LariAnn

The U.S. Banking System's Terrifying Balance Sheet

Allow me to interject a sinister note to this whole thing. Assume that the bank leadership as well as the government leadership actually understand where things are at financially and globally, and that they knew where it was headed when they did the derivatives thing and put in place the deregulation that allowed it to occur. Might they know something important about the near future, something that would make it "not matter anyhow" if the global financial system goes belly-up?

Think about it this way: if you knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that you were going to be dead in two years, and you had large credit lines available to you now, wouldn't you realize your fantasies on credit before the end? Something to think about. . .

AIG Bonuses Are Just the Tip of the Iceberg

It is clear to me that if Merrill had that much money laying around to hand out in bonuses or retention or whatever buzzword is used to describe it, they were charging their customers WAY too much for the services rendered! Instead, they should have given it to investors who lost money on deals made by these so-called brokers, instead of giving the money to the brokers.