Too true! Working people need to get better PR if we’re still talking about overpaid autoworkers but not overpaid CEOs.
Hey, I need a break. Here’s something fun. Go to The Poorman and vote on the Golden Wingers. The categories are Wank of the Year, the Soggy Biscuit, the Creamy Baileys Nobel Peace Prize for Science, the Purple Teardrop with Clutched Pearl Cluster, the Fluffy and Chickenhawk of the Year.
Here’s something that’s just funny/sad. Yet another RNC chair candidate embarrasses himself.
what’s even better is the that the 1.6 went to I think less than 1000 execs! woohoo. Those union guys make too much per hour anyway! they had it coming
If all the bonuses in the financial sector were revoked would that save the auto industry?
I am a union member and supporter but I don’t see where the two are related. In fact many of the bonuses you decry are part of a contract something every union member lives and dies by.
They are related in the fact that much of our TARP money is going to pay bonuses for those financial industry execs, whereas the union members are basically getting a month without pay.
I’ll do the math for you – an 8.3% pay cut for the year.
Any reason in your mind why an exec that works for a failing (or failed) financial instution deserves or should expect a bonus this year? Did you get one in 2001 or 2002, Mike?
They are related in that we have repub congresspeople working to negotiate lower wages for auto workers in return for bailout funds; but have not asked the banks for any compensation cuts — bonuses or otherwise.
And not all union members get bonuses in a year.
Mike’s point is a simple one, they are not related issues. The money paid the banking execs would not pay the auto workers. The auto execs already declined any bonuses and offered to work for $1 next year.
That said it is interesting that the auto industry had to jump through hoops while the banking guys basically get the money by right. It is a sad state of affairs, but your hero GWB evened the playing field. I am sure that the posts praising his leadership will soon emerge.
Your points are tortured ones — folks coming to the taxpayer for bailouts out to get them under the same conditions. Bank execs who ran their organizations into the ground but who are too big to fail should certainly be taking substantial haircuts and repubs should have the cojones take on these guys instead of a $28/hour auto worker.
NPR had a great story yesterday – I think it was on the Marketplace show – about how the bank bailout really wasn’t a bailout. They looked at a small community bank in California that admtited point-blank it didn’t need the money. It’s designed to encourage new lending, apparently. I missed that somehow…
So if the bank execs are getting millions of dollars in bonuses this year — financed entirely by tax dollars — and the UAW keeps a number of pricey real estate investments financed by their membership, the UAW is somehow the problem?
For somebody who supposedly thinks that the government ought to be a better watchdog of taxpayer funds, you are remarkably bad at following the money. Or maybe you want us to know that it is AOK for taxpayers to fund huge bonuses for bank execs.
“Banks that are getting taxpayer bailouts awarded their top executives nearly $1.6 billion in salaries, bonuses, and other benefits last year, an Associated Press analysis reveals.”
“This year, Goldman will forgo cash and stock bonuses for its seven top-paid executives. They will work for their base salaries of $600,000, the company said.”
“They will work for their base salaries of $600,000, the company said.”
… because bankers just can’t LIVE without making 187 times the income of the average American. That’s proper payment for all those super-smart business decisions, right? For all those great deals that expanded their company’s bottom line and helped lead to greater stability in the economy? Am I correct here?
Oh, and those executives just have SO many more expenses than the rest of us, which makes it totally fair! Gotta pay for all those suits, for one thing. And the cars. And the jewelry. And the diamond-encrusted toilet paper to wipe the shit that don’t stink off their tender lil’ asses.
As for the unions – it wasn’t Ron Gettelfinger who decided to build a bunch of gas-wasting SUVs and put minimal investment into actual workable green cars. It wasn’t the UAW that didn’t listen to buyers. It wasn’t the WORKERS that utterly failed to innovate.
It was the godamn suits – the really smart people, the ones who contend capitalism always works, until one day the house of cards comes falling down and they realize it doesn’t, actually, fucking work. The free market is the epitome of perfection! … until it’s their markets that are plunging. Government shouldn’t interfere with business! … until business comes begging with their hands out, pretending poverty. It’s all been a complete lie. Vegas is built on a more sound business model!
The people can FINALLY see that the emperors are naked. And that they have really tiny penises.
