Reply to: 'Your company is bankrupt, you keep $480m. Is that fair?'

[SueEllen]

His wife will need to severly cut back on her lifestyle then...I just bet she moves to London in the near future and initiates a divorce.

Good.

I hope she takes him to the cleaners.

[Cyberman]

Sarbanes Oxley might help.

Those banks had toxic subprime debt embelished as triple AAA securities - that's the root cause of issue, if they were grading this debt appropriately they would not be able to issue so much of it.

As CEO he signed off plenty of papers to take him into jail for a long time.

They meant A security, but the keyboard was dodgy. Not his fault !!

[donny]

Sarbanes Oxley might help.

Those banks had toxic subprime debt embelished as triple AAA securities - that's the root cause of issue, if they were grading this debt appropriately they would not be able to issue so much of it.

As CEO he signed off plenty of papers to take him into jail for a long time.

does that make them AAAAAAAAA securities? Now that's impressive...

[lilelvis2000]

Another Day - Another Show Tral - this time AIG

For some people at AIG, the insurance giant rescued last month with an $85 billion federal bailout, the good times keep rolling.

Joseph Cassano, the financial products manager whose complex investments led to American International Group's near collapse, is receiving $1 million a month in consulting fees.

Former chief executive Martin J. Sullivan, whose three-year tenure coincided with much of the company's ill-fated risk-taking, is receiving a $5 million performance bonus. And just last week, about 70 of the company's top performers were rewarded with a week-long stay at the luxury St. Regis Resort in Monarch Beach, Calif., where they ran up a tab of $440,000.

At a House committee hearing yesterday, Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) showed a photograph of the resort, which overlooks the Pacific Ocean, and reported expenses for AIG personnel including $200,000 for rooms, $150,000 for meals and $23,000 for the spa.
...
But neither Sullivan nor Willumstad acknowledged making any mistakes.

Hold on a minute. This was after they had to be bailed out!

******! take them to a quite corner of Texas and have them shot.

[AlfredJPruffock]

The peasants are revolting ...


It was the week that an angry Main Street finally fought back after a decade when the financial masters of Wall Street were seemingly invincible.

As President George Bush looked straight into the television cameras last week and spelt out to the nation the economic peril facing America, the fury and fear were mounting in millions of homes.

'Without immediate action by Congress, America could slip into a financial panic,' Bush warned. He sketched out a scenario of failing banks and plunging share prices which would savage retirement plans and put millions out of work. It was a terrifying scenario. Having waged two wars that are not yet over, Bush faced the final legacy of his tumultuous two-term period in office: the possible collapse of the American economy.

But the action he was calling for stuck in the throats of the American people. The administration's planned $700bn bail-out for the financial sector has outraged and appalled many on the country's Main Streets.

It has led to anger on the left of American politics, shocked at such aid to wealthy bankers when the millions of families losing their homes get little direct help. At the same time many on the right have expressed equal disbelief, watching in amazement as the previously free-marketeer Bush suddenly embarked on the biggest government intervention since the Great Depression.

The US media have turned on Wall Street like a pack of wolves. 'Fraud Street,' screamed the banner scrolling beneath the concerned features of Fox Business Network's Liz Claman, who told viewers: 'You know what? I think the American public deserves some answers.' Time magazine declared that the nation's current troubles were 'the price of greed'. 'Blame greed,' echoed the Chicago Tribune

At the United Nations, an Australian reporter accosted the actor Michael Douglas during a press conference and demanded to know - with a straight face, mind you - whether he felt any responsibility for the crisis because he delivered the line 'greed is good' as the character Gordon Gekko in the film Wall Street.

'Are you now saying, Gordon, that greed is not good?' the reporter asked.

'I'm not saying that,' a bemused Douglas replied. 'And my name is not Gordon. He's a character I played 20 years ago.'

The huge bail-out plan has also fundamentally changed the battlefield of the American election, which is just five weeks away from deciding who will be the next president.

The sheer scale of the economic crisis, and the enormous sums of taxpayers' money demanded to sort it out, are the biggest game in town.


