farmer448

So what exactly can the government do to blockade AIG's (AIG) outrageous ($165M or $450M depending on your yardstick) bonuses? Quite a bit.

Well lets see. I bet the london derivatives business is under its own corporate banner.

Put the london derivatives corporation into bankruptcy court in london.

This is kinda like what happened with the Airlines when they could no longer handle compensation.

Stewart vs. Cramer: A Cheap Shot

Folks,

Get a life. So an investor spokesperson got lampooned. Ohh its the end of the investing world. It was funny and Cramer even had some fun with it. So take a breath, relax, and watch Cramer on CNBC if you like.

As the old saying goes, 'Some days you eat the bear and some days the bear eats you' Kit Karma Coffee House

Citigroup downgrades Wal-Mart (WMT) to Hold from Buy over concerns about the expected introduction of legislation that simplifies union formation and imposes several restrictions on the bargaining process.

Now isn't it interesting that SAMS COSTCO TARGET KMART SEARS MACYS NOSTRUM are all subject to the same laws. So souldn'tall of retail be downgraded also...

Wasteful Behavior: Northern Trust's Response

I think the board of directors need to take a hard look at the management of Northern Trust.
I would think the Marketing Group would be trying to build the image of a Well run bank you can trust.
Now we are in tough times, even the rich know this is not a good time to call attention to extravagance. Companies are pulling back, retrenching, laying off.


Perception is everything in marketing. So if I were a board member, I would damn well like to know which brainiacs in marketing let this extravaganza happen. Also how far up the line was it approved.

The board need to do some head hunting.

The Truth About Mortgages

Your Mortgage intrest deduction needs to include property taxes. Then you would propably beat the standard deduction at least for the first years of the mortgage.

Nobel Laureate Penzias: U.S. Needs a $1 a Gallon Gas Tax

So like crack addicts we will keep filling our SUV's with cheap Oil. A true energy policy really only works when you use the price mechanism. We need to raise the price of transportation fuels to encourage more efficient autos.

The one dollar tax proposed above could be done by adding 1 cent to the gas tax every month for the next 8 years.

The real trick is to keep this additional money for use in infrastucture projects and not earmarks.

Why Citi's Failure Costs More than Saving It Does

Ok, longer term, how should this concept of "to big to fail". Does this make a bank a monopoly? So maybe the Fed and Treasury need to address how big to allow a bank to grow.

Also Citicorp is really a big collection of other corporations. So why not break it up?

This and AIG seem to be nothing but a big rat hole. I understand the argument that letting them fail if a dangerous unknown due to all of the Credit Default Swaps written as insurance. But this slow contraction and ratching down of over-leveraging seems to be perceived as a slow death. No one has any confidence in what is being reported out of financial institutions.

Fed's Lockhart speaks on the economic situation and its remedies. So "When does this dreary story end?" he asks. And answers, in part, "the economy faces obstacles that are likely to work against a strong rebound of growth over the next several quarters..." (read full speech)

Hmmmm, according to my recollection of this whole crisis, when someone of importance says X will not happen, then it is a darn good bet it will.

The Four Percent Solution

So if I understand you, this means we should be increasing interest rates. In order to remove excess capacity, the profitability of a project must be raised.

To me there is two ways to do this. Raise interest rates or Raise corporate Tax rates. So if these are not politically feasible in today's climate, what is the alternative?

Sorkin's Questions to Bank CEOs, Answered

How do you restore the checks and balances a true board of directors should be.

Why should CEO's be paid based on stock price. They control some but not all of the stock price. The CEO's should be paid based on the elements they control such as ROE, ROI, ROA.

"No one goes into Wall Street to save the world," Meredith Whitney tells Bloomberg in an interview (video). She's worried doing away with bonuses will force out the best and the brightest.

Bigger question,
Why should Wall Street need to attract the best and the brightest. At the base level their job is to provide for capital formation. The headlines make it seem that it has attracted the flim flam/confidence men. Thus trust was sold for short term dollars.

Where should the best and the brightest be attracted to?

Technology, research, medicine, manufacturing?

5 Reasons a Chinese Al Jazeera Is a Good Thing

Propaganda Fails?

Politics
Big Rove's game plan, "FEAR". make them afraid, very afraid.


Military.
We are fighting for freedom in Iraq and Afganistan??????

As far as I can tell Afganistan was a lesson in do not harbor an organization that uses violence against America. Kinda like the Marines vs the Barbary Pirates
Iraq, I just do not have a clue why it was important to over throw Sadam? I am thinking from a practical standpoint.


TSA
I feel so safe paying an extra five bucks so I can be humiliated and searched. The TSA has nothing on the reality shows on TV. We could call it Hijacker instead of Survivor

Keeping a hijacker out of the cockpit is what makes us relatively safe.
This was done in the 1970's when the Palestinians were hijacking aircraft and it ended.

War on Drugs..
Never has less been accomplished and more democratic values been destroyed then the supposed war on drugs.
Just ask the Major of the small Virginia town who has his dogs killed, his house destroyed from a "No Knock" warrant. Or how is it possible to arrest money?

When Bonuses Aren't Discretionary

I guess the definition of a minumum bonus could only exist in the Neverland of Wall Street.

To me this is deferred salary and needs to be accured if true. Otherwise like all other bonuses it should be tied to company objectives and goals. Most of which Wall Street had a no hitter on for the last two years.

Jimbo above has it right.

It is time Wall Street drank from the same medicine they have pro-offered the average voter for the last 8 years.

Nationalizing Bank Losses

So lets see if i have this right.

If we let the banks go bankrupt and let the legal system sort out the mess then the common and preferred stock holders will get wiped out, the debt holders will be converted to equity holders (including what ever CDO's). Of course this will take time and their will be chaos and rioting in the streets because the big national banks will be in the toilet while local/regional banks will survive.

if we nationalize the banks, the management, the common and preferred sotckholders get wiped out, Bank debt holder will probably be made whole through some equity and some new debt and US citizens will be on the hook for a 30-40% haircut. (I am assuming things will be as bad as the savings and loan crisis where I have read the US took 300 billion of bad debt and recovered 200 billion.
The far right will scream we are now a socialist nation with the government replacing management. (Of course we now know all to well how the current Boards of DIrectors and Management have done in maintaining a healthy finance system)

If we continue with TARP, the management stays, the stockholders (common and preferred) get a free lunch, the debt holders are assured that they will continue to be whole, the US citizen will take 100% of the haircut and the dirty commie liberals will call it all coporate welfare.

The only problem is the government is already screwed. In the past 8 years we have more that doubled thenational debt, appointed political hacks into jobs requiring macro-economic competence and sensitivity, have a legal system that no longer respects the rule of law and I can go on and on.

So where is the reboot button?

Not surprising but still good to know: Most Wall Street workers (54%) took home smaller year-end bonuses in 2008 - although 79% still got a year-end payout. Nearly half were unhappy with their bonus.

Wall street did such a bang up job last year
Too Bad So Sad about not earning a bonus
75,000 workers out of jobs yesterday
So be happy with what you got and try and work for a better tommorrow for America.