Axelrod Warns Bankers Should 'Think' About Latest Bonuses. That's It?
Is there really nothing more the White House can do about this? Seems like pretty weak tea to tell them to "think about it." Here's hoping there's some arm-twisting going on behind the scenes:
In the wake of reports that Goldman Sachs is set to pay a record 23 billion in bonuses this year, the President’s Senior Adviser David Axelrod told me this morning that he thinks big banks dishing out bonuses to their employees is “offensive” and advises banks to “think through what they are doing.”
“The bonuses are offensive and to the firms that still have federal TARP money there’s some jurisdiction, the pay master of Treasury is working on trying to limit that,” Axelrod said. “You’ve seen a lot of firms go to stock rather than cash, so at least people have a stake in the success of their company and they’re not just walking away with cash-making short-term decisions.”
“They ought to think through what they are doing and they ought to understand that a year ago a lot of these institutions were teetering on the brink and the United States government and taxpayers came to their defense. They have responsibilities and they ought to meet those responsibilities.”
what do you expect?
If this Government has been called socialist, Nazi, communist and every name in the book just because they are trying to bring some societal meaning to America, think what would happen if they try to rein in the bonus amount these assholes are given away to each other. My hair goes up just thinking about it. You don't hear FOXNEWS or any other Republicans raising hell about these bonuses, do you? That's because all they belong to the same club.It makes sense. Doesn't?
I fully support feudalism when it comes to the very rich, including bankers making all of this money at public expense. 94% for some of them (a minority, but still those making over $10m a year should definitely be at a higher income tax rate than 34%, which it is now), which is what it used to be for quite a while during the 40's and 50's, and America got along just fine.
When it comes to the lower class, and to a great degree even the middle class, the idea of an income tax is simply unethical. For it to take, on average 5 months of labor to pay one's taxes each year, we should understand what a flawed system we have. That's treating most citizens as the peasantry. We should have a consumption tax to encourage savings, instead of the middle class having been turned into such wasteful consumer whores.
But then, that would be the wrong incentive for all the money people who need consumers to buy moronic products, made cheap in foreign countries. Cheap foreign labor, but these companies get domestic prices for the product. Sad.
What does anything you just wrote have to do with feudalism?
*Puts fingers in ears*
I'm making money! Lalalala! Can't hear you!
Peaceful protest against the Banksters in Chicago October 25-27
Yves Smith here
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Zero Masters here
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Frank Rich here
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
New tax starting this year:
40% anything over a million per year.
70% anything over 5 million per year.
90% anything over 10 million per year.
The bonuses would stop tomorrow.
Then maybe they might actually "invest" the money they just saved in actual projects that would help build this country.
and I doubt they intend to rebuild it.
When the TARP money was "given" to the banks they were told NOT TO LEND IT OUT TO INDIVIDUALS OR TO SMALL BUSINESSES. That the intent was for the banks to "hold the money" so they would be in a position to buy out the smaller banks.
Here's the interview explaining this. It's called, "The Elite Rescuing the Elite":
http://www.contraryinvestorscafe.com/broadcas...
"The US has an army of 90,000 soldiers in Afghanistan and is spending $100bn a year, but has still been unable to defeat 20,000-25,000 Taliban who receive no pay at all." - Patrick Cockburn
Abbybwood, I have started to listen to this and I am very skeptical.
When someone comes up with a story like this, I want to understand the lines of force that conform to the rules of human nature. Cui bono.
The TARP, the Troubled Asset Relief Program was sold to the Congress as a scheme to purchase Toxic Assets from Banks who were insolvent because of them, though he never said they were insolvent, only that they were having trouble lending.
This fellow completely neglects to mention that.
Paulson changed the program, it would have been a windfall for Banks if there could be agreement on what the assets were worth, which was the entire problem. It is still the problem because they still have those assets. They are getting away with not showing their insolvency through accounting fraud, I don't know what else to call it. Legalized by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) change of the mark to market rules. This they did in April.
Then Paulson decided to simply hand the money over for warrants although at only 66¢ on the dollar.
This guy doesn't mention that.
