Wall Street threatens to take down country if they don't get their bonuses

[Larkspur]

and don't get the respect they demand from us peasants. In a sense we have to enjoy being raped by them.

from the WSJ

Obama Dials Down Wall Street Criticism

The Obama administration, after months of criticizing Wall Street, has been scrambling to woo top bankers and financiers to back its latest bailout plan.

In recent days, in spite of public furor over huge bonuses paid at American International Group Inc., the administration has concluded that it needs the private sector to play a central role in fixing the economy. So over the weekend, the White House worked to tone down its Wall Street bashing and to win support from top bankers for the bailout plan announced Monday, which will rely on public-private investments to soak up toxic assets.

But weeks of searing criticism by politicians and the public had left bankers leery of working with the government. After brainstorming about what to do about that problem, the White House resolved to try to take control of the debate, according to several administration officials. In weekend television appearances, President Barack Obama and other administration officials tempered their criticisms of the financial sector.

Meanwhile, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and his colleagues worked the phones to try to line up support on Wall Street for the plan announced Monday. They told executives they don't favor using the tax code to retroactively penalize specific individuals who had received bonuses, according to people familiar with the calls. They asked officials to sign on "in pencil, not ink," and to "validate" or "express support" for the plan, these people say.

Some bankers say they turned the conversations into complaints about the antibonus crusade consuming Capitol Hill. Some have begun "slow-walking" the information previously sought by Treasury for stress-testing financial institutions, three bankers say, and considered seeking capital from hedge funds and private-equity funds so they could return federal bailout money, thereby escaping federal restrictions.

SNIP

Bankers were shell-shocked, especially when Congress moved to heavily tax bonuses. When administration officials began calling them to talk about the next phase of the bailout, the bankers turned the tables. They used the calls to lobby against the antibonus legislation, Wall Street executives say. Several big firms called Treasury and White House officials to urge a more reasonable approach, both sides say. The banks' message: If you want our help to get credit flowing again to consumers and businesses, stop the rush to penalize our bonuses.

Obama is no FDR. FDR welcomed the hatred of the Big Moneyed Interest and that is why he nationalized the banks after they destroyed the economy and caused the Great Depression. Big Money Interests are fascists at heart and FDR was right to call them a danger to our democracy. Too bad obama hasn't learned from FDR's example.

[GinaMaria]

1. Bring it, you America hating lowlifes! eom

[DemBones DemBones]

2. The greed of Wall Street is overwhelming. Americans

are losing -- and have already lost -- their jobs, their homes, their pensions, their savings, their medical insurance, due to Wall Street and friends and all these guys can think of is their fecking bonuses. Unreal.

[bdamomma]

19. greed should be a disease

[DemBones DemBones]

25. No, that would make it a medical problem when it's really

a character flaw. Greed is one of the seven deadly sins for a reason.

[ixion]

3. let the bastards fail...

we'll make a better system.

"Mr. Wallace don't like to be fu*ked by no one but Mrs. Wallace."
-- Pulp Fiction

[Lasher]

4. Use the Patriot Act to throw them in jail!

Then the next CEO would probably come across as a more loyal American.

[lynnertic]

11. wow

never thought I'd see that statement here.

[Donnachaidh]

12. so you don't think they are terrorizing the country to get their way?

Economic terrorism is going to kick the final legs out from under us.

YES - they SHOULD use the Patriot Act to go after them. ALL of them.

[Lasher]

21. Poetic justice.

They never thought all that new power was going to be used against them. And in reality that's probably true. They'll continue to breeze right through customs in their luxury corporate jets while we get strip searched for nuclear weapons made from gatorade, toothpaste and fingernail clippers.

[lynnertic]

27. "Two legs good, Four legs Baaad"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_farm


Beware becoming the monsters you fight

[lynnertic]

26. Sure, fascism that's good for the goose is fascism that's good for the gander.

Your shirt is simply a bluer shade of brown.

[hobbit709]

5. I have two numbers for these elitist asses

1789 and 1917. They would do well to heed history.

[peace frog]

6. You have already taken the country down

but all you Gordon Gekkos may not want to press your luck on this one. The pitchforks are razor sharp, the torches are burning firecely, the peasants are up in arms, sooooo y'all might want to slink back to your hidey holes until it blows over, m'kay?

