Your Tax Dollars Hard at Work!

[my7of9]

Take a moment to read this News article and see if you can imagine the reality of it.


http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2008/12 ... -earned-b/

[bfoust]

Sssh, don't tell the government! They seem to be blind to the fact they earn billions of dollars!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Banned]

This country might be in the worst shape its ever seen and Congress just gave themselves a raise. This is probably the most Un-Constitutional government there has ever been, and now the Uber-Lib will even make it worse.

[Naga]

I need to find out if any of the localized banks are hiring a CEO... I'd LOVE to see a CEO do a job that any of us "bottom-dwellers" do. What does the gov't think these banks are gonna do with all the extra money they just tossed into their pockets? Give it to the poor? This whole thing just makes me sick and cynical about our government, making me wonder if we'll EVER free ourselves from the reigns of economic massacre

[PanzerFaust]

Sssh, don't tell the government! They seem to be blind to the fact they earn billions of dollars!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Government doesn't "earn" a damn cent...

We pay TAXES!!!! hehe......

Having said that... If you really want to see your tax dollars being wasted keep in mind I'm a government employee here at work posting to Rockpage...

[BloodyFingers]

I think it should be up the people if they get a raise. The less they do the more money they make. Ha

[Banned]

Sssh, don't tell the government! They seem to be blind to the fact they earn billions of dollars!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Government doesn't "earn" a damn cent...

We pay TAXES!!!! hehe......

Having said that... If you really want to see your tax dollars being wasted keep in mind I'm a government employee here at work posting to Rockpage...

THEIR YOU GO!!! WAY TO SPEND OUR MONEY!!! LOL

[DirtySanchez]

This country might be in the worst shape its ever seen and Congress just gave themselves a raise. This is probably the most Un-Constitutional government there has ever been, and now the Uber-Lib will even make it worse.

Anytime anyone anywhere gets a raise, that money could/would have been used elsewhere. I don't know one person who would turn down a raise.

As someone said the authority to give raises should be given to the people though. Take the power back! KILL WHITEY!

[my7of9]

Can someone divide 1.6 billion into 600 executives? My calculator doesn't go that high :>

That is one hell of a raise or bonus however they like to sugar coat it.

That is just what they have uncovered so far with what has been done with bailout funds.

I can personally tell you they need to look into AIG because I know from an insider viewpoint that they are not pinching any pennies.
An acquaintance of mine from Altoona who works for AIG makes $4000 per week with a 50,000 semi bonus and a 150,000 annual bonus and this is the cheese line compared to what home office type execs make in this company. They fly jets and have meetings that cost $480,000.

[bfoust]

Sssh, don't tell the government! They seem to be blind to the fact they earn billions of dollars!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Government doesn't "earn" a damn cent...

No, i meant the executives

[Hawk]

Can someone divide 1.6 billion into 600 executives? My calculator doesn't go that high :>

That is one hell of a raise or bonus however they like to sugar coat it.

That is just what they have uncovered so far with what has been done with bailout funds.

I can personally tell you they need to look into AIG because I know from an insider viewpoint that they are not pinching any pennies.
An acquaintance of mine from Altoona who works for AIG makes $4000 per week with a 50,000 semi bonus and a 150,000 annual bonus and this is the cheese line compared to what home office type execs make in this company. They fly jets and have meetings that cost $480,000.

What they make is "capitalism" and there is nothing wrong with that.

As I understand it, that 1.6 billion was what those execs made LAST year. It is not the bail out money.

What those execs made prior to the collapse of the banking industry did not cause the collapse of the industry.

What caused the collapse was the banks giving loans to people who shouldn't have gotten them. Then (with de-regulation allowing) selling those bad loans to other banks in packages with good loans. Then with de-regulations, companies like AIG got involved in buying up these loans.

Because of these two factors, the housing market was artificially high (the bubble). When all of those bad loans made it to Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac, the collapse began. Houses that were (within the bubble) overvalued when people bought them. Now (with the collapse) the value of property drops. Hence, some people owe , say, a Million dollars on a house that's worth half of that. It is not that home owner's fault that his million dollar house is now worth 500 thousand dollars. So what would you do - well, they walked out and didn't pay.

What would you do if you bought a guitar on a credit card for 8 thousand dollars. Next week that same guitar value drops and everyone can buy it for ONE thousand dollars. Would you pay off your credit card ?

With that said, I am disappointed that there is NO oversight of where the bail out money is going.

[bassist_25]

The part that pisses me off is that the honest majority has to suffer due to the incompetence of a greedy minority. Capitalism is sink or swim, but the hard worker has to watch his or her 401(k) get flushed down the crapper due to some asshole in the banking and mortgage industry who wanted to make a fast buck. Then we, the tax payers, bankrolled the bailout so we weren't regulated to riding on freight cars for the next ten years looking for work. The executives got a nice pay check thanks to the funds straight from your pocket and my pocket. I'm a moderate. I don't mind paying taxes. I'm not some Robert Nozick fanboi who thinks a country can run completely tax-free. However, I do want accountability on how the money earned from the sweat of my back is utilized. I didn't have giving overpaid CEOs a nice golden parachute in mind when the federal taxes were taken out of my paychecks this year.

