Malefactors of Great Wealth

Are these idiots literally so rich and drowning in money that they can’t understand how absolutely disgraceful all this is? I just can’t imagine how any normal human being would think it’s a good idea. What is wrong with their brains? There are obvious answers for this, but no good answers. It doesn’t make sense.

But don’t you understand? If these guys don’t get their millions in bonuses, they’ll start looking for another job elsewhere? Then who’s gonna drive the financial markets further into the ditch? Huh? Answer me that, Joe Klein!

Kick some Republican ass!
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And isn’t $20,000,000,000 in “bonuses” 6.7 times as large as the the entire welfare budget of the United States.
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Now, riddle me this, Batman:
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Just who are the real “welfare queens” here…

I hope these conversations contain at least a mention of pliers and bamboo shoots and a large man named Guido.

I think most Americans at this point want some sort of governement action to this recession. What we don’t like is having our tax dollars sent to bail out a company where the principle people who screwed said company into the ground are still at their jobs. Spending our collective money on trips to the spa, bonsus and $300K toilet seats. Sort of makes the masses a tad upset. How about getting rid of the leadership who rammed these companies into the ground? How about cutting executive pay in exchange for bailout money? How about making these companies pay back any money that is not spent in actually fixing the company? But is spent instead on say a $2K paper trash bin.

Kaff, kaff. Ahem.
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Let’s not mention that the GOP just handed out 7,200,000,000,000 dollars to these cretins (or, should I dare say: themselves?).
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The amount of money handed out by the GOP is so large that, if the days weren’t shorter then, take, at 0% interest, $131 dollars a month for every year in the 4,586,000,000 year life of this planet!

I don’t understand where these companies’ boards and shareholders are. Bonuses are supposed to be paid out based on profits and returns. When you don’t have any, you don’t get a bonus. These companies LOST money. That means, irregardless of the bailout, they shouldn’t be handing out bonuses.
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The people that are supposed to enforce this are the board of directors, which is supposed to represent the shareholders, who own the company, and whose investment is getting destroyed. Where are the boards in this mess? Where are the investor lawsuits? That’s what I don’t get.

Remember: When poor people get money from the government, it’s welfare. When the rich get money from the government, it’s another example of the invisible hand of the free market at work.

Retro active retrieval of the bonus handouts! New law with punishment
for bankers misrepresenting use of money bailout $’s.
Ask some high school kids to read the legislation and find the loop holes. Put strings and time frames on government monies. This pollyanna
‘you must be responable’ junk is unconvincing.

A commenter on another thread posits that this is just a little S&M- kabuki by Obama, after he gave them their $7.2B no-strings-attached trust fund. I’m inclined to agree — these Wall Street types won’t follow rules, if the rules aren’t part of their bailout. Why should they? Nobody’s legislating HOW they spend this money. The optics might be bad, but they can legally purchase planes, trains, autos — and bonuses with our hard-earned tax dollars. They can even light the entire $7.2B on fire, if they want to. Ain’t nothing we — or Obama — can really do about it. Is there?

Joe, let me guess…no jail, make em empty bed pans or re-sod the National Mall right? The fact that I woke up this morning and these people weren’t dragged from their homes, hung from the nearest tree and their houses burned to the ground while in my slumber is an indication that the people of this country don’t have what it takes keep this country from sinking.

incandenzah:
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That’s 7.2G. One thousand times more money than ‘B’.

 
At some point, someone will have to do a cost-benefit analysis, and realize that these people need to be killed.
 
The country would be better off if the vacancies were filled with brain-damaged monkeys, or me.
 

SeanDeCoursey, if you read the annual proposals that stockholders are asked to vote on, you will note that the bonuses are carefully described to follow the principles of reward for profit, but there are pages and pages of fine print weasel words and it is impossible to tell on what basis they are really distributed. I have been routinely voting no on all executive compensation proposals for several years, but my 100 or 200 shares mean nothing. The big shareholders are unions and pension plans. They need to take an activist role. Most boards are made up of people (mostly male) who have been, or are, CEOs at other corporations, so they all scratch each other’s back. I also don’t vote to elect anyone to the board who is on more than one other corporate board. And, these directors often get $150,000 plus expenses to serve on the board.

