Stupid Is As Stupid Does
Banks are angry about the proposed bail-out tax. It’s so unfair! *stomps feet* They’re not just planning to hold their breaths until they turn blue and pass out, though:
Wall Street’s main lobbying arm has hired a top Supreme Court litigator to study a possible legal battle against a bank tax proposed by the Obama administration, on the theory that it would be unconstitutional, according to three industry officials briefed on the matter.
In an e-mail message sent last week to the heads of Wall Street legal departments, executives of the lobbying group, the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, wrote that a bank tax might be unconstitutional because it would unfairly single out and penalize big banks, according to these officials, who did not want to be identified to preserve relationships with the group’s members.
There’s a reason for the fee. The fee is to help pay for the taxpayer bailout. You know, the one that kept you solvent while the rest of us worried about losing our jobs and keeping our houses? If Wall Street Banks are worried, perhaps they need to talk to these guys:
The New York-based investment [Goldman Sachs] firm turned another eye-popping profit Thursday, earning $3.2 billion in the third quarter, as revenue from trading rose fourfold from a year ago.
As Wall Street firms typically do, Goldman set almost half that sum aside to compensate its workers. Through the first nine months of 2009, the firm socked away $16.7 billion, enough to pay the average Goldmanite $526,814.
The bonus pool is on pace to hit $21 billion for 2009, which would match the record bonus payout of 2007.
Goldman said it won’t decide the size of the bonus pool till year-end. In any case, the payments will be substantial — and will come just one year after huge sums of taxpayer dollars were funneled to financial institutions.
Can We Make Chutzpah A Crime?
Because if we can, we can send a bunch of bankers to jail right away
…
OK, this isn’t quite the classic definition of chutzpah, which is when you murder your parents, then plead for mercy because you’re an orphan. It’s more like being a drunk driver who, after killing a number of pedestrians, received life-saving treatment at a nearby hospital — and responds by suing the doctor.
I’d say it was unbelievable, but it actually should have been predictable.
Unemployment is rising. If banks are taxed at a higher rate, they are less likely to hire new employees and more likely to lay off workers. I think that is enough reason to stop attacking banks that are paying back the TARP funds.
Correction: PAID BACK — Reuters 22 July 2009 — “The government got the warrants last year when it injected $10 billion into Goldman from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, a sum that Goldman paid back last month. Goldman joins U.S. Bancorp (USB.N), BB&T Corp (BBT.N) and State Street Corp (STT.N) among large financial companies to get out of TARP.”
The banks caused the unemployment in the fist place. Take their money and use it to create jobs. If they don’t like it, they can issue bonuses in stock.