Unfortunately, anytime large amounts of credit are floating around without the tangible assets to back them up, trouble is going to ensue. The Great Depression wasn't helped by people buying so much stock on margin. This story is a different secruity but same general idea...same shit, different day. But credit seems to be The American Way.

The beauty of it all is that my colleagues and I are going to be the ones along with the economists, financial experts, and politicians who are expected to help clean up this mess.

[my7of9]

Can someone divide 1.6 billion into 600 executives? My calculator doesn't go that high :>

That is one hell of a raise or bonus however they like to sugar coat it.

That is just what they have uncovered so far with what has been done with bailout funds.

I can personally tell you they need to look into AIG because I know from an insider viewpoint that they are not pinching any pennies.
An acquaintance of mine from Altoona who works for AIG makes $4000 per week with a 50,000 semi bonus and a 150,000 annual bonus and this is the cheese line compared to what home office type execs make in this company. They fly jets and have meetings that cost $480,000.

What they make is "capitalism" and there is nothing wrong with that.

As I understand it, that 1.6 billion was what those execs made LAST year. It is not the bail out money.

What those execs made prior to the collapse of the banking industry did not cause the collapse of the industry.

What caused the collapse was the banks giving loans to people who shouldn't have gotten them. Then (with de-regulation allowing) selling those bad loans to other banks in packages with good loans. Then with de-regulations, companies like AIG got involved in buying up these loans.

Because of these two factors, the housing market was artificially high (the bubble). When all of those bad loans made it to Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac, the collapse began. Houses that were (within the bubble) overvalued when people bought them. Now (with the collapse) the value of property drops. Hence, some people owe , say, a Million dollars on a house that's worth half of that. It is not that home owner's fault that his million dollar house is now worth 500 thousand dollars. So what would you do - well, they walked out and didn't pay.

What would you do if you bought a guitar on a credit card for 8 thousand dollars. Next week that same guitar value drops and everyone can buy it for ONE thousand dollars. Would you pay off your credit card ?

With that said, I am disappointed that there is NO oversight of where the bail out money is going.

Now that I reread the article I see you are right about the 1.6 billion.
Thanks for pointing that out.
It still does not make me feel any better at all about where the bailout money is going to end up! At all!!!
Capitalism aside I doubt many of them are willingly going to take a paycut. I do not think it is in their nature as the article suggests.
Although I did not need the article to tell me something I already knew :>

[lonewolf]

As I understand it, that 1.6 billion was what those execs made LAST year. It is not the bail out money.

What those execs made prior to the collapse of the banking industry did not cause the collapse of the industry.

The hell it didn't.

Most of these CEOs should be fired and banned from Wall Street for what they did over the past 5 years. The article doesn't even go to the crux of the matter of why the banks needed cash to pay short term obligations.

Most of these CEOs at the moneycenter banks were selling their AAA rated bonds & notes at a low interest rate and taking the proceeds to leverage up on the higher yield bundled mortgage securities. Some of them went to an unheard of level of 98% leveraged. They relied on the razor thin cash flow from the mortgage securities to meet the obligations of their company paper. When the return on the mortgage securities started drying up, they had no cash to meet their short-term obligations.

This is why we had to bail the banks out--the CEOs borrowed too much money to buy the sub prime mortgages.

Had they used better judgement and not leveraged nearly so much--even 50% (still a ridiculous number), we would never have even heard much about this problem because they would have been able to meet their obligations.

Don't let them bullshit you into thinking that this was all about sub-prime mortgages, because it was not.

[songsmith]

+1 Effing-A right on.
There's plenty of blame to go around, but to give the execs a pass would just be pathetic. And these evil c*ck-knockers want to keep their big bonuses! They helped perpetrate a theft SO HUGE that people can't even wrap their minds around it, and they want to be congratulated for it? These people should be pilloried on streetcorners on Wall St, not paid extra.--->JMS

[bassist_25]

+1 Effing-A right on.
There's plenty of blame to go around, but to give the execs a pass would just be pathetic. And these evil c*ck-knockers want to keep their big bonuses! They helped perpetrate a theft SO HUGE that people can't even wrap their minds around it, and they want to be congratulated for it? These people should be pilloried on streetcorners on Wall St, not paid extra.--->JMS

LOL

I had to look up what pilloried means. Totally agree with Johnny, though.

[Hawk]

I'm still not sure you can blame those wall street execs like AIG's. With deregulation, the doors were open for them to buy mortgages, so they did. Many bad loans were shuffled in with good loans in a way that was not detectable. It seemed like a good idea to buy them.

[lonewolf]

I'm still not sure you can blame those wall street execs like AIG's. With deregulation, the doors were open for them to buy mortgages, so they did. Many bad loans were shuffled in with good loans in a way that was not detectable. It seemed like a good idea to buy them.

Commercial banks were always allowed to buy mortgage backed securites. There was no deregulation.

Try this Bill:

Take out a 2nd mortgage on your home so that the payment is 98% of your income from:

Buy junk bonds with the borrowed money and hope that they keep paying the par interest so you can make the mortgage payment, above.

Had they not taken so much debt to buy the securities, they would still have been able to meet their obligations even if the mortgage backed securities had a 50% default rate (which they don't). They would not have needed the federal cash transfusion. They effed up big time.

That is what these CEOs did. I suggest you look past the smoke & mirrors that is presented to you on a daily basis.