You people are morons , sorry but that's how I see it. Bankers caused this downturn , and now you tell me do they deserve the bonuses when lot of shareholders got wipedout. Way to go Obama.
This guy thinks he is still running for office. He is saying what he thinks voters want to hear. If someone doesn't "get it", its him. When they asked this exact question to Gov Patterson of NY his answer was exactly opposite of what Obama says. He said on CNBC: Why leave this money with the banks? Because of massive writedowns last year they are tax exempt for the forseable future. If they pay it out to employees we can tax it. NY city and NY state desperately need this tax revenue. If the bankers don't get it, or get stock instead, we won't see a dime of it.
Tick, what shareholders got wiped out? Market near an all-time high. The economy sucks, largely because of the demise of housing market and the collapse in packaged subprime mortgage market. That easy credit was who's fault? Jimmy Carter created the CRA. Clinton, Ted Kennedy, Frank and HUD secretary Cuomo quintupled the size of FNM and FRE. Its easy to point fingers, but when you lived thru it and saw and worried about it happening from the inside, its tough to be the fall guy for something you had in reality nothing to do with.
You guys need to understand something , this market is rigged , bankers are always against you , you can master TA as much as you want , but you stand no chance when against big guys. One example . POS Michael Esiner of Disney , what a crook ,and Dicky Grasso of NYSE and so many others , besides bankers.
OK, let's see. We covered FNM and FRE. C: Clinton handed the pen to Sandy Weil after repealing Glass Steagal allowing the creation of a behemoth. A monster that acquired the likes of Solly, Smith Barney . . . LEH and BSC: Bankers that got paid in stock and controlled over 1/3 of the company got hurt the most. They could not hedge or diversify this risk like the general public that might have held these in a diversified portfolio. BAC: I believe its back to where it was a year ago after digesting CCR (see FNM and FRE) and MER (see LEH and BSC).
Tick, just to show you I am not being beligerent, I am going to have to agree with you here. The ironic thing here is that after Koslowski (TYC) and Ebbers (WCOM), congress was up in arms about giving stock and stock options to directors and employees of firms. They felt it was giving them fodder to manipulate earnings and ultimately share prices for their own benefit. Taxes were often capital gains so the govt was getting screwed here too. Now 5 years or so later, govt wants to know why directors and employee's don't have more 'accountability' by getting more of their compensation in stock and stock options??? -NYSE went public under Thain. Grasso just got paid too much.