Those that don't know history are doomed. . .

[Camille]

Haha..love that icon Sis.
It's sort of a lopsided smile come cheeky kiss...best kind

C x

[MyahMichelle]

WOW! I love your icon Camille... very sexy!

[Camille]

Thank you very much Myah *smile*
Your timing is great. Another reason why what started as a shitty night turned out lovely in the end
Fishnets, always good for...fishing :-)

C xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx x

[WTF]

Originally Posted by pjorourke

WTF, we get the sense you don't like banks.

I love banks....especially ones that act responsible.

Now if you are talking about Banks that gamble with my money as opposed to their own, then yes I do not care for that but then that really isn't a bank, that is a crook as I have not given permission for that to happen. I realize that maybe therein lies the difference. Maybe you have give them permission, you are ok with that. Just the cost of a free market society.......

To me a bank that makes bad loans should pay for that on their balance sheet, shareholders should lose money, mangements heads should roll....or we can do what you seem to think is defensible. We bail them out and and act as if nothing ever happened. Like there is not a flaw in a game like this. No wonder one segment of society has grown so wealthy and wants to keep the status quo.

Originally Posted by pjorourke

Looked pretty accurate to me. What facts did they screw up?

Well its not 2030 for starters...

[DFW5Traveler]

What is the difference between a bank or a government that gambles with your money? If either act irresponsibly there really is no difference. If a bank fails due to mismanagement, let the damn thing fail.

There are plenty of or at least were plenty of banks that could have picked up the pieces. It reminds me of my previous post where I showed that the dismemberment of the Glass-Steagle Act gave banks license to create an environment of failure. Both parties are guilty of cronyism.

The govt has failed, the ruling class politicians of both parties have been attacking those not in the clique. Because they know better than you or I. Welcome to serfdom where 'We the People' no longer matter.

The word of the day is Oligarchy, that's oligarchy:
Merriam
[ol-i-gahr-kee]
1: government by the few
2: a government in which a small group exercises control especially for corrupt and selfish purposes; also : a group exercising such control
3: an organization under oligarchic control

Chiefly, a small clique of private citizens who exert a strong influence on government. hmmm... Soros, Gates, Buffet, et.al. all supporters of the current administration.

[discreetgent]

For consistency (since you referenced to both parties) I imagine you also wanted to list the Koch brothers, Robert Perry, etc on the Republican side of things

[pjorourke]

Originally Posted by WTF

To me a bank that makes bad loans should pay for that on their balance sheet, shareholders should lose money, mangements heads should roll....

I agree. And guess what. They did.

Citicorp. They actually fired the CEO Chuck Prince in late 2007, before this mess surfaced. Vikram Pandit was brought in to try and clean up the mess. The consensus is he has done a reasonable job, that's why he is still there. Citi made 4B in 2007, lost 28B in 2008 and lost 2B in 2009. Thats a cumulative loss of $26B vs. a run rate of $22B so thats about $92B that was written off from this mess (after tax). They have $165B in capital left. BTW, the US made about $8B on this deal.

Bank of America. CEO left office (was pushed?). Their earnings in 2008 & 2009 totaled about $10 -- down from a run rate of about $20B a year -- call that a $30+B loss. BTW, they still have 230B in capital. They have paid back all of their TARP money with interest and the government made a nice profit of $1.5B on the warrants.

Wachovia. Gone as a public company. Now owned by Wells Fargo and will soon be disappearing. Ken Thompson, the CEO was forced out by the Board in mid 2008. The replacement guy is now unemployed. Its hard to see how much they lost, the financias have been restated so many times, but the shareholders got zip for their shares. Wells took it over from the government.

Washington Mutual. Gone also. Its now part of JP Morgan Chase. BTW, JPM didn't want to take TARP money, but was forced to do so by the Treasury so that it wouldn't make the other banks look weaker and perpetuate the run. The WaMu shareholder also got zip.

Among investment banks, Merrill, Bear Sterns, and Lehman are gone. I'm sure there are others, those are just the ones I immediately thought of.

So explain to me which fat cat bankers skated on this deal.

Well its not 2030 for starters...

Well duh!!! The commercial was set in the future.

[Randy4Candy]

Originally Posted by pjorourke

I agree. And guess what. They did.

Citicorp. BTW, the US made about $8B on this deal.

Bank of America. They have paid back all of their TARP money with interest and the government made a nice profit of $1.5B on the warrants.

Washington Mutual. Gone also. Its now part of JP Morgan Chase. BTW, JPM didn't want to take TARP money, but was forced to do so by the Treasury so that it wouldn't make the other banks look weaker and perpetuate the run.

Among investment banks, Merrill, Bear Sterns, and Lehman are gone. I'm sure there are others, those are just the ones I immediately thought of.

