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By Christopher Hitchens
$16.19
By Morris. P. Fiorina and Samuel J. Abrams
$40
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AP / NBC News / William B. Plowman
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Jack Lew is a liberal who worked for Speaker Tip O’Neill and studied under beloved progressive Sen. Paul Wellstone, but he was also the chief operating officer of a Citigroup unit and doesn’t fault deregulation for the shoddy economy. (more)
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U.S. Coast Guard
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Even Wall Street executives have to be smacking their heads over this one. The company that ran the Deepwater Horizon oil rig (before it exploded, killing 11 and filling the Gulf of Mexico with oil) has decided to give its executives bonuses for achieving “the best year in safety performance in our company’s history.” There are no words ...
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Fake news by Andy Borowitz —
The gargantuan year-end bonuses paid out to Goldman Sachs executives have received howls of protests from the banking giant’s legion of critics, but not from its most ardent defender: Satan.
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Sticks and stones and all that: U.S. bankers are probably glad today that, as the childhood rhyme claims, “words can never hurt me,” since the Obama administration’s so-called pay czar has decided to criticize them for paying out $1.6 billion in extra payments to top execs after they received federal bailout funds—but not seek any punishment.
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AP / Bebeto Matthews
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By Moshe Adler — Like many of us, President Barack Obama is outraged by how out of control executive compensation is, but his plan to fix the problem simply won’t work.
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commons.wikimedia.org / Ramy Majouji
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President Barack Obama wants to slap a new tax on the country’s largest financial institutions in an ostensible attempt to “recover every single dime” given away in 2008’s Wall Street bailout. The tax was met with predictable fat-cat jeers, despite the fact that the industry has largely recovered from the crisis.
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By Eugene Robinson — Slashing bonuses at bailed-out companies is like arresting jaywalkers while ignoring the bank robbery that’s happening in broad daylight down the block.
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By Joe Conason — Anyone infuriated by the grossly inflated compensation of the masters of finance should check out the incredible earnings of the top executives in the health insurance business.
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gawker.com
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The Obama administration, perhaps getting wise to public opinion, is lashing out at Wall Street firms. White House senior adviser David Axelrod called the huge bonuses executives received this year “offensive” in light of the fact that the rest of us are struggling through an economic crisis.
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visitbulgaria.info
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For almost two years, insurance giant AIG has experienced quarterly losses—until now. The infamous company is reporting its first profitable quarter since 2007, a turnabout that will give the U.S. government a whopping $1.5 billion gain as a shareholder, while individual shareholders get to split $311 million among themselves.
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AP / Mark Lennihan
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By Robert Scheer — By now everybody must know that the top banking executives responsible for our economic meltdown have no shame. Otherwise they would not have dared give themselves such hefty bonuses as a deeply perverse reward for actions that caused millions of Americans to lose their jobs and homes.
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ceoworld.biz
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It’s baffling how $33 million can seem like a relatively small sum lately, but given that it’s all that Bank of America will have to pay the SEC for failing to inform investors about the billions in bonuses the bank paid Merrill Lynch executives during B of A’s acquisition of Merrill last year, it seems more like a light knuckle-rap than a full-on spanking.
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This week’s show covers flagrant shenanigans in the financial world—could it be that Tony Blankley makes a move toward the left? Meanwhile, lefty Robert Scheer is the surprising deficit hawk in the mix, and Arianna Huffington and Matt Miller clash over whether the absence of a strong public provision in Congress’ emerging health plan represents a betrayal of the American people. Also: beer!
Posted on Jul 31, 2009
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Collage: Flickr / david.nikonvscanon and Staples.com
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By Marie Cocco — The arithmetic of this recession still looks pretty dismal and the politics and psychology of it are starting to become disconnected from reality in a scary way.
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Flickr / eflon
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The closest we’ve come to a pitchfork moment in this whole economic crisis was the last time AIG tried to shower its employees with bonuses. You may recall that the financial giant was rewarded with $180 billion in federal funds after losing more money than any company ever did before and helping to ruin the world economy. Well, they’re at it again.
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Here are the five most-read stories of the last seven days, including Chris Hedges on America’s moral meltdown and Robert Scheer on the economic incompetents who find easy employment in the Obama administration. Full list after the jump.
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By Marie Cocco — Obama needs to stop straddling and to threaten to veto any cockamamie tax scheme that emerges from Congress as retribution for the repulsive bonuses handed out at American International Group.
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By Eugene Robinson — The treasury secretary may indeed be the hardest-working man in Washington. But in order to survive, let alone succeed, he’s going to have to make a more convincing case that he’s part of the solution and not part of the problem.
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By Marie Cocco — If only the contracts entered into by shop-floor workers at auto plants were as inviolate as those secured by the incompetent pirates of the American International Group.
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By Joe Conason — Having long flattered themselves as “masters of the universe,” the creative financiers of Wall Street and London are today exposed as grifters rather than geniuses, yet their arrogance remains intact.
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White House / Pete Souza
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Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has developed a bad reputation in his short time on the job. He appears to have the fortitude of porridge and a love of banks and the bankers who bankrupt them. Despite calls for Geithner’s ouster over the AIG bonus blunder, the president says he has “complete confidence” in his top economist.
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Geithner image from Presidencia de la Nación Argentina
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Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has sent Congress an explanation of his plan to deal with the AIG bonus fiasco. Essentially, Treasury will dock the $165 million in bonuses from AIG’s next bailout payment. Here’s a question: If AIG can do without that $165 million, why were we giving it to the company in the first place?
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AP photo / Mark Lennihan
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In a letter to House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, reprinted here, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo shares what his office has discovered so far about AIG’s scandalous bonuses, which “made more than 73 millionaires in the unit which lost so much money that it brought the firm to its knees, forcing a taxpayer bailout.”
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Lie Louis Périn-Salbreux
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By Eugene Robinson — Earth to Wall Street: It’s over, people. You had a terrific run, better than you deserved, but now you’d be wise to pay attention to those citizens outside, the ones with the pitchforks and the torches.
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The president is famous for his even disposition, but he appears to be flat-out pissed at the news that Wall Street bankers showered themselves with bonuses while helping drive the economy into a ditch.
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Flickr / treehouse1977
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If you’re in a good mood, you may just want to skip this bit of news from The New York Times: “Despite crippling losses, multibillion-dollar bailouts and the passing of some of the most prominent names in the business, employees at financial companies in New York ... collected an estimated $18.4 billion in bonuses for the year.” Update
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msnbc.com
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In an effort to combat ever dwindling enthusiasm among America’s youths for a career in the military, the Army is enlarging its recruitment staff, loosening age and criminal record restrictions and offering more cash bonuses, such as $45,000 tax-free to buy a house. Last year the Army spent $1 billion on bonuses and advertisements.
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