 billion in April and with China specifically to $16.8 billion.