spanish moss

When Bonuses Aren't Discretionary

Wells Fargo HOme Mortgage, one of the nation's largest mortgage companies, is a division of the bank. There were no bonuses paid to employees (in 2008) for 2007 performance... nada, zero. It is hard to imagine AIG, LEH, MER, BSC... much less the rating agencies, paying a dime of bonus to any employee for 2007 performance or thereafter. No excuse. I'm a flaming capitalist, and that means taking risk to earn reward. When the deal risk goes sideways, the reward does not materialize. Congress should enact special legislation to tax bonuses of employees of any company having receiving TARP (Banks), being taken over with Fed/FDIC/OTS assistance (MER, WM etc [and include WB too]), or was nationalized (FRE, FNM) or was closed (LEH, BSC) at 100%. The money should be earmarked to fund the various appropriations to the specific companies, thereby reducing the federal cost of the appropriations. Oh yeah... it's just a drop in the bucket to be sure... but it would be huge to the bonusee... who did not deserve it in the first place.

Gee... that's scary... sounds kinda Bolshevick... maybe I need to get in touch with myself... maybe a weekent at the Ventana Inn with the boys of AIG! We're all shareholders now... right?