I could serve on a board!

Wall Street, CNBC and WSJ have colluded in this shameless self service called the bonus system. Ask Maria Bartiromo ( who is in Davos with her sucking up routine) and her pals why they never raised this issue. Because they palled around with these people. As for Congress: think Abramoff. Our Congress critters, by and large, are bought and paid for. Chuck Schumer is but the latest example of the blind leading the blind when it comes to keeping Wall Street in check.

Paulson: we had the fox guarding the henhouse?

Where were our Villagers when all this happened? Polishing apples and mixing with Alan Greenspan, his NBC spouse and other VIPS.

The Village is only now working up a mild indignation. They held these pirates up as saviours. Which says a great deal about their financial acumen, may only their acumen?

“You go guy”
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Well, we Obamabots want to believe in the rhetoric, but the earlier alluded to “$23 billion in old-fashioned tax breaks to corporations” makes even the faithful grimace.

53_3: Gratzie. Gs, Bs, Ms, Ks… my Waterloo.

jcapan, didn’t a bunch of employees murder the CEO of a failed Japanese business w/ machetes in his office a few years back? Couldn’t something like that go a long way to keeping these people in line?

Don’t recall that one Cincy–I was here from ’99-’02 and just returned last year. More commonly, scandal-tainted execs or pols take to the press conference to apologize profusely, bowing down in shame. Watching the nightly news, sometimes it feels like Groundhog Day. Mind you, their prostration/humiliation hardly seems to curb the scandal du jour culture. Of course, when apology just doesn’t cut it, there’s jisatsu, the ultimate act of accountability (i.e. suicide).
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“Corporate noblesse oblige in Japan even today can impel managers to more than resignation: in extreme cases, only suicide may be perceived by traditionalists as restoring honour to the organization”
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Fisse and Braithwaite, Corporations, Crime and Accountability

jcapan: Our CEO’s need incentive to do the right thing. Get a few Brink’s trucks filled with cash. Have the CEO’s jump from a 20 story building. The one who survives gets all the trucks. Greed can be good.

Joe, we’re happy you’re happy with el presidente, but spare us the starry eyed man-crush. We’ve seen it before and it’s still cringe worthy. You don’t need to go P-luk on us, but you’re veering towards idolatry here.

I wonder if there’s still time for him to add criminal prosecution to his “style”.

Why the WH isn’t 100% green energy is beyond me. Why his beast of a limo isn’t a hybrid or running on cat-farts too. Images count–where Gore and Edwards live is important. Don’t preach to the little people when you live in a f’ing castle and drive a tank.

Good heavens, jcapan, the man doesn’t even know where all the bathrooms are yet!
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But by this time next year, we ought to expect some or all of the following:
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Turf roof on the White House – unless it’s too heavy for the very old structure, in which case there should be a
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Solar panel roof.
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Bullet-proof 6-passenger Prius with ninja adepts included.
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Wind-farms on the White House and Capital grounds [insert obligatory politician "wind" joke here].
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Climate-controlled nanotechnology garments for the First Family, which will allow all HVAC equipment in their quarters to be mothballed. Malia’s will have a picture of her favorite Jonas brother; the President’s will have a big red ‘O’ on the chest.
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A 6 gigvaolt Tesla coil retrofitted to the Washington Monument.

jcapan, yeah it happened 2 or 2 years ago when you gone. There was a throng of angry ex employees in the lobby and a couple of them went up w/ machetes and did what had to be done.

“gi-ga-volt.” Arrgghhh.

Well, these things happen. When I used to live in Florida, and would drive on Palm Beach or the more Toney Jupiter Island, where Celine Dion lived, and now Tiger, my first reaction (after visions of attempted robbery) was always … damn, where are the likes of Madame Defarge when you need ‘em?