The TARP program did not have oversight teeth, that is the main problem.
That the Banks did not do boring banking things like lending money and instead went on acquisition binges is not surprising. There would be no need to order them to do that. They would do that naturally unless they were required by law to doing something else. This guy has it completely backwards.
The guy does not draw a credible portrayal. I will listen to more but all kinds of flags go up for me.
Paulson could not order them to do anything, he could get them to agree to do something as a requirement for receiving funds.
He could illegally give money away which he was doing, he was giving money away left and right. The guy doesn't talk about the IRS section 382 giveaway which involved hundreds of billions of illegal tax loopholes authorized by Paulson. This was a tax dodge that congress shut down in the '80s so that Corporations could not acquire other entities and write off their debts.
The big banks gobbling up the banks going bust got an enormous tax bonanza because of this, hundreds of billions of illegal tax write off, simply because Paulson told them they could.
This is in the January stimulus bill where the Congress quietly legalized Paulson's plunder.
The guy does not mention any of that.
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What it sounds more like is a plant. The Bankers are greedy bastards. People are calling them greedy bastards so they send out a story the that evil government made them use the money to make a bunch of unseemly profits instead of lending it (at rates which are unseemly anyway) but making fewer profits.
They own the government.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
I cruise around various websites (like probably most here) and occasionally I find interesting links by others.
I thought this one was interesting..., somewhat thought provoking.
It's hard to seriously understand or obviously even KNOW the truth of what the federal government is up to regarding ANYTHING.
Which is why I like taking any tidbits of information I can find that I feel have a sliver of what may turn out to be the truth....then I throw what I discover out there to you and others in order to get the feedback and a wide range of analysis.
I thank you for listening to the link and for taking the time to share your thoughts. I'm sure others do as well.
"The US has an army of 90,000 soldiers in Afghanistan and is spending $100bn a year, but has still been unable to defeat 20,000-25,000 Taliban who receive no pay at all." - Patrick Cockburn
I guess I could add to that, if Paulson had said to them, look, you are supposed to lend some of this money, but wink, wink, nod, nod, just do what you want.
That would make a lot more sense to me.
They are all a bunch of crooks.
Paulson's name will go down in history with Genghis Khan and Attila the Hun as the greatest plunderers in history.
He didn't need an army.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
Please check out my link regarding Rahm Emanuel just a few posts down....
AB
"The US has an army of 90,000 soldiers in Afghanistan and is spending $100bn a year, but has still been unable to defeat 20,000-25,000 Taliban who receive no pay at all." - Patrick Cockburn
dont include Paulson with Genghis Khan or Attila , they had honor ! .
every time you throw a little mud , you lose a little ground .
9 out of 10 toothless unemployed rednecks without health insurance and homes in foreclosure agree.
Thees ees thee graytist comtry een da wurld!!
I'm sure your dire warning scared them right back into compliance. Yeah, right. Sorry David, but good intentions aren't the same as redemptive actions. Grow a set and actually dare to do something about it.
"We will find fulfillment not in the goods that we have, but in the good we can do for each other."
Robert F. Kennedy
Let's recap the Obama administration thus far, shall we? Won't close Gitmo (no, shipping the illegally held prisoners to some other locale is not my definition of "closing" Gitmo); Won't get us out of Iraq, won't get us out of Afghanistan (in fact, his administration maybe sending more troops into that country); Continues to shovel money to his patrons - the Banksters and Wall Street. In fact, he has some of the same Bush regime criminals running the show. He's backpedaling as fast as he can away from Healthcare reform (even his support for a pathetic half measure like the "Public Option" is currently weak at best). Why do I have that Pete Townshend lyric playing in my head: "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss". Make no mistake, I was one of his most ardent supporters and still am proud that I voted for that man, but make no mistake, he's thrown Liberals and Progressives under the bus so many times already that we all should have tire tracks on our backs. Seriously, I'm running out of ways to rationalize his middle of the road, lean to the Right, Rahm Emmanuel inspired bullshit. I hope I'm eventually proven wrong, but right now it's looking like hoplessness we can believe in.
If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you're gonna get selfish, ignorant leaders.
