Misleading Comments on Wall Street Bonuses on Meet the Press
One of the guests on Meet the Press this morning defended the current round of bonuses by saying the people just don't understand that the bailout did not fund the bonuses. All this "populism" on the part of outraged Democrats is, therefore, out of hand. The money, it was claimed, did not go directly from Treasury or the Fed to Wall Street's personal accounts.
But, in fact, for all intents and purposes, yes it did. The money did not go directly into the bankers' personal accounts, no. But all the bailout efforts did stem what would have been far more damage -- much bigger losses on Wall Street, at banks, and at hedge funds. In particular, the Fed's actions to shore up the commercial paper market and the money market funds, and to take as collateral all kinds of debt to supply reserves, reduced further losses on the Street, enabled some markets to function, and provided the potential for some to profit. It probably even kept stocks from falling farther.
Just ask yourself this. Would there have been all that money around to pay the huge bonuses this year had the Treasury and the Fed not stepped in with hundreds of billions of dollars? Of course not.
And that is why everyone is angry. With good reason. The bonuses, despite claims otherwise, were indeed a shame.
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/begin snark
You have to realize that these people create money. They get a share of whatever money they bring in. If they successfully bring in millions of dollars of taxpayer bailout funds, giving them 1% of that is only fair.
/end snark.
Sorry, had to make a snarky comment, but didn't want to risk anyone thinking I actually believed the above BS.
Senator Hutchenson (R-TX,... who else would be that ignorant in public) said that,... and my mouth dropped,..
This is the same 'lame' arguement made a few years back when the Republicans claimed that Government monies funneled through "Faith Based" charities were not being used by those charities to further their religious agenda,...
No, the Government wasn't writing them a check to underwrite their preaching their version of the Gospels,..
More sign of a mental disconnect between these politican's core voters, and reality. The Politicans know they are spewing crap,... but their voters are too dim, or too part of their movement to see it.
Meet the Press is going down the drain. If I want to understand or learn about the economy and what it needs, I don't want to waste time listening to ideologues, I want experts in the field that is being discussed. When Greg boy took over, i stopped watching it. He is a looser and apparently so is the staff to put shows like this together.
I think he is still in awe that he is host of MTP. Hopefully over the period of few months he will get confidence and learn the rope.
he is arrogant, no chance of him learning a thing,, he is just glad to be in the big boys club doing NOTHING and getting paid an outrageous amount...J
Fact: money is fungible. The fact that teh particular dollar trasnferred from the treasury to teh banks was not used to fund teh bonuses, is , as this article points out, a total smokescreen.
Of course it did. Without teh bailout, the money used for bonuses would not have been available and would have had to be used for the purposes that teh treasury money was applied. Ergo: teh treasury DID fund those bonuses.
Jail time should be forthcoming for whoever approved those bonus decisions as it effectively means that the statements made in requesting government bailout funds constituted fraudulent misrepresentations made to the government. In other words, theft by fraud.
OOOHH I like it MASSIVE FRAUD of course, RACKETEERING also...
but there was no intent to defraud, just gamble and enrich themselves
I watched the program and the comments were outrageous! All of the guests as far as I could see were busy defending the 'bonuses' and weren't really challenged vigorously about it.
I was watching too and got so mad...espe
I can't believe someone actually had the cajones to get on MTP and say such a thing. Do they REALLY think the American people are THAT stupid?
Granted, our track record for stupidity is fairly impressive, but I believe (hope!) that is changing. Now that the US consumer is finally waking up and paying attention it will be harder and harder to pull the wool over their eyes.
"Do they REALLY think the American people are THAT stupid?"
Yes, sadly they do think that. Ever sadder,... some of us are that stupid.
I'm looking forward to the day when all Sunday shows go away. The nation deserves journalism, not propaganda.
Not to mention the fact that even if they did NOT come from the bailout money, they STILL underperformed at levels not seen since I don't KNOW when, and CERTAINLY did not deserve to pass out 18 BILLION DOLLARS worth of bonuses!
Absolutely.
The reason the bonus payments are shameful is because they are the opposite of capitalism.
What this means is that the banks are saying: it's the taxpayer's job to save capitalism. And they will, because they have to, because it's in their interest. So we can take a little extra off the cherry on top.
THIS is what's sickening.
Except that it goes even further: because it's not even possible to kick the bankers out on the street, because then the economy will suffer even more.
What this means is that bankers have now officially arrived at the status of feudalists.
Wonder how long that will last. As long as feudalism?
"The reason the bonus payments are shameful is because they are the opposite of capitalism
WTF? 70% of the Wall Street banks' expenses are people costs; Paulson approved this plan and he put the limitation on CEO and executive bonuses.
The bonus payouts were for people below the senior exec. level. Did the NY State comptroller say how many people received the bonus money compared to last year?
By the way, the bonus level last year was $30 billion.
Yes they were a sham and a shame. Anyone who says otherwise is lying through their teeth and frankly that's something I expect from a show with DG as the *moderator*.
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