And Friar–sounds great, I look FWD to all of the above, and espec. the O on his chest. In times of crisis, with a matching cape mind you, I’d like to see him ride a little pedestel elevator to the top of the oval office’s glass ceiling (I’m drawing on Superman II here, as I’ve forgotten my annual schoolboy visits to the big house). Perched there, he can stare menacingly at the evil confronting America. Oh cr@p, is Joe ghostwriting this?

It would be an especially cool move to impress squabbling dignitaries, especially when the lightning starts arcing off the Washington Monument.
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“If you threaten to extend your violence, this Earth of yours will be reduced to a burned-out cinder.” – Michael Rennie, Day the Earth Stood Still (the classic, not that wacked out Keanu Reeves thing)

Then, after another rousing game of Magic 8 Ball with Boob Rubin and the new National Tax Cheat, er, Czar, he scolded the GOP and Limbaugh for not lockstepping along with his 1000 BRIDGES TO NOWHERE make-work do squat waste cement kill trees burn more oil build more crappy UAW cars uneducate more urban chillins ignore NOLA buy Blago DNC loon largess.

= ROSTY ACCOMPLISHED =

Oh, and cash his latest PayPal Gaza check from Mrs. Arafat, via the MisState Dept.

BTW:

Anyone else remember not so long ago, when Comrade Klein was espousing the economic genius of Boob Rubin and the rest of the limo liberal cadre — while I took them to task for using the annual Citi report as DNC mouthpiece (instead of protecting the shareholders), for Hillary in particular?

No?

Well of course not.

That would be soooooooooooooooooooooo inconvenient.

Oh well.

HILLARY HAPPENS.

“A 6 gigvaolt Tesla coil retrofitted to the Washington Monument.”
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Now that would have been something Cheney could have implemented!
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Hulu:
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You’re such a looser. And I say that kindly…

@friar tuck & jcapan. You snark. But Obama has already said he plans to turn the White House green. Or greener, anyway.
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One of the things I want to do is, is to – I’ve already met the chief usher there, a wonderful man, a former Admiral of the Coast Guard, and one of the things I want to do is to sit down with him and, let’s do an evaluation. How are we using energy in the White House? Part of what I want to do is to show the American people that it’s not that hard.
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He’s running behind, however. In 1979, Carter installed a solar water heater on West Wing roof. Reagan had it removed seven years later. No surprise there.
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Clinton followed in 1993 with plans for a comprehensive energy audit of the White House, including upgrade of the heating and cooling systems and more energy efficient windows.
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In 2002, Under Bush!!!, the White House had 167 solar photovoltaic panels installed on the roof and yet another solar water heater. It now has energy efficient lighting, low-flush toilets, improved insulation and smart lawn sprinklers.

Well, Dave, aren’t you a wealth of info on the Greenish White House. In our defense, snark is far more fun & doesn’t require “facts.”
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What I’d like to see is this agenda take, given O’s adoption of Friedman-esque visions of a green revolution, a more front and center position. Fireside chats, followed by walks through the big house w/Bob Villa, insulating windows hanging out the laundry in the sun! Better yet, shrink the space that’s used and put most of that castle into shutdown mode, giving the message to resource-addicted Yanks that “our homes are also too big, not merely our cars and arses.”
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As with excoriating Wall St., color me skeptical until I see a lot more than words. It’s early, but on the enviro-front, I’m hoping Gore & co. keep up the pressure.
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And with this riff, I must depart, learning these here folks some English. Repeat after me, “George Bush is a f-ckwh@re”

“George Bush is a f-ckwh@re,” jcapan-san.

“And with this riff, I must depart, learning these here folks some English.”
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jcapan:
For that real “folksy” effect you should have said:
“And with this riff, I must depart, larnin’ these here folks some English.”
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Oh. And yes, George Bush is a f-ckwh@re.

[...] Joe Klein on Obama’s calling Wall Street bonuses “shameful”: “You go, [...]

[...] Malefactors of Great Wealth The President of the United States, this afternoon, on Wall Street bonuses: [...]