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New York, 7:23 AM
Tue Nov 10
55 posts in the last 24 hours
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10/22/09
You see how that works, right? The only way to keep people is to pay them millions of dollars. If you stop paying them millions of dollars, they will leave. Bank of America's evidence of this is that 45% of the people to whom it was paying the most millions of dollars left. Q.E.D.
They saw it coming. Top performers at notable TARP banks have been jumping ship at an incredible rate. Use the internet. #aig
10/22/09
10/22/09
You understand that banks have revenue streams all over the place, right? There's the bond shop. The equity shop. Client service. The back end. All of them have wildly different, easily individualized performance - and the guys doing well want to be paid. If they aren't, they'll take their clients to another firm that's willing to compensate them. It may shock you, because the media covers this very poorly, but corporations aren't one big box where everyone shares. #aig
10/22/09
10/22/09
It's not "funding" if it's printed money covering sour bets. That's called a mirage. New York is basically a national debt citadel - it's doomed. Philly should be so grateful that it's already dealing with massive shortfalls and burgeoning crime. At least it will have a leg up! #aig
10/22/09
10/22/09
10/22/09
10/22/09
10/22/09
Summary of massive screed deleted: there are unintended consequence to this populism. Pay restraints have to get everybody, not just TARP guys, or you screw the taxpayer even harder. Non-TARP firms are feasting on the Phibros, Mitch Coxes, Bob McCanns, etc.
Proposed solution: wanna limit banker pay? Don't bail the banks they work for out. Liquidate the paper wealth.
10/01/09
09/30/09
09/17/09
09/17/09
That's a lot bigger than $36 million, and we all are paying for it. It's great that Cuomo is suing, but let's all remember one thing: it never should have happened in the first place.
09/15/09
09/15/09
09/15/09
09/15/09
09/15/09
09/15/09
09/15/09
I was also under the impression that Ken Lewis has a gigantic head that looks like a constipated potato.
09/15/09
Um, Dick? Those bonuses came out of the shareholders' pockets. So the shareholders were harmed, because they weren't informed of them. Why were they not informed? Oh, I dunno. Maybe because they would have dumped the stock en masse?
09/15/09
09/15/09
09/15/09
This is Communistism!
09/15/09
07/17/09
A week later, two separate mailings detailed their meticulous reasoning. The first card's limit was cut due to having one or more cards active for less than 24 months solid (one of course being SAID CARD they gave me right in the bank branch). Then a mailing dated 4 days later stated the other two accounts had their limits cut because of an account being too close to its stated limit. This of course happened because that card had been reduced in half two days earlier, bringing my outstanding balance close to the limit. My good credit rating is now affected, I have less credit to speak of and once again Chase leaves me holding my dick in space.
Did I mention I haven't been anywhere near delinquent on payments in years, or that I consistently pay at least twice the monthly minimum? Color me bedazzled with a sprinkling of jihadist-rage orange and flesh-whipped pink.
07/17/09
07/17/09
Ugh. How about it. I have but one credit card (really) and two months ago my interest rate jumped up 5 percent. I called to ask for it to be lowered to its previous extortion-level rate, and the CSR ACTUALLY SAID "Well, if we don't raise your rate, the bank doesn't make any money." WTF?! Do I look like I give a shit about whether Bank of America makes money?!
AND THEN I got laid off, so my rate is going to go even higher. FML.
07/17/09
Even AIG, who is paying something like 14%, is meeting those obligations. After their devastating losses, because they're still an insurance company that pulls in billions in real revenue from insurance products.
The reason banks got bailed out isn't to confiscate money from taxpayers, though it seems that way in the short run. The banks have business models that can pay back taxpayers once the short-run pain of the junk assets can be overcome. The whole point of this is that taxpayers are better served in the long-run by maintaining the function of the companies that pay their paychecks, most of whom rely on the very banking industries you decry. They're receiving dividends, interest, and their capital back. How is that confiscation?
All dynamics you understand and ignore, John, so you have your little Huey Long hissyfit. Or do you not think TARP is going to be repaid and the Fed will never close the discount window?
Want to worry about theft? Ask why our government is building powerplants in Afghanistan and Iraq instead of our own fucking country.
07/17/09
07/17/09
Does the Federal Government have the capability to loan to you directly, though? Part of the problem here is that the Government has an interest in creating the appearance of an independent banking system. 4% spreads are seen as a small price to pay to staunch the hue and cry over "socialism." I agree that the spreads should be far, far smaller.
As for the traders, though, that's a function of TARP that I hate. It's preventing the function of a labor market that shouldn't be paying ANYONE in finance 6 mil a year to act as storefronts for printed money. TARP shouldn't have been passed.