Hey, if you think you’ll get people to be responsible for running a billion dollar business for $28 an hour, go for it. Get back to me when you can’t find anyone.
The guy making $28 an hr for tightening a bolt should count his lucky stars that people still defend that.
BTW, why are the banking execs responsible for the bad decisions of the unions and auto industry? Another false analogy ftw.
a2 — I love the “the management is solely responsible for all the wrongs” argument. It’s a completely shit argument, but it’s fun to hear someone who actually believes it.
Sharon: Auto workers do a shitload more than tighten bolts, and I really hope you know that and aren’t just talking out of your armpit. Visit an assembly line, if you can find one still running around here. It’s hard, incredibly repetitive, mind-numbing work. If the guy or gal in Detroit or Newark isn’t paying attention, your car could fail at an important point. Consider it the high-tech equivalent of catching chickens here in Delaware. The only thing that separates the two are the bleedin’ unions.
Guy Using The Initials Of An Old Blog That Doesn’t Exist Anymore: Management gets paid the big bucks to BE responsible, in good times or bad. If they aren’t, then why the hell are they earning $600,000 a year as BASE PAY?
It’s like marriage vows – in sickness and in health. By your line of reasoning, management shouldn’t take responsibility when things are going FINE, either! Or do I totally misunderstand your amazingly apologistic stance?
It’s the quintessential hypocrisy of modern capitalism that state subsidies are bad when they’re in other countries. Remember Airbus, anyone? But when the tables turn, it’s another story. They’re the first to run crying saying the rules aren’t fair – “Mommy, Mommy, I want an allowance too! Everybody else has one!!!”
I’ll be the first to admit that there are huge factors in play in today’s economy – seismic shifts, even. But the financial industry totally fucked up – was the primary factor in creating the problems, in fact. They neither used good judgment nor planned ahead. They took on risk that an addicted gambler wouldn’t have taken. And for its part, the auto industry crossed its fingers and prayed that the artificial bubble would last. There was no damn plan there. They didn’t have a clue how to react last year when gas prices started going through the roof – completely unrelated to the housing and financial crises, btw! – and people, uhm, stopped buying huge vehicles. Surprise!
I’m kind of surprised by your thinking, Dave. You’ve run businesses. You know what it’s like to have good times and bad times. Everyone has them. But in the end, the only one responsible was you. You made the decisions about location, staffing, price points, marketing… it all falls on your shoulders. And the most important decision – to open the business in the first place – was DEFINITELY yours. Should different rules apply to big companies, just because they’re big?
Both industries here got caught on the crapper with their pants around their ankles, leafing through an old copy of Playviti. I am sick and fucking tired of being asked to pay for incompetence – or more accurately, to have my children and grandchildren pay for incompetence.
When a kid flunks a class in school, there are consequences. What Congress and Bush and Obama – yes, I think he’s wrong on these issues – have just told those kids is that there ARE no consequences for fucking up. Wrong decisions don’t result in negative reactions.
For only the second time in my life, I found myself agreeing with some conservative Republican senators. These bailouts are going to take us down the road to ruin.
So far it is only Goldman who has given up a few of it’s bonuses — the other $1.6 billion are being paid this year to bank execs taking the bailouts.
Still waiting to hear why overpaid bank execs who ran their businesses into the ground and fully expected taxpayers to bail them out deserve bonuses paid on the taxpayer dime, people.
“Still waiting to hear why overpaid bank execs who ran their businesses into the ground and fully expected taxpayers to bail them out deserve bonuses paid on the taxpayer dime, people.”
They don’t. They should have been allowed to fail.
Jim Parks has a good essay on his Delaforum site on the tpoic of ‘too big to fail’ and how we have to face down this trend with some hard-to-find political courage. Same is true with single payer. It is the only real solution. Get the middle-man HMO’s out of the way of healthcare.
Perhaps widening Medicare is the way to go since it is a bureaucracy that is already in place and functioning pretty well.
To be sure, Wall Street bonuses, although diminished, are still far higher than those in many other industries. At Goldman, for instance, partners who were paid $12 million to $15 million last year will be paid $3 million to $4 million this year. So much for failure. But everything above $222,000 will be paid in restricted stock and stock options. Very clever those Wall Street guys. Workers at Goldman who are not partners could receive more than that amount in cash in their bonuses, which will be called retaining clauses. The catch: They must sign on for a year. LOL.