These are people like Ken Karasek.

The 47-year-old union organiser in the city of Wilkes-Barre has lived all his life among the hardscrabble towns of eastern Pennsylvania. He has seen factory after factory close and jobs move overseas.

He feels that the economic crisis of the past year has merely brought the rest of America up to speed with what has happened in his home patch for the past three decades, and he is angry that the government has been so quick to bail out Wall Street with hundreds of billions.

'It disgusts me. I have seen huge plants close down all over this area. I have seen good union jobs go and get replaced by service jobs, like McDonalds or Wendy's. Now we give all this money to Wall Street just like that?' he protested.

The panic around the economy has infected the political system, upending traditional alliances, pushing Democrats closer to Bush's plan and Republicans further away. It has created ructions in the race between Barack Obama and John McCain, seeing a dangerous game of political brinksmanship that ended with McCain suspending his campaign and rushing back to Washington.


But in Wilkes-Barre, Ken Karasek and others at a rally for Obama's running mate, Joe Biden, were not interested in Hank the Hunk's manly musculature - they were just furious at being asked to pay for his extraordinary proposal.

Retired nurse Betty Daniels, wearing a baseball cap emblazoned with the words 'Jesus is my boss', was furious at the bail-out. 'I feel angry. People are losing their homes. They are barely making enough money to feed their families. I would like to see that money go to those people, not banks who just wasted it,' she said.

In an already distressed area such as Wilkes-Barre the impact of the economic crisis has been profound. Over the past year more businesses have closed and many homes have been lost as the mortgage crisis has reached out and cast people out of their houses.

When Biden took to the stage in front of the small crowd, he dished out lashings of angry politics which struck a chord with many of those present. Biden attacked Wall Street executives and a culture in Washington that had been too friendly to big business. 'The wealthy and the powerful have a seat at the table and everybody else is on the menu,' he said.

There were echoes of that populist mood in the UK, where the Archbishops of Canterbury and York intervened in the debate, describing City speculators as asset strippers and bank robbers. Only a few months ago the churchmen would have been ridiculed for their outbursts, but now there were even some in the Square Mile prepared to admit they have a point.

Investment banker John Reynolds, chairman of the Ethical Investment Advisory Group (see right) said: 'It is easy to see how abusive market practices have developed, harder to see why they have been allowed to grow unchecked by regulators.

To avoid repeating the mistakes we need regulators to be more interested in understanding markets and politicians to be less in awe of money and less influenced by the seemingly munificent gestures of large companies seeking to show that they aren't just greedy bastards - when in fact they are.'

The financial crisis has called into question a whole philosophy on both sides of the Atlantic: the so-called 'Anglo-Saxon model' of liberal capitalism which has dominated the US and the UK economies for 30 years, now with disastrous results.

Even Irwin Stelzer, Rupert Murdoch's economic adviser, and arch-defender of free markets, admitted: 'The day when that engine of capitalism, the financial market, will be allowed to operate more or less unimpeded by government, has passed.' Veteran investor George Soros has argued that we are suffering the after-effects of a 'super bubble' fuelled by decades of deregulation and hands-off economic management - and it is time for the political tide to turn.

The financial markets' extraordinary ascendancy can be traced back to the Ronald Reagan-Margaret Thatcher era of the 1980s. They slashed controls on markets and set finance free. In 1986, a whole series of rules and restraints were abolished in one fell swoop, the 'Big Bang'. For consumers up and down Britain, the liberation of the financial markets made it much easier to borrow. The days of queuing anxiously to see the bank manager, to persuade him to give the nod to a mortgage, or agree to an overdraft, were over. Owning shares was no longer the preserve of the wealthy few, sauntering to their brokers after lunch in a London club.

When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, exposing the shattered state of the centrally planned Soviet economy, defenders of market freedom felt vindicated. It was, said one darling of the free-marketeers, Francis Fukuyama, 'the end of history' because the Cold War was over and the power of the market had triumphed.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has called for a global summit in November to rebuild the whole world financial and monetary system from scratch, saying: 'The idea that markets are always right was a mad idea.'