[C......N......C]

15. Right on.

[fasttense]

7. No FDR tried some bad plans too.

The destruction of farm produce, while people starved, to get the price of food back up comes to mind. Later the agriculture department realized they had made a mistake and gave the food to banks and charities.

A lot of bad plans were already tried by the Republicon President Hoover so FDR had some idea of what NOT to do. But FDR did make many mistakes.

It's kind of like you have to try all the bad ideas first. All the good ideas are considered, by the powers that be, as very radical. If good ideas weren't so radical, they would have been tried already. So eventually you get to the point where you have nothing left but supposed radical good ideas. But the powers that be still don't like them.

[AndyA]

8. Their bonuses are above all else most important to them.

To hell with running a profitable business. To hell with being fiscally responsible. To hell with maintaining sound business practices.

They want their bonuses.

I really am beginning to think we should nationalize the banks, fire these SOB's, and get some responsible people to run them who are not so greedy as to jeopardize the economy for their own personal gain. Now I understand why the credit card companies are raising their interest rates so much. These people should not have jobs of importance, they obviously put themselves before all else.

[ShortnFiery]

9. Obama best get some middle-class advisers who are not heavily invested in Wall Street.

Frank Rich was NOT far off about that "Katrina Moment."

The resentments are only going to increase for these greedy "masters of the universe."

Obama and the rest of his administration admittedly have a high learning curve but it's time to GET REAL - in the sense of empathy with the "working poor" and "middle class" wage slaves. Most of us despise the GREEDY Wall Street Tycoons.

Since the majority of Americans are not effected by the daily fluctuations on Wall Street, it's time we THE WORKING PEOPLE form a MEDIA Outlet for LABOR not Wall Street?

I'm sick of these shameless clowns who take our hard earned taxpayer money, and at the same time, disparage our perspectives and life style.

Take your corporate jets and put them where the sun don't shine! :grr: :puke:

[shadowknows69]

17. Hell, get a family of four that survives on 30K or less a year

That's who I want running our fiscal matters. Hard for our elected leaders to really get a grip on the financial reality of the common man/woman/child if they have never wanted for anything.

[lunatica]

10. Either way they're determined to ruin the country

They're that greedy. First they do it by creating the financial disaster we're spiraling into and then they want to be rewarded for what they did. And if they don't get rewarded they threaten to create financial disaster. It would be laughable if it weren't so tragic.

[C......N......C]

13. Let them eat cake.

Don't hit the bully, he might hit you back harder.

[SammyWinstonJack]

23. Or he might run away, never too bother you again.

:shrug:

[spanone]

14. rupert murdoch rag wsj

[C......N......C]

16. True Colors.

They already have everything. Like Madoff, they can't see the error of their ways.

[Larkspur]

18. Saw this description of the Geithner plan in a DailyKos diary

It's from a person who will be a bidder on the toxic assets.

DK thread titled "I am taking this link from "expatjourno" in diary "The Krugmath - What Paul Krugman Didn't Say Hotlist"

I am SAC Capital. I get to be one of the bidders on bank assets covered by the program

Citi holds $100mm of face-value securities, carried at $80mm.

The market bid on these securities is $30mm. Say with perfect foresight the value of all cash flows is $50mm.

I bid Citi $75mm. I put up $2.25mm or 3%, Treasury funds the rest.

I then buy $10mm in CDS directly from Citi on the bonds for a premium of $1mm.

In the fullness of time, we get the final outcome, the bonds are worth $50mm

SAC loses $2.25mm of principal, but gets $9mm net in CDS proceeds, so recovers $6.75mm on a $2.25mm investment. Profit is $4.5mm

Citi writes down $5mm from the initial sale of the securities, and a $9mm CDS loss. Total loss, $14mm (against a potential $30mm loss without the program)

U.S. Treasury loses $22.75mm

Great program.

It's just a scheme to transfer losses from the bank to the taxpayer with an egregious payout to a middleman (SAC) to effectively money launder the transaction.

You've also transmuted a $30mm economic loss into a $36.75mm economic loss because of the laundering. So its incredibly inefficient.

How did fraud and money laundering become the national economic policy of the US?

One would have to be a criminal to participate in this.

[Pharlo]

20. And the reason the US government

can't just take the funds that they are designating to these large banks and divert them to form an emergency govt bank that loans credit DIRECTLY to 'customers and businessses' is because....why?

Hell, just threaten to do it....

[earth mom]

22. Bring it ON you mo fos!

:grr:

[mopinko]

24. please do not make light of

rape.