Found an interesting Obama website that I thought would be worth while to look at

www.thebarackobamawatch.com

Oh, too bad. They won't be allowed more than half a million dollars -- a year! I live on disability and the kindness of family and friends. I know they would say (as my ex-husband who was a Wall Street analyst used to say) "I have the same problems you do, they're just bigger." Well, fine. He lives in a multi-million dollar home and pays more than double in property taxes than I ever made while working. Somehow, sometime, the help needs to get to those who need it. If it were my call, I'd give them a $1 a year salary until they make a profit. If they haven't banked any of their incredible bonuses from previous years, tough. And like others, I'd like to know just exactly what the CEO of a big bank does besides have lunch and play golf.

hah! Did I strike a nerve using your ancient alias?

To answer your question, no, government interference with my compensation is NOT what broke me. I was one of the folks who was at a successful (at the time) dot.com and was shown the door a few months after the 9/11 attacks.

That wasn't a good time to be looking for work in IT in NYC.

C'est la vie.

Although, just to mention, your analogy is imperfect.

If my employer had gone broke and needed billions of dollars to remain solvent, it wouldn't have been rewarded with taxpayer money, either. So my income wouldn't have gone to 10% of the original--it would've gone to zero when they closed the doors.

What big banks have HQs in NC, anyway? Why is this so important to you? You should make the point to your management that it would be far better to go out of business with big salaries than remain operating with little ones.

Send yer resume to Merrill Lynch...uh, wait...Stearns? Um...

...pissing and moaning is all the Repubs and their ilk are all about. They never remember that the everyday, ordinary working man/woman is concerned about how he/she is going to feed his family and provide nothing more than the basic necessities, because basic needs are all he/she/we can ever afford.

For the Repubs the sky is ALWAYS falling, and/but only on them. They are absolutely convinced that only they suffer or worry. Their associated religions think the same way, mine included. What a bunch of whining cry babies! No wonder Big Religion aligns so well with Big Business, the Neocons and the Repub party.

Ever since my religion helped put St. Reagan in the WH I stopped giving them money. When the requests for money arrive in the mail I immediately drop them in the trash.

Truly, the social/religious/governmental contract is broken, long dead and gone. Now according to the Repubs it's every man for himself. I now hold no more automatic trust for any of them. They owe me/us nothing and I/we owe them nothing. Nothing is what they'll get from me. I'll consider people related requests--such as Katrina victims, but religion and Repub party government will never again get my support. An if the Dems want my support they better toe the line, at least some kind of line, one where intelligence, individual rights and the Rule of Law are respected. Rule by Big Religion, Big Business and the power elites of the Repub party are dead as far as I'm concerned.

"We the people", the ordinary people, have been screwed, and screwed big time. Whether this country can survive the Bush-Repubs is now questionable. If not, then so be it. They have one hell of a lot more to lose than I do. I have nearly nothing to lose now.

The majority of shareholders of these banks don't live in NYC, therefore our dividends are NOT subject to tax there. Many shares are in Pensions, 401(k), or abroad, so NO tax revenue available to NY or any other US entity in those cases. Finally, the income tax rate is higher as % than any other we are discussing.

How about - try New Jersey?

Not sure if you were being sarcastic, but FYI, the amount you'd pay for New Jersey Transit and/or PATH trains into NYC for work, on top of your MTA fare, could overwhelm your rent savings living in NJ compared to rents in some parts of NYC (or in rent-stabilized buildings). Rents in NJ are generally much cheaper, but depending on where you already live and what your occupation is, it wouldn't necessarily be more cost effective.

I almost always have more than one job at a time, already live in a rent-stabilized building, and have to be able to get around Manhattan quickly and/or very late at night because of my occupation.

On the other hand, these CEO's making $500,000 could probably do a lot of good in terms of revitalization if they had to make do in, oh, Newark....

But one of my dearly cherished fantasies is that people like this be punished by being sentenced to live on the income, for a certain number of years, of one of the people way down the food chain that they screwed over.

NYC on $13K, anyone?

I'd like to hear them whine about their $500,000 salaries then.

The gall of the Wall Street whiners is truly astonishing. If $500,000 "isn't a lot of money" to these assholes, how would they like to try a nice minimum-wage gig asking "Do you want fries with that?" Step aside, whiners. Plenty of people could do a better job managing this country's investment portfolio than you did!

Masters of the Universe (Wall Street Greedheads) in song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noKqAyOAddA&feature=channel_page

What the hell are "troubled assets"? It's like saying you're kinda pregnant. It's debt. They are in the red. Someone earlier made the genius comment about some of us being envious of others who "made" money. They didn't make shit. They lost money. And now they are begging the gov't for welfare, but they couch it as "troubled assets". I don't think any company is too big to die. This is not pure capitalism, for those who still believe in that particular fairy tale. We'd be much better off if we'd embrace a little more socialism instead of stigmatizing it.