The storming of the Winter Palace, St Petersburg, Russian

I would tell you to take the following with a grain of salt. I am out of tobacco for the next 36 hours and it has been a little blue around here lately. I mean the health bill does not look so good and Matthews is making it sound like the Feds are getting ready to kill everyone over 65.

ANYWAY....

They can run (or, rake in $3 billion in three months) but they can't hide. A Senate panel has subpoenaed financial institutions, including Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank, seeking evidence of fraud in last year's mortgage-market meltdown, sources tell The Wall Street Journal. The congressional investigation is focusing on whether emails and other internal communications reveal that bankers privately doubted whether the mortgage-related securities they were facilitating were as sound as their public reports suggested. Washington Mutual, now largely owned by J.P. Morgan Chase, has also been subpoenaed. The investigation is the latest in a series of moves by Congress to examine the roots of the economic meltdown. Spokesmen from the banks have yet to comment.  http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheat-sheet/?cid=hp:cheatsheet2#cheatrow_7997

NY Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has issued a report entitled. "No Rhyme or Reason: The 'Heads I Win, Tails You Lose' Bank Bonus Culture," The figures regarding payment to 'top' executives by failing financial institutions is staggering.  Here is what I have gleaned so far:

Goldman/Sachs apparently has 30,000 employees.   953 of these lucky bastards received bonuses of at least $1 million.  By my reckoning, that is damn close to a billion dollars IN BONUSES.  Of course these god-like 953 who could never be replaced if we believe repub hyperbole, also received salaries along with  costly health insurance coverage that would make a Senator's package look like basic health care. They also received travel reimbursement which, no doubt included those big sized soap bars that hotels give their richest customers and probably monogrammed towels.

I should underline that perhaps our wrath centers on 1000 employees rather than the 29000 remaining but I have not seen what THE LOWER TIER bonuses were and I would guess that another couple thousand employees did not do that badly.  It is a pyramid scheme of course. The top 4 received a total of $46 million. You see you must pay the tier under you well so that they will be content and abide by private contractual terms making them keep their mouths shut while the golden boys pick up the REAL MONEY.

And the shareholders for whom the corporation is dedicated?  Well, Goldman reported to its shareholders that it 'earned' $2.3 billion.  Oh these hundred thousand shareholders must have been so excited at the 'report' that they received concerning their 'earnings'; a report that was mandated by state and Federal law. Then we find out that total bonuses to 'employees' amounted to $4.8 billion.  So the top two or three thousand employees received twice as much as the shareholders IN BONUSES.

Think about this. Forget all the other issues here. We watched as the 'Management'--which serves at the pleasure of the shareholders through the Board of Directors--slowly but surely over the last 50 years reached a point where they received more than the shareholders. More than twice what the shareholders received. I mean do not forget that Management learned how to install idiots on their boards when they were not performing a quid pro quo with other managements by sitting on their boards. Kind of like 'musical board of director chairs'.  State and Federal law slowly took away any chance for shareholders to bring law suits against management or their boards. Conservative judges blocked these suits all the way up to the United States Supreme Court--as well as state supreme courts.

Now interject this system with repub administrations who basically took away all meaningful governmental oversight, and you have what we have today. Runaway management.

Now management could do anything they damn please. And of course 'cook the books' so that it was not clarified that the 'profits' of the corporation were not compared to 'bonuses' let alone 'base pay'.

And you must also, somewhere, add into all of this special distributions of stock that go to top management that are not recorded as 'bonuses'. Stock that is later sold on the basis of 'inside information'. Oh but prove that the repubs will say. WHO HAS MORE INSIDE INFORMATION THAN MANAGEMENT.  And yet we put Martha in jail for getting inside information FROM HER OWN STOCK BROKER!!!!

How about Morgan Stanley?   With 47,000 employees, 428 received BONUSES of over one million dollars. Well it claimed 'earnings' of $1.7 billion AND PAID OUT $4.5 BILLION IN BONUSES.  How much information did the shareholders receive concerning this theft?  And I would guess that, say, 40,000 employees did not know much about this either.

Two firms, Citigroup and Merrill Lynch, suffered losses of more than $27 billion each but paid out $5.3 billion and $3.6 billion in bonuses, respectively, the report noted. Together, they have received TARP funds totaling $55 billion.

What the hell did Citigroup and ML tell their shareholders?  Uh, well things did not really go well this year but WE ARE DOIN FINE. And what in the fuck did they tell the government when 20% of the TARP monies went to management?

At JP Morgan, 1,626 of 224,961 employees got more than $1 million, with the top four bonus earners awarded a combined $74.80 million. Now that is closer to two billion is it not?

THERE'S SOMETHING HAPPENING HERE AND YOU DO NOT KNOW WHAT IT IS, DO YOU AMERICA!!!!!

Now I got  all this info from the Washington Post, or most of the figures anyway, but watch how screwed up their thinking is:

The report also noted that some banks paid bonuses that were more in line with their performance. For example, State Street made $1.8 billion and paid bonuses of $470 million. It received $2 billion in TARP funding. Thus, the relationship between performance of the firms and bonuses varied immensely, and the bonus incentive system does not appear to have been tethered to any consistent principles tying compensation to performance or risk metrics.  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/30/AR2009073001581.html?hpid=topnews *

Why do I think this thinking is fucked up?  They are saying, hey, the management only received 25% of all earnings using the shareholders' company funds, company names, company contacts, company offices, company computers, company secret files.... WHAT THE HELL IS THAT? I mean are we grading on the bell curve or what?  Hey these people only stole half a billion dollars besides monogrammed towels.

And catch this gem from the Daily Beast which sent me to the Post in the first place:

Think New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo might have an election on his mind? Look no further than the title of his new report on big bank bonuses for the answer, which does not shy away from stoking the populist furor. 

POPULIST FUROR?  Jesus Christ Almighty (blesses himself kind of), the Beast makes it sound like I am supposed to look at the work of Cuomo as being somehow politically expedient. THESE ARE BILLIONS OF DOLLARS BEING STOLEN FROM THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, not millions. Total bonuses would add up to trillions over the years. And we are supposed to be worried about the cost of health care in this country. WHO IN THE FUCK IS KIDDING WHOM?

That was exactly the kind of language that frickin Novak would use, time and time again. Oh the liberals are fanning the flames of class conflict.  I SURE HOPE THE FUCK SOMEBODY FANS THESE FLAMES!!!!!

TRICKLE DOWN ECONOMICS.  Sure some Indonesians are making a buck making those monogrammed towels. And surely some Indians are making money making the bigger bars of soap. And I am sure that some limo drivers received nice tips and lap dancers filled their g-strings with Franklins. BUT COME ON.  

Anybody who votes to sustain the status quo is the enemy.  And that means ALL REPUBS IN CONGRESS RIGHT NOW. These pols voted for less regulation and also voted to keep the doors to the courthouse closed to the shareholders. They voted for tax loopholes for travelers. They voted for lower taxes on obscene salaries and bonuses. THEY HAVE NO DEFENSE WHATSOEVER.

* By Tomoeh Murakami Tse

Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, July 30, 2009; 1:52 PM