So explain to me which fat cat bankers skated on this deal.

Well, so much for the government "pissing away" $$ in Stimulus. Boo-hoo-hoo, poor little bankies - imagine having to pay back (and pay the lender a profit) money that saved their asses or going out of business due to incompentancies! Runs counter to all tenants of capitalism - as defined by those whose ass is in the crack they chisled. The gutting or outright repeal of Depression Era regulations came because the ones who eventually got burned (or eventually profited) spent a shitpot full of money on politicians who let them have their way. Since the only way we have left of making big money in this country is by moving money around, it's not hard to see how the premise of rules for an economy based on the manufacturing and distribution of goods are seen to no longer apply. The pressure of talking out of both sides of their mouths will eventually make those who defend and justify allowing, even encouraging, predatory practices head's explode. I guess actions having negative consequences should not apply to the monied class. Just another case of that crew demanding everyone else kneel down and kiss their ass - after all, they are rich and eveyone else is just fodder and pawns, so they need to act like it, quit thinking and questioning and continue to lay down and take it dry up da butt..

Term limits are the refuge of the lazy. The cost of running for office above the county level is the real source of the problem. Where do you have to go to get $3M every two years to run for Congress? The problem is the lack of quality candidates, i.e. those who are NOT careerists have no access to the amounts of money necessary to run for office. Big, big money raised in pursuit of office comes with strings.

Camille, my dear, the very fact that this thread can morph from decrying the lack of historical perspective based on lack of the educaton establishment's promoting the teaching of history to threesomes is a testimony to the hotness of smart, sexy, thought-provoking women. Surely, there is historical prescedent for that...LOL!

[pjorourke]

Originally Posted by Randy4Candy

Well, so much for the government "pissing away" $$ in Stimulus.

That wasn't the stimulus.

[WTF]

Originally Posted by pjorourke

I agree. And guess what. They did.

Citicorp. They actually fired the CEO Chuck Prince in late 2007, before this mess surfaced. Vikram Pandit was brought in to try and clean up the mess. The consensus is he has done a reasonable job, that's why he is still there. Citi made 4B in 2007, lost 28B in 2008 and lost 2B in 2009. Thats a cumulative loss of $26B vs. a run rate of $22B so thats about $92B that was written off from this mess (after tax). They have $165B in capital left. BTW, the US made about $8B on this deal.

Nov. 9, 2007, 8:46 a.m. EST
Departing Citi CEO getting $29.5 mln exit deal

Prince will be paid his regular salary through the end of the year and will also have the use of an office and driver for five years, or until he gets another job, according to the filing.

Originally Posted by pjorourke

Bank of America. CEO left office (was pushed?). Their earnings in 2008 & 2009 totaled about $10 -- down from a run rate of about $20B a year -- call that a $30+B loss. BTW, they still have 230B in capital. They have paid back all of their TARP money with interest and the government made a nice profit of $1.5B on the warrants.

.

Former Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis, who retired at the end of last year, took a package of stock and benefits valued at $83 million with him when he left, the Wall Street Journal reports

Originally Posted by pjorourke

Wachovia. Gone as a public company. Now owned by Wells Fargo and will soon be disappearing. Ken Thompson, the CEO was forced out by the Board in mid 2008. The replacement guy is now unemployed. Its hard to see how much they lost, the financias have been restated so many times, but the shareholders got zip for their shares. Wells took it over from the government.

.

Before getting fired, Wachovia CEO Thompson got gobs of money

"The Compensation Committee considered that while 2007 performance did not meet expectations for reasons noted above, under Mr. Thompson's leadership, earnings per share growth and Wachovia's tangible return on equity have been at or above the median of its peer group for 2007 and for the 3- and 5-year periods ending December 31, 2007," the company said in its latest proxy statement.

The company's board showed its displeasure and granted him premium priced stock options valued at $8.2 million. His total compensation was more than $21 million

Originally Posted by pjorourke

Washington Mutual. Gone also. Its now part of JP Morgan Chase. BTW, JPM didn't want to take TARP money, but was forced to do so by the Treasury so that it wouldn't make the other banks look weaker and perpetuate the run. The WaMu shareholder also got zip.