George Carlin
Check THIS out:
http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2009/09/30/t...
"The US has an army of 90,000 soldiers in Afghanistan and is spending $100bn a year, but has still been unable to defeat 20,000-25,000 Taliban who receive no pay at all." - Patrick Cockburn
This does not surprise me. They have already cut their deal, in fact it was done to begin with.
The Pope of Hope promised to re-negotiate NAFTA. What did he do when he got to Mexico City?
He said never mind.
But I already got the message in June after FISA.
If I had been tuned in I could have gotten it even earlier.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
is like asking the health insurance industry to lower prices!
dandy
Management almost bankrupt the company last year and now they are paying themselves the lion share of this years profits. Shouldn't the stockholders who take the risk insist that they should get the lionshare of the profits. Somehow stockholders are powerless to prevent this wholesale thievery.
I was reading that the depression was preceeded by a cut in the top income tax rate. I starting to believe that cuts in the top income rates seems to lead to a depression.
I have a theory that the wealthy having too much money start to seek higher and higher income in riskier and riskier investments. This causes a bubble which eventually bursts. And the other hand even if the excess wealth is spend in upgrading factories as long as the wages of the workers are not increased to match the increase in productivity then production will be greater than consumption which will lead to greater unemployment.
Most of these large financial institutions do not have shareholders as individuals. A a C-corporation, they can have unlimited shareholders. And the majority shareholders are other corporations, mutual and pension funds. They don't give a crap about the core business they're supposedly running. They only care about either a stable investment, an income investment (dividends), or capital growth (capital gains). So even if the company isn't turning profit around into dividends for stock holders, there is a percent of any portfolio that merely wants stability.
The only thing that any shareholder ultimately cares about is their money (principal in particular). So regulations, limiting the number of shareholders, or the kind of shareholders, is a restriction on freedom of association. It's better if shareholders are allowed to be punished in the only way they ever understand, when shit hits the fan: they lose money.
The bailout could have been done a different way where good assets including deposits were moved to a new good bank. Then the government rescinds the banking charter for the bad bank, their shareholders more or less get fucked on the toxic assets they bought, and the bondholders become the new shareholders and walk away with pennies on the dollar.
The *ONLY* thing that investors and the so called rich understand, is losing money. They do not understand or care about anything else. So when people make excuses for the current administration, or defend the bailout as necessary to prevent Armageddon, they know not what they speak of for one; and for two, they are defending the creation of moral hazard. And that will only encourage the risks investors make because they start to innovate new financial instruments, unregulated because they're new, and we will be in the same mess again as long as the fuck up is big and bad enough to risk all of society failing.
What needs to happen is a small segment of society needs to lose their fuckin money. It's all they care about.
who we trying to kid.
The politicians know who is greasing their shaft with which to screw the American taxpayer. They have not, and will not engage in any meaningful reform of the industry. The government going bankrupt is essentially the only thing, at this point, that will prevent Congress from bailing them out the next time around. They should have moved the good assets to new financial institutions with a new board and new shareholders, and revoked the charters from the old banks instead of giving them TARP money, and let the market decide what should happen to them and their dumbfuck share holders.
does not exist?
There's nothing we can do. They got us by our balls. Then again... remember France 1789?
who's got who's? Is a tail wagging the dog here?
"Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob"
-= Franklin Delano Roosevelt =-
G20
Republicans - unfriendly - unstable
"Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob"
-= Franklin Delano Roosevelt =-
he all ready has a complete staff rairing to go .
every time you throw a little mud , you lose a little ground .
Ronn Lucas for Pres, Fator for VP. Ronn already has a trunkful of buddies that yell to get out.
Not to mention the plastic lips that turn anyone into a dummy.
"Let's talk dirty to the animals"
in a bent-over posture. This is, of course, quite handy if your primary function in life is getting screwed by Republicans.
is that most people are still employed, the world hasn't ended in financial Armageddon, and we can still buy lots of cheap crap from China. And if you're in the market for a home, it's a buyers market.
how to enjoy the riches . . Financial Times is offering a new magazine ”How To Spend It.”
http://www.howtospendit.com/#/
...it fuels the anger that will eventually force the government to come down on the banks with more regulation, and with any luck, break them up into smaller banks.
