With the crooks in the financial system getting millions in bonuses for tanking the economy, the credibility of the whole system is shot to hell. Why would anyone respect the law, or few obligated to pay their taxes with this crap going on? People are never going to trust the system again.

With the crooks in the financial system getting millions in bonuses for tanking the economy, the credibility of the whole system is shot to hell.

Articles like this clearly show that the system doesn't need credibility. All the companies involved need is a corrupt political class, a captive customer base, and the power to exclude any options for either.

If you or your company can only rent money from the Cosa Nostra, to the Cosa Nostra you will go. They do these things because they know that nobody can tell them not to.

You'd be amazed at how long this sort of thing has been going on.

"We disapprove of slavery and the cost of the maintenance and upkeep of slaves. We prefer our English model in which we control the issuance of currency, and control of money. It allows us to control labor without the cost of maintaining it."

Amschel Bauer Mayer Rothschild, 1838

"Let me issue and control a Nation's money and I care not who makes its laws".

Amschel Bauer Mayer Rothschild, 1849

Obama either won't challenge them, or he can't. The result is the same.

Incidents like these clearly show the banksters can do anything they please. Anything. They control the currency, they control the economy, and therefore can and do control the US government, as they control all governments of countries of any significance, and they control them for the benefit of their greed.

Some people still don't get it. They think banksters are friendly people who do handle paperwork and count bits of cash in pretty buildings.

"My mommy always said there were no monsters. No real ones. But there are."

Aliens

Some people still don't get it. They think banksters are friendly people who do handle paperwork and count bits of cash in pretty buildings.

Yesterday Project Mockingbird's Liberal Wing (It calls itself National Public Radio, or NPR) was tweet tweet tweeting away about how the Federal Reserve has done oh-so-much, on its own mind you, and with no help from the do-nothing meanies in the bought and controlled congress, to help protect the poor consumer from evil credit card companies. Are you implying that the Bankster Cabal is not noble and true?

On March 18th (see sig for link to read in context) I wrote:

The "Geithner plan" to have AIG "repay" these bonuses does no such thing. The "plan" is to "recover" an amount equal to the bonus money (which despite what is commonly said is closer to 500 million than it is to 165 million) by withholding it from the next 30 billion dollar check.

Bottom line? The AIG bonus "revelation" has been known for a while. Like many other fuzzy numbers, those who took pronouncements at face value without looking deeper may regard the 454 million dollar figure as a "revelation", but more than a few people who are long since tired of trying to choke down fuzz were already well aware.

Fuzzy numbers everywhere...when what we need is reality. See http://www.chrismartenson.com/crashcourse/chapter-16-fuzzy-numbers for more...

Let's see here ... $120 million to 6,000 employees, then $454 million to about 50,000 employees.

So the first 6,000 are sharing $120 mil to get about $20,000 each. And the next 46,000 are sharing $334 mil to get about $7260 each.

I can understand the outrage, I really can. And I really get that $7000 is lots more than someone gets when they are out of a job. But that said - it's not exactly a princely sum.

Moreover - given that it's unlikely that everyone is making the average, I would guess that about half those people are getting less than $5000. Moreover, I'm guessing that most of *those* people weren't directly involved in financial products - they were making the company run, while someone else was planning financial strategies.

My opinion? I think that there are bigger, badder fish to fry.

We should pay them zero. That is, bring back slavery. A truly progressive solution to the problem.

... that while everyone else is suffering, the companies that created this mess are continuing business as usual thanks to massive infusions of government money.

Companies that haven't received bailouts are laying people off. The people who still have jobs are having their pay and benefits reduced, and they have to live with the continual worry that their jobs will be the next ones to be cut.

Meanwhile, AIG needs huge amounts of government money to stay out of bankruptcy, but they continue to pay bonuses. This is crazy.

Retention or otherwise. In California we have an 11% unemployment rate, and none of the people without jobs got bonuses. Millions of public employees never get bonuses. In this economy I have to wonder about the capability of any company leader that authorizes bonuses when their company is practically in receivership. Whoever did this should be fired and any stimulus money paid out should be connected to a "no bonus" policy AND a requirement that any people who received bonuses will pay them back over the next year. And if they want to leave and find another job, they can leave and compete with the other unemployed people in the financial sectore. Retention bonus, my a%*.

At the end of 2007 I got a 6 or 7% bonus. The's about $4K so if a lot of people at a company where the average salary is higher than mine got an average or $5k that sounds about right.

What I can argue about is that a company that is losing money is giving out bonuses at all. I didn't get a bonus at the end of last year, not because the company was losing money but because we didn't make as large a profit as the people at the top thought we should. So when I hear that a company that had to take a, what was it $65 billion, gift from the federal government to stay in business is paying out bonuses with my tax dollars I have to ask why.