Morgan Stanley, which notified workers of their bonuses on Tuesday, has reduced its bonus pool by roughly 50 percent this year, to a measly $2 billion of taxpayer money. That pool includes the amount that will be paid in cash or stock this year, though it does not include the hundreds of millions of dollars in deferred compensation that willd be paid if those workers remain at the bank. Bonuses were cut more than 60 percent for members of the bank’s management and operating committees, but still total a cool 20 million.
Merrill Lynch will be the next bank to notify workers of its bonuses, beginning Friday and continuing into next week.
Boy, I feel bad for these CEO’s and upper management losers. I really do.
a2 — I love the “the management is solely responsible for all the wrongs” argument. It’s a completely shit argument, but it’s fun to hear someone who actually believes it.
Kind of like FSP always blaming unions and unable to comprehend the exhorbitant exec pay or their failures to build fuel-efficient cars, hybrids, or reliable cars falls on management and not workers. They bled their companies dry, simple as that.
I love the “the management is solely responsible for all the wrongs” argument. It’s a completely shit argument, but it’s fun to hear someone who actually believes it.
I’m management, and I certainly don’t think that my bosses are going to buy that I’m not responsible for a project that has gone to shit. Or doesn’t make money. If I don’t meet my margin targets, I don’t get a bonus. If I miss my margin targets too often, I’m not employed.
So I wonder what world Dave lives in where management isn’t responsible for, you know, management. But then, the repub philosophy of not being accountable for anything is how we got here in the first place.
Too true! Working people need to get better PR if we’re still talking about overpaid autoworkers but not overpaid CEOs.
Hey, I need a break. Here’s something fun. Go to The Poorman and vote on the Golden Wingers. The categories are Wank of the Year, the Soggy Biscuit, the Creamy Baileys Nobel Peace Prize for Science, the Purple Teardrop with Clutched Pearl Cluster, the Fluffy and Chickenhawk of the Year.
Here’s something that’s just funny/sad. Yet another RNC chair candidate embarrasses himself.
what’s even better is the that the 1.6 went to I think less than 1000 execs! woohoo. Those union guys make too much per hour anyway! they had it coming
A question?
If all the bonuses in the financial sector were revoked would that save the auto industry?
I am a union member and supporter but I don’t see where the two are related. In fact many of the bonuses you decry are part of a contract something every union member lives and dies by.
They are related in the fact that much of our TARP money is going to pay bonuses for those financial industry execs, whereas the union members are basically getting a month without pay.
I’ll do the math for you – an 8.3% pay cut for the year.
Any reason in your mind why an exec that works for a failing (or failed) financial instution deserves or should expect a bonus this year? Did you get one in 2001 or 2002, Mike?
They are related in that we have repub congresspeople working to negotiate lower wages for auto workers in return for bailout funds; but have not asked the banks for any compensation cuts — bonuses or otherwise.
And not all union members get bonuses in a year.
Mike’s point is a simple one, they are not related issues. The money paid the banking execs would not pay the auto workers. The auto execs already declined any bonuses and offered to work for $1 next year.
That said it is interesting that the auto industry had to jump through hoops while the banking guys basically get the money by right. It is a sad state of affairs, but your hero GWB evened the playing field. I am sure that the posts praising his leadership will soon emerge.
Your points are tortured ones — folks coming to the taxpayer for bailouts out to get them under the same conditions. Bank execs who ran their organizations into the ground but who are too big to fail should certainly be taking substantial haircuts and repubs should have the cojones take on these guys instead of a $28/hour auto worker.
NPR had a great story yesterday – I think it was on the Marketplace show – about how the bank bailout really wasn’t a bailout. They looked at a small community bank in California that admtited point-blank it didn’t need the money. It’s designed to encourage new lending, apparently. I missed that somehow…
maine street.
I will say it a 1000 times it amazes me that Protack ran and could have been our governor.
I feel for the UAW. Really, I do. At some point, the workers are going to realize that it’s the UNION that’s screwing them more than anyone.