If he said it like Michael Corleone or Tony Soprano would it make everyone happier?
if MC or TS brought their hushpuppys with them ! .
every time you throw a little mud , you lose a little ground .
Fried Hushpuppies....
Why I am all about the food today?
slang for a silenced 22
every time you throw a little mud , you lose a little ground .
Humor. The topic seems to escape you.
or me for that matter.
is that the name of the bull in the barn ?
every time you throw a little mud , you lose a little ground .
.
like a true member of the "family".
;)
!
!
....wouldn't mind seeing some of these bankers wake up with a horses head in bed with them.
to find shredded $100 bills or stock certificates with some identifier proving it to be theirs!
I think the other end of the horse would be more appropriate.
"We will find fulfillment not in the goods that we have, but in the good we can do for each other."
Robert F. Kennedy
I wouldn't mind so much the admin never standing up to anyone if they would just stop pretending that they might.
and have decided to go with the bonuses.
Who would have thought?
would of crossed my mind , that they do anything different .
every time you throw a little mud , you lose a little ground .
That was a close call!
In return, the bankers promised to lose one night's sleep over it.
With Geithner as the Secretary of the Treasury, it's not shocking the Bush 'n banks partnership is still strong. In March 2008, Geithner arranged the rescue and sale of Bear Stearns; in the same year, he played a pivotal role in the decision to bail out AIG. Geithner believes, along with Henry Paulson, that the United States Department of the Treasury needs new authority to experiment with responses to the financial crisis of 2007–2009 (y'know... like letting them do whatever they want) Paulson has described Geithner as "[a] very unusually talented young man...[who] understands government and understands markets." (and how to fleece them).
This is Obama's achilles. If you think the healthcare insurance companies are in bed with government, the banking industry is the role model to follow!
yeah... the administration will show 'em. just wait for those sec enforcement peeps to get settled. oh wait, i'm sure that 29yo wizbang from goldman sachs will hold his former (and future) employer to account.
it's insulting listening to axelrod and rahmbo -- if only they were in positions of influence...
such as this one...
here you go:
http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/mar/30/a...
Is that the Mooney publication? The one that has spent Billions shaping conserative thought (oxymoran)? Who is their source Fox News? I can't read the article, GIGO.
from the raw story.com:
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Bush_Administra....
this is how they are getting around the laws....loopholes..legally, that is.
check out this article..
this time? Conyers or Reid?
-- but doesn't this Axelrod character look like Jonathan Quail (sp?) Higgins from "Magnum, P.I."?
On a more substantive point, what good does it do to pass regulatory measures when the entire Treasury Department is owned and operated by and on behalf of Goldman Sachs?
In that connection, Matt Taibbi deserves a Pulitzer, or even a Nobel, if the latter is awarded for investigative journalism.
"Axelrod Warns Bankers Should 'Think' About Latest Bonuses. That's It?"
Unfortunately, Obama largest corporate campaign donors came from the financial/insurance sectors.
http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?option=com...
About 4 minutes, 30 seconds in the clip.
We have the best government money can buy, and it shows. But, we kinda knew that, didn't we? Wouldn't we have seen non-stop Reverend Wright if Obama wasn't corporate owned and approved?
Obama was the lesser of two evils, by a country mile in my opinion, but that's all he was.
Next thing you know he'll be taking page from Harry Reid's playbook and rip off a very, very stern letter to those darn bankers.... (sigh)
"Egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of Stupidity" - Frank Leahy
... outrageous fees from those who can least afford it, like overdrafts and returned checks,
What if they will not be able to collect from those who went bankrupt? Will the government give them more bailout for failed fee collections?
If you need funds to pay for essentials, you have a revenue problem
If you need funds to pay for frivolity, you have a spending problem
before bending over the tax payers. It might give the bankers a harder woody.
Goodnight, Frau Blücher
Okay. We've thought about it and we like 'em. But thanks for the concern Dave. Now run off and go bother someone else for a while before we get angry.
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