Having milked WaMu for, reportedly, more than $100 million in compensation (including $24 million in 2006), Killinger had good reason to want to keep the bank independent. But with the possible exception of Angelo R. Mozilo of Countrywide Financial Corp., arguably no banking executive did more harm to the fabric of the U.S. mortgage industry.
Killinger became chief executive in 1990, at the age of 40, when WaMu was a medium-size and conservatively run thrift. He built it into a behemoth with 2,200 outlets.
Revealingly, he boasted to an interviewer in 2002 that he viewed WaMu "as more retail than banking. That's where the big payoff is."Retailers are concerned with a single transactional moment -- when the sale is made. Prudent bankers know that they do not reap their harvest until years later, when loans are repaid. This distinction did not trouble Killinger in the slightest*** .
Now PJ, The following CEO did much better if you are to look at a per day average salary...
WaMu CEO could get $13.65 million for 18 days work
Alan Fishman was awarded a $7.5 million signing bonus when he joined the Seattle-based thrift on Sept 7, according to a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing.
His employment agreement also provided for a $6.15 million lump sum payment as severance if he were terminated without cause, the filing shows.
Washington Mutual hired the former chief executive of Brooklyn, New York-based Independence Community Bank Corp to help the thrift rebound from soaring mortgage losses


*** And very little has changed PJ. It seems the trick is staying in good with Treasury and the Fed Chairman. Bear learnt that the hard way.

Originally Posted by pjorourke

So explain to me which fat cat bankers skated on this deal.

.

Ever bank that took off shiity assets off their balance sheet and transfers it to the governments. That’s not to hard to understand now is it?
If the government took all the shitty deals GM made and let GM pay back only money it had loaned them without accounting for that toxicity you would be screaming bloody murder.....oh wait, you do on that deal. How about the government taking over all GM's legacy costs and not accounting for that in the loan package! What accounting firm do you work for? Fat Cat U?

You seem to think that the government having to put a trillion or more taxpayer dollars into the system so that the Bankers can be made whole to pay back their pittance loans is somehow a great deal.

Originally Posted by pjorourke

Well duh!!! The commercial was set in the future.

If the ad were done two years earlier, you could of replaced the verbiage with bankers and had the Chink's say the same damn thing!

[pjorourke]

Again we agree, the walk away payments are obscene, but you also have to understand what they are getting.

The Citi deal was obscene, but fairly typical for those times. New contracts are less "generous" today.

Lewis's 83 million was mainly deferred compensation and pensions he had earned over a 30+ year career, which prior to this mess was very successful.

Most of that $100 million that Killinger walked away with was in WaMu stock -- which is worthless.

Same with Thompson at Wachovia -- he got a cash severance payment of $1.5 million (about a year and a half salary) and accelerated vesting on $7.5 million in WC stock that he earned previously, but which he would forfeit if he left. He probably had limits on his ability to sell that stock so he might not have gotten as much as it looks like.

The Board at WaMu couldn't have hired that guy without guarantees like he received -- nobody competent would have taken the job without them. Where they fucked up was not realizing that they were only 3 weeks from being shuttered.

[Big Juan]

Great dialogue ladies and gents.

Did the banks make their profits from good lending or stock/bond/commmodity trading and market manipulation?

They should have been glad to be booted, especially if this unfolds at the current rate for consumers.

Sorry about the spelling, ees close to my siesta.

[WTF]

Originally Posted by WTF

I love banks....especially ones that act responsible.

Now if you are talking about Banks that gamble with my money as opposed to their own, then yes I do not care for that but then that really isn't a bank, ...

Originally Posted by pjorourke

Again we agree, the walk away payments are obscene, but you also have to understand what they are getting.

.

Look PJ we are talking about the tree's instead of the forest. While I realize all investments are a gamble and the market assigns risks and pays accordingly. By having this bail-out mentality that will not happen. Period. Nothing seems to have changed in this regard. That is my larger point. Not that CEO's are having to structure lower pay packages. The system seems rigged and that will bring down the system when that becomes a prevailing preception.

You will never have any discipline in a market where you play with others money and you have no skin in the game. That is why government is such a bad business. The banks are in bed with the Fed, so you have no market discipline. They can and have done as they pleased. I can not believe you of all people would not call them out on it. You are falling for the bank propaganda that they are actually paying back what they destroyed. We (the taxpayers) have taken off their balance sheets toxic assets. If you lost your job for a month and I loaned you a million bucks and took a ten million dollar house loan off your books and you got another job and only paid back the million dollar loan and the bragged about how quick you paid off the loan and acted as if the ten million dollar house that wasn't sellable at that price was nothing to talk about, would anyone in their right mind believe that that was a good deal for anyone other than you? And if you commercial is correct that 10 million dollar house won't be worth shit because we will be working for the Chinese!

[pjorourke]

What color is the sky in your world WTF?

I am not going to attempt to rebut one of your loony websites. I've explained why it wasn't a bailout on numerous occassions -- ain't goin there again.

[TexTushHog]

Originally Posted by pjorourke

Nope. Its been around since the late 80's -- well before Rove hit the scene.

Rove first worked on the national political scene during the Nixon administration. You are underestimating his political life span. He worked for Bush's daddy in his run for the Whitehouse in 1980, too.