Dear Friend and Reader:
It’s nothing short of amazing how shamelessly unaware and cavalier the financial sector seems to be about the efforts to save them. Call me naive, but let me put this delicately. There seems to beВ a complete disconnect from reality informing the actions of the leaders of financial institutions in the wake of the markets’ fall.
It would be comical if the financial picture wasn’t so grim, but big financiers seem to expect help without accountability for it and appear to have no shame about screwing the country’s pocketbook in the first place. $700 billion in taxpayer money? No big sweat. Remember the arrival of General Motors executives by private jet to request funds from Congress to bail out the ailing auto industry? They were sent home to think about it some more and try again later.
Outgoing Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain used $1.2 million of Merrill Lynch’s money in 2007 to re-decorate the bathroom of his executive suite.В This was the company that later in 2008 would be asking for bailout help from the government. Citigroup, a recipient of $45 billion in federal bailout funds was shamed into returning its $50 million company jet, purchased using bailout funds.В Bank of America used a portion of federal bailout fundsВ to host a conference call to garner political support, including a plan to fund the re-election of key Republicans in Congress to defeat passing of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), a law that would protect workers’ rights to unionize. AP reports today that a large number of banks that received bailout funds hired foreign workers under the H1-B visa program, neglecting American workers elegible for the same jobs, while the jobless rate is now 7.2%, the highest in 10 years.
President Obama went ballistic when it was discovered that at the end of last year $18 billion from the first bailout was used to pay employee bonuses at major financial houses. On top of that it seems that amount was relatively paltry to the industry.В Says The New York Times:
Without a doubt, $18 billion is a lot of money, but it’s a drop in the bucket on Wall Street, said Gustavo Dolfino, president of the WhiteRock Group, a headhunter for the banks. These bonuses are down, and the salaries are not enough for these people.В They can’t live on $150,000 to $180,000, so they haven’t saved any money.В They put it on credit lines and at bonus time, they thought they’d pay it off.
Now if the thought of not being able to live on $150 to $180 thousand a year isn’t jaw-dropping enough for those of us who can barely afford the minimum payment on our monthly credit card bills, there is a short and to-the-point diary in Daily Kos that gives a perfect snapshot on how the financial industry views itsВ В love-hate relationship with our government.