by Uncle Bob Thu Jan 22, 2009 at 08:21:37 AM PST
After all the abuses of law, morals and ethics by the Bush administration over the last 8 years, I never thought that my outrage meter could get pegged again. Wrong.
The Financial Times reported that Merrill Lynch accelerated its normal time schedule for awarding bonuses and distributed $ 4 billion dollars on Dec 29, just 3 days before its takeover by Bank of America. At the same time Merrill posted $15 billion in losses for the fourth quarter. The total compensation for Merrill Lynch employees in 2008 was $15 billion.
That’s way more than just an outsized sense of entitlement, that’s flat-out stealing. And the money for this comes from, you guessed it, the US government. The Bank of America was prepared to back out of the deal once the size of the Merrill Lynch loss became apparent. The deal was completed only after guarantees of government money by the US Treasury.
Read on...
Any finanical types been arrested yet? Other than Madoff? Tom
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Showing posts with label bailout. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bailout. Show all posts
Wall Street's Bailout is a Trillion-Dollar Crime Scene -- Why Aren't the Dems Doing Something About It?
By Naomi Klein, The Nation. Posted November 14, 2008.
Washington's handling of the bailout is not merely incompetent. It may well be illegal.
The more details emerge, the clearer it becomes that Washington's handling of the Wall Street bailout is not merely incompetent. It is borderline criminal.
In a moment of high panic in late September, the U.S. Treasury unilaterally pushed through a radical change in how bank mergers are taxed -- a change long sought by the industry. Despite the fact that this move will deprive the government of as much as $140 billion in tax revenue, lawmakers found out only after the fact. According to the Washington Post, more than a dozen tax attorneys agree that "Treasury had no authority to issue the [tax change] notice."
Read on...
The financial crisis was caused by fraud, committed by the very same people who are being bailed out. When is someone going to get arrested? Tom
Washington's handling of the bailout is not merely incompetent. It may well be illegal.
The more details emerge, the clearer it becomes that Washington's handling of the Wall Street bailout is not merely incompetent. It is borderline criminal.
In a moment of high panic in late September, the U.S. Treasury unilaterally pushed through a radical change in how bank mergers are taxed -- a change long sought by the industry. Despite the fact that this move will deprive the government of as much as $140 billion in tax revenue, lawmakers found out only after the fact. According to the Washington Post, more than a dozen tax attorneys agree that "Treasury had no authority to issue the [tax change] notice."
Read on...
The financial crisis was caused by fraud, committed by the very same people who are being bailed out. When is someone going to get arrested? Tom
The Bailout: How Capitalism Killed Democracy
By David Sirota, AlterNet. Posted October 4, 2008.
We now face market forces uninhibited by democratic governance. The bailout is an aggressive attempt to trade democracy for autocracy.
The marriage of American capitalism and democracy has always been a Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee affair -- stormy and erratic since its hasty wedding. But during the debate over a Wall Street bailout this week, we watched that matrimonial knot unwind into a tangled tale of terror.
As a financial crisis became a political panic, capitalism murdered democracy (ironically, while pursuing a vaguely socialist bailout). Only, unlike a typical horror story, the dead body wasn't hidden, it was dumped in the nation's public square.
The fiasco started, like most, with unreasonable demands. Under threat of financial meltdown, capitalism's corporate lobbyists asked our democracy to forsake its usual deliberations and hand over $700 billion of taxpayer money in less than a week.
Read on...
Last week was historic...but life seemed to go on as normal. The sheeple gave Wall Street their bailout. Is this article alarmist, or prophetic? Tom
We now face market forces uninhibited by democratic governance. The bailout is an aggressive attempt to trade democracy for autocracy.
The marriage of American capitalism and democracy has always been a Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee affair -- stormy and erratic since its hasty wedding. But during the debate over a Wall Street bailout this week, we watched that matrimonial knot unwind into a tangled tale of terror.
As a financial crisis became a political panic, capitalism murdered democracy (ironically, while pursuing a vaguely socialist bailout). Only, unlike a typical horror story, the dead body wasn't hidden, it was dumped in the nation's public square.
The fiasco started, like most, with unreasonable demands. Under threat of financial meltdown, capitalism's corporate lobbyists asked our democracy to forsake its usual deliberations and hand over $700 billion of taxpayer money in less than a week.
Read on...
Last week was historic...but life seemed to go on as normal. The sheeple gave Wall Street their bailout. Is this article alarmist, or prophetic? Tom
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