Bailouts And Bonuses

Posted on 02/12/2009 at 9:17 am by Bob Cesca

A few of the cable news people last night were discussing whether the extravagant bank bonuses came from TARP funds or not. But does it matter where the money came from?

What matters is that there were $18 billion in bonuses while the banks were demanding hundreds of billions in taxpayer cash just to survive the week. Period. In other words, it doesn’t matter where the bonus money came from — what matters is that they paid themselves huge bonuses while committing what amounts to epic scale extortion.

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  • mattpddm03

    One would think if they were that watchful over my money I wouldn’t have lost half of my 401k.I saw the ‘very serious’ steve forbes the other week on strech’s show justifying the bonuses with the same conviction he was spouting off his other nonsense it actually justified my thinking that he was full of crap (in general).

  • http://www.politicalpartypooper.wordpress.com/ politicalpartypooper

    Yes, the bonuses can be considered as part of the bailout money, since any money paid to employees sooner or later shows up on the same balance sheets.Almost as bad is the fact that the House Financial Services Committee is full of people who have received sizable donations from everyone who testified yesterday. Conflict of interests?

  • cminri

    Is there any such thing as a CEO with a conscience?

  • camel54

    Bob, it’s good to see you writing about this. This is something that really chaps my butt. If you need public money to keep from going under, I don’t care how much or how little, all of your money is now my concern. You can’t borrow money from someone because you need it to pay bills and then go out partying with your personal funds. “Well, I didn’t use the money I borrowed to pay the hookers or buy the booze.” This has long been something that gets under my skin.Can you tell I’ve lent money to a family member so he could pay bills only to watch him use his own savings, which he didn’t want to spend on bills because he should be allowed to have a life, to go to the bar night after night?

  • FrictionSoul

    Extortion isn’t the issue, it’s why everyone – Obama included – got behind this Bail Out in the first place.I totally see how useful FISA is and will be to Obama. That didn’t bother me in the least, not because I trust ‘em, but because there’s nothing to stop the AG from using FISA against the Bush Crime regime.I don’t see how looting us, extorting us is useful, especially to the looters. They have long forgotten how to make money. They don’t know how their own market works.I think the best thing would be to nationalize them right now, and repeal the Gramm-Leach Act and any other legislation that weakened the Glass-Steagall Act of 1937.

  • Midad

    I am 100% with you friction soul. The Wall Street Gecko era, Greed is good, is so over. F*ck them!

  • SillyGit

    cm-In my experience, there are no CEOs with a conscience. They are all psychopaths.Not having a conscience is a prerequisite for the job.Bill Gates didn’t have one until he married Melinda.