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Sunday, September 21, 2008
Grab the pitchforks and torches!
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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“Fury at $2.5bn Lehman bonus”
“STAFF at Lehman’s New York office who helped to cause the world’s biggest corporate bankruptcy are to share in a $2.5 billion bonanza.
The bonus, which has been described by London staff as a “scandal,” has been pledged by Barclays Capital, the British-based bank that last week acquired Lehman’s American operation and took on 10,000 staff.
The $2.5 billion (£1.4 billion) pot, which has been ring-fenced as part of the acquisition, has caused huge resentment among the 5,000 staff in the firm’s European and Middle Eastern operations who are not guaranteed to be paid after this month….
A Chapter 11 bankruptcy document filed by Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc says that Barclays has identified eight individuals out of the New York staff of 10,000 who are vital to make the deal succeed and a further 200 who are identified as “key”. It is thought that these eight directors will be locked into two-year contracts worth between $10m and $25m a year.”
Oh, and by the way?
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has now expanded the proposed $700 billion taxpayer financial bailout to include foreign-owned banks … such as Barclay’s. He is also resisting efforts to include restrictions on executive pay in that package.
I am thinking VERY bad thoughts that perhaps should not be expressed in public.
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The price of a $700 billion bailout
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Congress is grimly sorting through the details — the few details that are available — of the extraordinary $700 billion Wall Street bailout proposed by the Bush administration.
Some Democrats, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, have suggested attaching a second economic stimulus package to the must-pass bill, but that’s a bad idea. There’s no evidence the previous stimulus effort had much impact, and the package is expensive enough already.
It’ll also be interesting to see how many Republicans showboat by voting against the package, retaining their ideological purity while letting other people do the responsible thing in a crisis.
However, basic fairness and a sense of proportion do require that the bailout include programs to help keep mortgage holders in their homes and to limit the pay of CEOs whose corporations take part in the bailout. There’s a lot of anger — justified anger — at those “masters of the universe” who helped steer us into this mess. They should be given no choice but to share in the sacrifice.
Some of that anger is reflected in this leaked email from an unidentified Democratic congressman (Warning: Words are used at this link that are not family friendly and will not appear on this blog).
