Must Be Nice
Nine banks that received $175 billion in taxpayer “bailout” money doled out a scarcely-fathomable $33 billion in executive bonuses last year, according to data released by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. Over 5,000 of these bank employees received bonuses of $1 million or more.
Hmmmm … guess we know now why so many banks refused to initially discuss how they were spending their bailout cash.
Not surprisingly, these banks also revealed that they are setting aside similarly-exorbitant pools of cash for this year’s bonuses.
Amazing, huh?
The very people who caused the economy to tank – and who were supposed to use billions in taxpayer dollars to unfreeze credit markets – instead took the money and run.
What did the increasingly ineffective Teleprompter of U.S. President Barack Obama have to say about all this?
“The president continues to believe that the American people don’t begrudge people making money for what they do as long as…we’re not basically incentivizing wild risk-taking that somebody else picks up the tab for,” Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs said.
Uhhh … what exactly does the Obama administration think just happened?
Comments
By liz on July 31st, 2009 at 6:53 am
Every single bank that got TARP money belongs to ONE COMPANY >
Both AUTO makers belong to that same company.
What happened , that WE the PEOPLE , were forced to prop up ONE failing, ” too big to fail” company???
Who are they? Why are they such important people? What gives them the right to continue life so normally when the rest of the population of America is suffering FOR them???
THIS COMPANY OWNS EVERY SINGLE INSURANCE COMPANY PEOPLE.
By dirtbogger on July 31st, 2009 at 8:27 am
The federal reserve guys and all the bankers are buddies we need all the support we can get for HR1207 a bill to audit the Federial Reserve! Then it must be abollished!
By K Trane on July 31st, 2009 at 8:26 pm
The public needs to realize that this is a fundamental concept of contract law. If you don’t pay your bonuses, the geniuses in the business will leave your company (for breach of contract), sue for an injunction demanding the company to pay the money anyways and pursue other positions with competitors.
That being said, the companies should have negotiated with their employees while all this was occurring. If the employee refused to mitigate his or her bailout, their an asshole and should be let go regardless.
By CNSYD on August 1st, 2009 at 10:54 am
K Trane, these “geniuses” you speak about. Are they same ones who helped create the mess?
By Elmo on August 1st, 2009 at 11:02 pm
This is absolutely mind boggling. These banks should be bankrupt. Not one penny of taxpayer money should have been given to any bank or AIG. These guys gambled and lost their ass. We don’t need any of them.They bankroll Congress, steal our money, and give themselves bonuses. They have received billions via the Federal Reserve and the Fed just thumbs its nose at anyone who asks where our money went.
Jim Demint is the only guy in the Senate who has the courage to find out exactly how much they stole from us.
Barack Obama is in the banker’s pants playing pocket pool.