Even if the Paulson plan is clinched without further delay, there is no hope of an imminent recovery either in the US or the UK.

The pain for ordinary homeowners on Main Street USA is already being felt, and in Britain unemployment is rising quickly, and consumers are tightening their belts. Rosebys, the home furnishing chain, became the latest casualty in the retail sector on Friday, when it collapsed into administration, leaving its 2,000 staff uncertain about their future.

'Folks, it's not just finance,' Citigroup economist Steven Wieting warned the world. 'The recession bus left the station earlier this year.'

[AlfredJPruffock]

Another Day - Another Show Tral - this time AIG

For some people at AIG, the insurance giant rescued last month with an $85 billion federal bailout, the good times keep rolling.

Joseph Cassano, the financial products manager whose complex investments led to American International Group's near collapse, is receiving $1 million a month in consulting fees.

Former chief executive Martin J. Sullivan, whose three-year tenure coincided with much of the company's ill-fated risk-taking, is receiving a $5 million performance bonus. And just last week, about 70 of the company's top performers were rewarded with a week-long stay at the luxury St. Regis Resort in Monarch Beach, Calif., where they ran up a tab of $440,000.

At a House committee hearing yesterday, Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) showed a photograph of the resort, which overlooks the Pacific Ocean, and reported expenses for AIG personnel including $200,000 for rooms, $150,000 for meals and $23,000 for the spa.

"Less than a week after the taxpayers rescued AIG, company executives could be found wining and dining at one of the most exclusive resorts in the nation," Waxman said in kicking off an angry hearing of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. "We will ask whether any of this makes sense."

"They were getting their manicures, their pedicures, massages, their facials while the American people were paying their bills," thundered Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.).

The gathering was planned before the bailout as a reward for life insurance agents, a company spokesman said, and fewer than 10 AIG executives were present.

The hearing promised and delivered strident condemnations of the two AIG executives the committee had invited to testify. Sullivan served as chief executive from 2005 to 2008; Robert B. Willumstad served as chief executive from June until September, and before that was chairman of the board.

"Shame on you, Mr. Sullivan," said Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.), noting that Sullivan was not giving up any of his $5 million performance bonus.

Over and over, the committee members vented outrage at having the federal government bail out the company, referring frequently to their angry constituents.

But neither Sullivan nor Willumstad acknowledged making any mistakes.

[lilelvis2000]

will he ever need to work again

probably no

His wife will need to severly cut back on her lifestyle then...I just bet she moves to London in the near future and initiates a divorce.

[BrilloPad]

If all his wealth had been in shares - would he have been so "cavalier" at rejecting offers of cash injections?

[AtW]

The more important questions are
: can he be held accountable in a court of law over the bankrupcty?
: will he ever work again?

probably NO on both counts.

Sarbanes Oxley might help.

Those banks had toxic subprime debt embelished as triple AAA securities - that's the root cause of issue, if they were grading this debt appropriately they would not be able to issue so much of it.

As CEO he signed off plenty of papers to take him into jail for a long time.

[Spacecadet]

The more important questions are
: can he be held accountable in a court of law over the bankrupcty?
: will he ever work again?

probably NO on both counts.

will he ever need to work again

probably no

[lilelvis2000]

The more important questions are
: can he be held accountable in a court of law over the bankrupcty?
: will he ever work again?

probably NO on both counts.

[AtW]

It makes you sick to the stomach.
They should all be stripped of their wealth given social security and a council flat (or US equivalent)
End of story

Commie!!!

sasguru.

[AlfredJPruffock]

Well aint that a cryin' shame !!!

But as we folks here in Texas say - if you're so smart - how come you ain't Rich !!!!

Greed is good Folks !!!

Oink Oink !!!

[Moscow Mule]

It makes you sick to the stomach.

They should all be stripped of their wealth given social security and a council flat (or US equivalent)

End of story

So should you - making all that money of poor folk who can't afford a mortgage. SHAME ON YOU.

[Diver]

It makes you sick to the stomach.

They should all be stripped of their wealth given social security and a council flat (or US equivalent)

End of story