DISQUS

buddhistMonkey · 11 months ago

What's your beef with Gov. Paterson? Can't he lament the loss of retirement money, jobs, etc. AND the loss of tax revenue? After all, taxes are what pay for the social programs that people without retirement money and jobs need.

cowboyneok · 11 months ago

Patterson needs to reconsider the rich get their money shielded from the same tax rates the poor pay.

Suzanne · 11 months ago

In defense of "top talent" bonuses for those at lower levels, I think you're being massively unfair and need to consider 3 things: 1) Many, many people working at Goldman Sachs had nothing to do with any of the decisions that brought about this crisis--they may not even work in the same division as the people who do, 2) bonuses form a substantial percentage of the total annual pay of many lower-level brokers, and in some cases eliminating bonuses would mean an effective 50% reduction in total salary, 3) while being a lower-tier broker pays reasonably well, a fair number of those lower-tier brokers are recent college or MBA grads with 100K+ in student loan debt, and a 40k (undergrad degree) or 85k (MBA) base salary doesn't go that far when you're paying $1200/month in student loan debt. Should bonuses be cut for everyone? Absolutely. Do sacrifices need to be made across the board? Of course. But the 28 year-old kid two years out of Wharton with a wife, a baby, a mortgage and $150,000 in student loan debt shouldn't have to eat a 50% pay cut because some idiot 30 years his senior made a series of bad decisions starting all the way back when he was still in high school.

lynchie · 11 months ago

but that same 28 year old has 37 years to earn a living and get even. In my case I lost 50% of my 401K value and now will have to seek a job at Walmart or the like to make ends meet. We are all suffering not just the young. I for one see no reason to bail out the banks and brokerage houses. It was their greed and willingness to grant loans and mortgages without collateral, without down payments and in a lot of cases the mortgage was for more than the value of the house and property.
There is enough blame to go around but allowing companies to bonus bad decisions and poor performance is not the answer

John · 11 months ago

I caught the interview with Govenor Patterson and Bill Moyers yesterday on PBS. Two thing stood out. One, was the fact that New York State placed too high a value on the taxes that came out of Wall Street bonuses ( 30% ) of the states revenue and niether did the Govenor or the legislature have any contingency plan for the loss of those tax receipts. We've been in a recession since December of 2007, so it's not like they didn't have time to plan for this eventuality, Secondly, where were all of the officials from the S.E.C. that had many laws in place to prevent things like the 50 billion Madoff crisis as well as laws governing the sales of securities. You can have all the laws you want, What good are they if your not going to enforce them either through negligence or outright looking the other way?
Another scary thought that Gingrich brought up last week in a speech he gave. Why is Obama surrounding himself with those out of Goldman Sachs in top econmic positions, These were the guys who got us into trouble to begin with. He also thinks that Paulson should have resigned months ago after taking Congress for a 750 billion dollar ride at tax payer expense and then changed the rules as to how the funds would be spent every week since.
Before the next congress goes into session, there should be serious talk about creating a law that clearly states that anyone Like a senator Dodd who had a cozy relationship with countrywide should not be allowed to sit on such oversight bodies because of conflicts of interest.
There sure is a lot to get down, The really scary part is Obama when he keeps telling us things are going to get worse before they get better. The natives are getting restless.

cowboyneok · 11 months ago

Well, considering the utlra-rich pay a lower tax rate why not just forego the bailouts period and just distribute the tax dollars to everyone? In other words - turbo-wahhhh!

imagenvideo · 11 months ago

Romance in the white house of America

http://tinyurl.com/Romance-in-the-White-House

LeeFromHamburgNY · 11 months ago

Seeing that NY taxes unemployment benefits, why don't they just tax the bailout money that all the Wall St. banks got as income also???

davidkc · 11 months ago

It is becoming increasingly clear that Obama is going to do nothing more than pay lip service to GLBT Americans and GLBT rights. He's looking more and more like Bill Clinton every day.

MsJoanne · 11 months ago

Screw these executives every which way to next Sunday, but don't discount the need for those tax dollars. Especially right now as more and more people are asking for state services (food stamps, medicaid, etc.) and that money has to come from somewhere.

They could line up and shoot each of the a$$holes on Wall Street and I would say good riddance to bad rubbish, but those tax dollars are quite critical right now.