So if the bank execs are getting millions of dollars in bonuses this year — financed entirely by tax dollars — and the UAW keeps a number of pricey real estate investments financed by their membership, the UAW is somehow the problem?
For somebody who supposedly thinks that the government ought to be a better watchdog of taxpayer funds, you are remarkably bad at following the money. Or maybe you want us to know that it is AOK for taxpayers to fund huge bonuses for bank execs.
“Banks that are getting taxpayer bailouts awarded their top executives nearly $1.6 billion in salaries, bonuses, and other benefits last year, an Associated Press analysis reveals.”
“This year, Goldman will forgo cash and stock bonuses for its seven top-paid executives. They will work for their base salaries of $600,000, the company said.”
link
Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein is taking a 98.98889% pay cut this year.
And I love this little nugget: “pricey real estate investments.”
Beaut.
“They will work for their base salaries of $600,000, the company said.”
… because bankers just can’t LIVE without making 187 times the income of the average American. That’s proper payment for all those super-smart business decisions, right? For all those great deals that expanded their company’s bottom line and helped lead to greater stability in the economy? Am I correct here?
Oh, and those executives just have SO many more expenses than the rest of us, which makes it totally fair! Gotta pay for all those suits, for one thing. And the cars. And the jewelry. And the diamond-encrusted toilet paper to wipe the shit that don’t stink off their tender lil’ asses.
As for the unions – it wasn’t Ron Gettelfinger who decided to build a bunch of gas-wasting SUVs and put minimal investment into actual workable green cars. It wasn’t the UAW that didn’t listen to buyers. It wasn’t the WORKERS that utterly failed to innovate.
It was the godamn suits – the really smart people, the ones who contend capitalism always works, until one day the house of cards comes falling down and they realize it doesn’t, actually, fucking work. The free market is the epitome of perfection! … until it’s their markets that are plunging. Government shouldn’t interfere with business! … until business comes begging with their hands out, pretending poverty. It’s all been a complete lie. Vegas is built on a more sound business model!
The people can FINALLY see that the emperors are naked. And that they have really tiny penises.
Hey, if you think you’ll get people to be responsible for running a billion dollar business for $28 an hour, go for it. Get back to me when you can’t find anyone.
The guy making $28 an hr for tightening a bolt should count his lucky stars that people still defend that.
BTW, why are the banking execs responsible for the bad decisions of the unions and auto industry? Another false analogy ftw.
The guy making $28 an hr for tightening a bolt should count his lucky stars that people still defend that.
Particularly when his management gets paid $1000 per hour for screwing him.
a2 — I love the “the management is solely responsible for all the wrongs” argument. It’s a completely shit argument, but it’s fun to hear someone who actually believes it.
Sharon: Auto workers do a shitload more than tighten bolts, and I really hope you know that and aren’t just talking out of your armpit. Visit an assembly line, if you can find one still running around here. It’s hard, incredibly repetitive, mind-numbing work. If the guy or gal in Detroit or Newark isn’t paying attention, your car could fail at an important point. Consider it the high-tech equivalent of catching chickens here in Delaware. The only thing that separates the two are the bleedin’ unions.
Guy Using The Initials Of An Old Blog That Doesn’t Exist Anymore: Management gets paid the big bucks to BE responsible, in good times or bad. If they aren’t, then why the hell are they earning $600,000 a year as BASE PAY?
It’s like marriage vows – in sickness and in health. By your line of reasoning, management shouldn’t take responsibility when things are going FINE, either! Or do I totally misunderstand your amazingly apologistic stance?
It’s the quintessential hypocrisy of modern capitalism that state subsidies are bad when they’re in other countries. Remember Airbus, anyone? But when the tables turn, it’s another story. They’re the first to run crying saying the rules aren’t fair – “Mommy, Mommy, I want an allowance too! Everybody else has one!!!”
I’ll be the first to admit that there are huge factors in play in today’s economy – seismic shifts, even. But the financial industry totally fucked up – was the primary factor in creating the problems, in fact. They neither used good judgment nor planned ahead. They took on risk that an addicted gambler wouldn’t have taken. And for its part, the auto industry crossed its fingers and prayed that the artificial bubble would last. There was no damn plan there. They didn’t have a clue how to react last year when gas prices started going through the roof – completely unrelated to the housing and financial crises, btw! – and people, uhm, stopped buying huge vehicles. Surprise!
