DISQUS

Karen · 10 months ago

Does Wall Street even comprehend how many baby boomers who are on the edge of retirement put their faith in their 401Ks?? We are talking about a giganormous number of people who are just about to retire. I'm one of them. I have lost 50% of my retirement due to these liars, cheats and losers and I want their scalps! I don't care if they can't get jobs shoveling snow off the sidewalks. They have been more destructive than any terrorist could dream of being. Actually, I believe Osama did dream of exactly this.

Jay Randal · 10 months ago

Wall Street CEOs are assholes and anything else to say about them would not be allowed to be posted on this blog.

maudgonne · 10 months ago

Paradoxically, addressing the crisis involves the same poison that created it in the first place – excessive debt. As governments around the world seek to bail-out their banking systems and revive their economies with fiscal stimuli, they are only replacing one form of debt with another. Public debt is substituting for the private debt which is no longer available. Credit risk is thereby being socialised on a hitherto undreamt of scale, leaving future generations of taxpayers with potentially crippling liabilities. Though obviously undesirable, this is for the time being a wholly necessary response to the crisis without which the banking system would collapse and a classic deflationary spiral of rapidly rising unemployment would soon establish itself. Even as the banks draw in their horns and reduce the availability of credit, the state must stand ready to act as alternative lender of last resort. Previously unacceptable levels of public debt therefore become inevitable and may be part of the cure.
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentato...

Rob Mule · 10 months ago

All the corporate dreams are flashing up in bitter smoke...
Couldn't it be synergy karma??? You know...the brutal downsizing...grown men crying...that sort of stuff.
If the GE and Time-Life properties are any indication, Rupie's pirate empire must not even be capable of ratcheting uninformed citizen panic any higher...there's real pearl-clutching fear wafting through the immigrant-polished, faux marble foyers of McMansionland.

Karen · 10 months ago

And by the way...would the Dems PLEASE, God help us, get all over the news and counter the complete asshole McConnell?? Mitch McConnell and his idiot cohorts caused this mess in the first place. We're supposed to listen to him?? Give me a break...no, someone, please Dear God, break this guy's neck metaphorically on the news. Screw him and the Republicans'; immolate him, disgrace him, fuck him over, I don't care but stop this Republican crime.

cosanostradamus · 10 months ago

.
Yeah. That's the problem with a consolidated, corporatized, 24/7/52 gotchya Right-wing infotainment media full of ex-beauty queens and ex-sportscasters, with no "Fairness Doctrine." That and the Dem's they have cowed over the years into taking their crap and learning to enjoy and even profit by it.

Even if there were a large, effective Democratic spin machine, where would it go? Ten minutes a night on MSNBC? They're leaving it all up to the President himself and the likes of Matt Lauer.

On the other hand, who's watching that crap? Old farts and redneck pinheads. Who cares what they think? Obama should wrap up this pretense of working cooperatively with the enemy. They lost, we won, they need their faces rubbed in it. Hey, we tried bipartisanship, it didn't work, thanks to the radical, partisan, obstructionist Republicans. Now we move on without them. We cut the stimulus bill only by removing the Red States from it. They're tax-negative anyway: They get back more than they pay, and they're always whining about it anyways.

It couldn't hurt to stage a series of major web-centric media events, reminding the faithful of what we voted against and why. I think it's up to all of us out here in the real world to get behind Obama, push him left, and support him. What choice do we have?
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aquarius2 · 10 months ago

It seems to be a mind set with these CEO's, they feel they are entitled. Doesn't matter if the company has failed or is failing, they walk around like peacocks thinking they are the kings. The worse part is many of them will leave one company and go to another at higher and higher salaries with name recognition being their only qualification.

How many layoffs occurred at these banks prior to the TARP program? You know, the job losses they say were needed to remain solvent but in reality so the higher ups bonuses could be paid. And why the hell is Maddoff still free, just like Sonny Boy from Enron, the whole thing is sickening.

Rob Mule · 10 months ago

The Masters of the Universe...(snicker!)

example · 10 months ago

If we cap the salaries only at companies we help, then corporate boards will be reluctant to go to Washington when they need to.

Therefore we need to cap ALL wall street salaries.

