If these quotes in the article are true, the wall street wankers are really detached from reality. What babies.

DN

What is truly funny is that Obama is their best friend. And he is going to raise their taxes to – what they paid under Clinton? My god, it should be what they paid under Truman.

Summers and Geithner are doing their best to bail that clueless sector out. All share the expectation that normal is, like 2006, and we are going back there. So after the pop of spending the trillions for this set (which has a remarkably low unemployment figure so far – 6.5 percent – as compared to other industries, because – ta da! – it is so on the federal tit) has been exhausted, the shrinking process will continue, inexorably. These are the types to become all rightwing militia about it too. Was the Columbia/Wharton line a joke, by the way?

Anyway, again, raising taxes is not enough. Real reform is needed. Crush the OTC system, for instance, the peer to peer trading in hazardous instruments, and trade in a real, institutionally transparent forum – even Myron Scholes is for that. Crush the idea that the equities market is a speculators play thing by instituting a rule advocated by Theodore Roosevelt – market capitalization can never get above the real value of a corporation. Abolish the system of letting corporations chose to headquarter in some compliant state and obey those state laws – make them register nationally and obey national laws. Simple things, but collectively they will shrink the financial sector to the size that it should be for a healthy capitalist economy.

I’m sure this will be great news to the police and firefighting force of New York City, some of whom may be called up in the middle of the night to rescue this twerp from a burning building. Or to the doctors and nurses who would take care of his overpaid a** if he had a heart attack, or, God forbid, was mugged or shot by some irate representative of the untermenschen. And these guys think they’re being subjected to class warfare? Wonder if these words ring any bells: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” They might want to meditate on the fate of Foulon, whose head was carried through the streets of Paris on a pike with his mouth stuffed with grass for remarking that if the people had no bread, they’d eat hay.

In this case, their work has subtracted from the GNP to the tune of billions of dollars, but instead of being charged for the damage they did, they not only expect to be paid an outrageous fortune, but they then object to returning 3% of it in taxes. Before complaining about being taxed, they need to explain why they should be paid at all.

It’s only a loan if there is any chance that it will be paid back with interest. Otherwise, and that is what seems to be happening, it is a giveaway. The loans that have been “paid back” were paid with money that the banks got from AIG when the worthless papers they had were supported at full value by tax payer funds.

This bailout is most definitely NOT a loan.

Don’t I wish!!! Four four years I was a dairy veterinarian in Wisconsin where the night time temperatures are between -50F to 32F for six months of the year. During that time there was only one night (Christmas of one year) that I was not called out by a farmer for an emergency. At the time I was making about what the local dentist was paying in income taxes.

When I read about these worthless wimps moaning about not getting paid enough, I understand what East Texans mean when they say that some people just need dying.

And, the idea that paying 3% more taxes creates a disincentive for those who “strive” to create wealth is disingenuous. The other 99% would gladly take the top’s earnings in exchange for paying 3% taxes. Oh, but they probably wouldn’t be capable of misunderstanding the risk involved with transactions and crippling their company. That takes a degree from Wharton.

I once worked as a facilities manager for a large large bank. I was solely responsible for overseeing the infrastructure (Chillers, UPS Systems, leak detection, halon, etc) of 3 major server rooms. If the server rooms had an infrastructure problem, and the servers went down, they lost millions of dollars every minute they were down. I was on call 24/7. I once slept under my desk during a 36-hour stint at the office. I made 38K a year, (and part of the time I made less, with no health care).

I wonder if “One financier” feels that military personnel, firefighters, on-call doctors, or even say…facilities managers also deserve 2 million dollars a year. Douche. Bag.

Why not accept a Silicon Valley compensation structure?

The problem here is incentives. There is a failure in corporate governance to address the long-term health of the organizations. They are creating compensation instead of value.

The CRA canard doesn’t even remotely hold water. Much of the securitization was set up by investment banks like Lehman and Bear Stearns, which were not subject to that law. Anthony Mozilo even threatened to take all of Countrywide’s business to them if Fannie Mae didn’t finance their riskier paper: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/05/busine ss/05fannie.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=reckoning %20mozilo&st=cse&pagewanted=all

But you’re half right. The crisis was caused by government insuring financial institutions (via FDIC, limited liability, the “Greenspan put”) while deregulating their decisions. It’s called moral hazard for a reason.

Imagine what would happen if you were running this country? I imagine we would be trading sticks and stones.

I’ll take Columbia and Wharton MBA’s instead.

If you really want to point fingers, you could take it all the way back to Woodrow Wilson and his establishment of a centralized bank. That aside, the crux of this mess comes down to two things: 1. The Clinton administration’s manipulation of the housing market through the amendments in the Community Reinvestment Act in the mid 90′s. 2. The Bush Administration’s manipulation of rates in the early 2000′s to encourage buying.

Banks had to adhere to government regulations to lend to people who were less than creditworthy otherwise they risked government penalty. An outline of the stipulations can be found here: http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents  /testimony/braunstein20080213a.htm

As for anyone who wants to bring up the Madoff issue or perhaps Sanford – well, those people had multiple reports filed against them by…the private marketplace. The SEC either ignored them or just issued fines so they could get a piece of the pie.

A lot of people messed up, but don’t blame it on capitalism. Capitalism is what exposed the frauds.

PS the rich pay more in taxes in one year than many people do in a lifetime so stop blaming them and start blaming the real idiots – politicians. And no, I’m not rich.