That's billion with a B

Posted by Jim Jagielski on Wednesday, September 24. 2008 in Junk Drawer

So Wall Street will get a bailout of $700 Billion. It must be nice knowing that no matter how badly you screw up, you can count on your friends to completely cover you. Of course, that is a simplification and the deal as currently defined will almost for sure not pass. The major sticking point seems to be that even though the companies are in woeful financial state, and the gov't need to step in with $700B of taxpayers money to shore things up, the executives of those companies will walk away with tens-of-millions (at least) of compensation and... wait for it... BONUSES! I have no idea in what Alice-In-Wonderland universe these things happen, when an executive expects and receives bonuses for basically being a greedy, selfish tool, but I obviously don't understand The Financial Market. Of course, we are told, that the bailout can't add limits or restrictions for these types of things, because it would prevent executives from taking the bailouts to "save" their companies. If there is any clearer indication that the executives' priorities are screwed up, I don't know what it is. "Screw the company! I want what's coming to ME!" And what is even worse is that the main people in the gov't behind this bailout have no idea why we feel that this is somehow wrong...

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