Top Banks Paid $1.6 Billion in Excessive Bonuses, U.S. Finds

[Faygo Kid]

Source: New York Times

With the financial system on the verge of collapse in late 2008, a group of troubled banks doled out more than $2 billion in bonuses and other payments to their highest earners. Now, the federal authority on banker pay says that nearly 80 percent of that sum was unmerited.

In a report to be released on Friday, Kenneth R. Feinberg, the Obama administration’s special master for executive compensation, is expected to name 17 financial companies that made questionable payouts totaling $1.58 billion immediately after accepting billions of dollars of taxpayer aid, according to two government officials with knowledge of his findings who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the report.

The group includes Wall Street giants like Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and the American International Group as well as small lenders like Boston Private Financial Holdings. Mr. Feinberg’s report points to companies that he says paid eye-popping amounts or used haphazard criteria for awarding bonuses, the people with knowledge of his findings said, and he has singled out Citigroup as the biggest offender.

Even so, Mr. Feinberg has very limited power to reclaim any money. He can use his status as President Obama’s point man on pay to jawbone the companies into reimbursing the government, but he has no legal authority to claw back excessive payouts. . .

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/23/business/23pay.html?hp

[sakabatou]

1. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer

[Faygo Kid]

2. And the poor pay for the privileged.

Your tax dollars at work.

[dkf]

3. The poor don't pay taxes.

[liberation]

4. The hell they don't...

[dkf]

5. Half the country doesn't.

[girl gone mad]

6. Everyone pays taxes.

If they aren't paying income taxes, they're paying payroll taxes or sales taxes or property taxes or sin taxes or gas taxes.

Only Wall Street welfare queens get a free ride.

[dkf]

7. Not Federal taxes.

[mbperrin]

10. You are unaware that the federal gasoline tax is 18.4 cents per gallon,

Right?

[mbperrin]

8. Every three year old who buys a small bag of chips in Texas

pays tax. Every gallon of gas has 34 cents in tax attached. Renters pay the property taxes with their rent (where did you think landlords got it?)

Poorest people pay the highest percent of their income in taxes.


Educate yourself:

"The total federal, state and local effective tax rate for the richest one percent of
Americans (30.9 percent) is only slightly higher than the average effective tax rate for
the remaining 99 percent of Americans (29.4 percent)."

From a dandy two page report at

http://www.ctj.org/pdf/taxday2009.pdf

[superconnected]

9. Excuse me? The working poor do.