I’m kind of surprised by your thinking, Dave. You’ve run businesses. You know what it’s like to have good times and bad times. Everyone has them. But in the end, the only one responsible was you. You made the decisions about location, staffing, price points, marketing… it all falls on your shoulders. And the most important decision – to open the business in the first place – was DEFINITELY yours. Should different rules apply to big companies, just because they’re big?
Both industries here got caught on the crapper with their pants around their ankles, leafing through an old copy of Playviti. I am sick and fucking tired of being asked to pay for incompetence – or more accurately, to have my children and grandchildren pay for incompetence.
When a kid flunks a class in school, there are consequences. What Congress and Bush and Obama – yes, I think he’s wrong on these issues – have just told those kids is that there ARE no consequences for fucking up. Wrong decisions don’t result in negative reactions.
For only the second time in my life, I found myself agreeing with some conservative Republican senators. These bailouts are going to take us down the road to ruin.
So far it is only Goldman who has given up a few of it’s bonuses — the other $1.6 billion are being paid this year to bank execs taking the bailouts.
Still waiting to hear why overpaid bank execs who ran their businesses into the ground and fully expected taxpayers to bail them out deserve bonuses paid on the taxpayer dime, people.
“the other $1.6 billion are being paid this year to bank execs taking the bailouts.”
The 1.6 billion was paid out LAST YEAR.
L-A-S-T-Y-E-A-R.
“Still waiting to hear why overpaid bank execs who ran their businesses into the ground and fully expected taxpayers to bail them out deserve bonuses paid on the taxpayer dime, people.”
They don’t. They should have been allowed to fail.
Corrente had a great post on the profiteering of the health insurance industry
http://delawareway.blogspot.com/2008/12/health-insurance-game-data-from.html
…10 billion in profits. Triple what they made 5 years ago.
Jim Parks has a good essay on his Delaforum site on the tpoic of ‘too big to fail’ and how we have to face down this trend with some hard-to-find political courage. Same is true with single payer. It is the only real solution. Get the middle-man HMO’s out of the way of healthcare.
Perhaps widening Medicare is the way to go since it is a bureaucracy that is already in place and functioning pretty well.
“They don’t. They should have been allowed to fail.”
Thank you, Dave.
To be sure, Wall Street bonuses, although diminished, are still far higher than those in many other industries. At Goldman, for instance, partners who were paid $12 million to $15 million last year will be paid $3 million to $4 million this year. So much for failure. But everything above $222,000 will be paid in restricted stock and stock options. Very clever those Wall Street guys. Workers at Goldman who are not partners could receive more than that amount in cash in their bonuses, which will be called retaining clauses. The catch: They must sign on for a year. LOL.
Morgan Stanley, which notified workers of their bonuses on Tuesday, has reduced its bonus pool by roughly 50 percent this year, to a measly $2 billion of taxpayer money. That pool includes the amount that will be paid in cash or stock this year, though it does not include the hundreds of millions of dollars in deferred compensation that willd be paid if those workers remain at the bank. Bonuses were cut more than 60 percent for members of the bank’s management and operating committees, but still total a cool 20 million.
Merrill Lynch will be the next bank to notify workers of its bonuses, beginning Friday and continuing into next week.
Boy, I feel bad for these CEO’s and upper management losers. I really do.
a2 — I love the “the management is solely responsible for all the wrongs” argument. It’s a completely shit argument, but it’s fun to hear someone who actually believes it.
Kind of like FSP always blaming unions and unable to comprehend the exhorbitant exec pay or their failures to build fuel-efficient cars, hybrids, or reliable cars falls on management and not workers. They bled their companies dry, simple as that.
I love the “the management is solely responsible for all the wrongs” argument. It’s a completely shit argument, but it’s fun to hear someone who actually believes it.
I’m management, and I certainly don’t think that my bosses are going to buy that I’m not responsible for a project that has gone to shit. Or doesn’t make money. If I don’t meet my margin targets, I don’t get a bonus. If I miss my margin targets too often, I’m not employed.
So I wonder what world Dave lives in where management isn’t responsible for, you know, management. But then, the repub philosophy of not being accountable for anything is how we got here in the first place.