Robert Phillips · 10 months ago

They don't have to take the money. They can see if they can turn the companies around themselves and then make as much as they can. Let them try that.

maudgonne · 10 months ago

This is the time-honoured pattern expected to be seen when the downward spiral burns itself out and the cycle starts, very slowly, to turn, helped this time by an unprecedented global monetary and fiscal blitz. But it may equally be a false dawn.
The Baltic Dry Index measuring freight rates for iron ore and other bulk goods has been creeping up for two months after crashing 94pc in the worst fall in shipping history. Copper prices are also edging up after plunging by two-thirds from their June peak. So are lumber prices.

The debt markets have opened like a flower in spring, at least in one sense. Companies issued $246bn (£171bn) in bonds in January, the most since the credit crisis began. France's EdF has raised €9bn (£8bn). Shell and RWE each raised €3bn this week. Blue-chip groups can borrow again. "The mood is upbeat. There are swathes of cash pouring back into credit," said Suki Mann, a credit strategist at Société Générale. "The market closed down after the Lehmans collapse so there was a lot of pent-up demand, but they are having to pay materially higher spreads than pre-Lehmans."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/4514330/Rece...

SkippyFlipjack · 10 months ago

What selfish idiots. One woman says that her daughter wasn't part of the mortgage-backed security department so deserved her bonus. Ma'am: Your daughter's company would have gone under, but for government intervention. She may have done the best she could, but success of the company does matter when determining each employee's bonus. If you meet your sales goals but your company goes bankrupt, you get no bonus. That's the way life works.

These companies had their chance. They were pulled from the brink and proceeded to dole out more bonuses. Eff them. If their employees want bonuses, let them stick around til next year.

SkippyFlipjack · 10 months ago

The CNBC writer says: "Bonuses on Wall Street aren’t an “extra” doled out in great times, on top of full pay. They comprise the variable portion of base compensation costs, typically 50 percent or so over all; this lets a firm pay out more in flush years and cut back in lean ones."

OK, so this is about as lean a year as we'll ever see. (Hopefully.) Yet he thinks bonuses should still be paid out. If part of the bonus should be given in even this, the worst possible year, shouldn't that portion be part of employees' salaries since it was obviously below the bonus "floor"?

JustAnOldLady · 10 months ago

These same idiots defended John Thain who redecorated his office for $1.2 million while cutting jobs and teling employees the company had to tighten their belt.........ugh.

caphillprof · 10 months ago

If we'd bring back the guillotine, set it up in front of the exchange, and start lopping off a few heads, a lot of this nonsense would quickly go away. These aristocrats just don't have a clue.

rexkc · 10 months ago

Not only should the senior executives of these banks be denied their bonuses, they should be indicted for criminal negligence. And the boards of directors should be shown the door and subjected to shareholder lawsuits against their personal assets. How could they structure bonus plans that have any payout when the banks are essentially bankrupt and the loss in shareholder value has been almost complete?

SkippyFlipjack · 10 months ago

If you took a job that offered lower salary than you could get elsewhere because they promised a big bonus at the end of the year that was tied to company performance, and if the company nearly went bankrupt and you got no bonus, would you a) realize that you should probably have negotiated a deal with more money up front, or b) say that you still deserved a big bonus?

Greed.

PJ · 10 months ago

Didn't the auto industry workers have to agree to having their wages cut to be in line with the foreign automaker workers? Weren't the Repuglicans all for that? Did we forget that our Congress "demanded" American workers be paid less to give out American taxpayer dollars? So yes, Congress can dictate wages, but it appears it's only "acceptable" to dictate working class wages. Someone needs to wake up and have a memory longer than one week! Geesh!

Peace!

Johnathan Quest · 10 months ago

I agree with most of these posts. There is just something inherently wrong with these CEO's making tens or hundreds of millions while their employees make eight dollars an hour barely scraping by. But here's a story you may not have heard. As AIG was failing they tried to get this excecutive (i do apologize i forget his name atm) to come help them right the ship. he was up for a fifty-five million dollar position but in stead he went to help AIG who promised him a twenty two million dollar golden parachute no matter what happened. So AIG goes in the tank and people start screaming about the twenty two million he is going to receive. So what does he do? he gives it back. Sorry not sure what my point is but imagine having to go explain that one to the wife? ouch lol

Give Me A Break · 10 months ago

It doesn't really matter if it was just one person's efforts carrying the whole damn organization. If the company goes belly up they don't get or deserve any freakin bonus. Especially one paid for by the American Taxpayers.