Does Anyone feel like Bailing

[tw]

Originally Posted by tw

Goldman Sachs just announced that six top executives would "forgo" their $67million per person bonuses. Why is this significant? Because no other 'on government welfare' companies announced same. Meanwhile, Goldman will still pay something less than $1billion in bonuses to other employees. Thank god we rescued those bonuses.

Latest numbers from Goldman. Top executives will take a bonus cut. Bonuses will be reduced by 46%. Goldman Sachs took about $10billion in government assistance. Goldman will pay just over $10billion in bonuses to employees.

So the employees are practicing variations of "Bah Humbug".

[classicman]

I read that too, I thought there would be some early adopters to follow their lead. None as of yet though.

[xoxoxoBruce]

AIG is planning on doling out over $600 million in "delayed compensation" to it's people right after the first of the year. They said this isn't bailout money, this is money they had set aside for this.

[tw]

So many years ago, I pointed to the AIG building in lower Manhatten and told the National Park Service cop why that is a company I was waiting to go under. This may have been in 2004.

When GM has no profits, its unions get no Christmas bonuses. But its management does. When AIG puts $1trillion at risk, why does anyone in AIG get bonuses? The reasoning? If they don't get that bonus, then they cannot afford to live in NYC.

By getting no $67million bonus, top GS executives must suffer poverty - only $600,000 this year. So we would even blame the unions?

Lee Iacocca - a product oriented thinker - took only $1 per year at Chrysler until Chrysler was profitable. Bean counters educated in business schools would never do that. Their compensation is more important than their job.

[tw]

More examples of deregulation. From the Washington Post of 23 Nov 2008:

Banking Regulator Played Advocate Over Enforcer
Agency Let Lenders Grow Out of Control, Then Fail
The benefits were clear: Countrywide's new regulator, the Office of Thrift Supervision, promised more flexible oversight of issues related to the bank's mortgage lending. For OTS, which depends on fees paid by banks it regulates and competes with other regulators to land the largest financial firms, Countrywide was a lucrative catch.

But OTS was not an effective regulator. This year, the government has seized three of the largest institutions regulated by OTS, including IndyMac Bancorp, Washington Mutual -- the largest bank in U.S. history to go bust -- and on Friday evening, Downey Savings and Loan Association. The total assets of the OTS thrifts to fail this year: $355.7 billion. Three others were forced to sell to avoid failure, including Countrywide. ...

OTS is responsible for regulating thrifts, also known as savings and loans, which focus on mortgage lending. As the banks under OTS supervision expanded high-risk lending, the agency failed to rein in their destructive excesses despite clear evidence of mounting problems, according to banking officials and a review of financial documents. ...

In 2004, the year that risky loans called option adjustable-rate mortgages took off, then-OTS director James Gilleran lauded the banks for their role in providing home loans. "Our goal is to allow thrifts to operate with a wide breadth of freedom from regulatory intrusion," he said in a speech. ...

In the summer of 2003, leaders of the four federal agencies that oversee the banking industry gathered to highlight the Bush administration's commitment to reducing regulation. They posed for photographers behind a stack of papers wrapped in red tape. The others held garden shears. Gilleran, who succeeded Seidman as OTS director in late 2001, hefted a chain saw. ...

Gilleran was an impassioned advocate of deregulation. ... The result was a mismatch between a short-handed agency and a burgeoning thrift industry. ... He also reduced consumer protections. ...

[Undertoad]

Originally Posted by tw

More examples of deregulation.

The first example presented. Well done. Congrats to the WaPo for finding it, two months into the crisis.

[tw]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

The first example presented.

The fact that The Economist was even quoted blaming deregulation - even used the word deregulation - and then The Economist provideds examples? Somehow that was not an example?

[Trilby]

Re: merc's new sig.under his handle----sure glad you're not bitter, merc.

not bitter at all!

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Brianna

Re: merc's new sig.under his handle----sure glad you're not bitter, merc.

not bitter at all!

All in good fun.

Pico is still trying to figure out what it means.

[Pico and ME]

LOL

Oh no Merc, I figured it out. You are a poser. You like to throw around derogatory terms in your posts even though you cant back them up.

[classicman]

Must be a nice view from up there Pico.

[Pico and ME]

Originally Posted by classicman

Must be a nice view from up there Pico.

I asked a simple question but neither one of you wanted to answer it. Theres nothing holier-than-thou about it.

[xoxoxoBruce]

What simple question?

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by classicman

Must be a nice view from up there Pico.

Yea, we look up and see nothing but assholes. Good job Pinko.

[ZenGum]

Yeah, she can see your comb-over : sniggers: .