Sunday, September 28, 2008

Yes, This System Deserves A Bailout...

Madness:

But the seizure and the deal with JPMorgan came as a shock to Washington Mutual’s board, which was kept completely in the dark: the company’s new chief executive, Alan H. Fishman, was in midair, flying from New York to Seattle at the time the deal was finally brokered, according to people briefed on the situation. Mr. Fishman, who has been on the job for less than three weeks, is eligible for $11.6 million in cash severance and will get to keep his $7.5 million signing bonus, according to an analysis by James F. Reda and Associates.

That's not a golden parachute. It's a next-generation orbital reentry vehicle.

I'm starting to think that some of these corporate board members are actually part of a secret cabal that's heavily invested in pitchfork futures.

18 Comments:

Blogger Kaimu said...

ALOHA !!

What we have is an economic system based on DEBT that is supported by a monetary system that is designed to accelerate DEBT through the human condition. If the debt isn't growing then neither is GDP and the economy collapses. Legal tender enforces the US PESO(fiat standard)domestically and the US military enforces it internationally!

THE AMERICAN DREAM IS DEBT ...

Can you really bailout bad debt with good debt?

MONEY IS DEBT ... When the DEBT stops the money stops!

We are witnessing not a banking crisis but the unwinding of the US EMPIRE which is based on the expansion of DEBT. This is a MONETARY COLLAPSE!

9/28/2008 5:22 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

boards of directors, whether corporate or many non profits, are incestuous whores. i'll protect you now and you protect me next time. why is it that these characters circulate from board to board and from job to job.

9/28/2008 12:01 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Actually these characters do circulate from board to board and from job to job. They're mostly Trilateral Commission and or the Bilderberg Group members. Imagine, a $1-trillion dollar bailout without ever any mention of wrongdoing, or even malfeasance. When people take your money and steal your car, it makes an impression. When you find they're committed globalists, it really leaves an impression. Please, do not feed the bears: http://theseedsof9-11.com

9/28/2008 1:30 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

well that's his signing on bonus and his severence sorted out...

Now what about his salary?

9/28/2008 5:10 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

American management is a strange enigma. It clearly is broken.

With all the folks with degrees and MBA's, the supply for executive material ought to be huge. Demographic wise, there should be a lot of folks in their prime for executive material driving compensation down. However, some folks justify the compensation because they say executives are celebrities. We know shareholders have no impact on boards or executives. There are just too many with too little ownership to matter, not to mention the mutual funds, ETF's, indexes, where folks are invested in many stocks and know nothing about any of them. And Wall Street as watchdogs of these corporations. Nope. Wall Street is the tick on the dirty dog.

Where are the Demings, the Tom Peters that spoke of a management that worked for the company. People mattered. Communities mattered. Quality mattered. Deming wrote that companies were being taken over by accountants and lawyers that waived their magic wands to create earnings and hide debt.

Our laws have been corrupted by bad money chasing politicians, so good companies, good business practices, and good business people, are having a hard time in this environment. We either feed the good practices or the bad practices, with media, money, and laws. And clearly we have feed the bad. Why is overcompensating executives, with lifetimes of benefits, not considered moral hazard? Especially the ones that haven't been there very long, focus on the short-term, and use the corporations as their personal piggy bank.

There is absolutely no excuse for a board not to know.

It will be interesting to watch the JPMorgans and Bank of America's.

9/28/2008 6:09 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"robber baron" is the term--the Republican wet dream

9/28/2008 7:28 PM  
Blogger Nykemartyn said...

The Wall Street volatility has left experts grappling for answers and consumers worried about their free-falling retirement funds. Those losing the most sleep are workers close to retirement, fearing they might have to stay on the job longer to compensate for dwindling nest eggs.
--------------
Nykemartyn
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9/29/2008 5:55 AM  
Blogger Mr. Hedley Bowes said...

anonymous @6:09 raises excellent points. American management has become a game of inside baseball. That someone like Carly Fiorina, whose performance at Lucent and HP was far less than stellar, could be touted as an example of McCain's advisors is laughable. Corporate influence is not only corrupting government, it tilts the playing fields of markets heavily in favor of the established players. The combination of government favor and corporate power distort markets to the degree that makes possible a growing legacy of abuse and waste: Enron, WorldCom, BearStearns, AIG, et al. If these people are following Adam Smith's 'invisible hand' they're making damn sure it's got a wad of millions behind it.

9/29/2008 10:37 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The proposed bailout plan

http://www.breadwithcircus.com/bailout.html

That about sums it up.

9/29/2008 11:45 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

And Monday, "Citigroup saves ailing Wachovia".

This administration unfortunately has zip credibility supported by their rah, rah Fox media. They can and will and have done unimaginable things to implement their own world view bubble. Then on top of that, the people asking for the $700 billion are the same people that were telling us everything was fine. Granted much of the blame belongs to Greenspan and the no regulation, no oversight folks, but Bernanke and Paulson continued down the same path. Plus Paulson's connection with Goldman Sach's can't be overlooked. Sadly, I think they need to go.

Like most bills, politicians will tack on special interest stuff at the last minute for some ungodly pork or secret objective. Do we know this is not occurring? We aren't going to find funds for a bridge to no-where, a study on fruit fly mating, military attack on Figi, faith-based composting, or something totally unrelated to bailing out Wall Street, are we?

One of the arguments I keep hearing is that credit will dry up in our local banks, and mainstreet will start feeling pain (as if Wall Street and this administration haven't already inflicted pain). But people don't have to bank at their local banks anymore, they literally can go anywhere. Is the entire system broken, or are there enough capitalized banks left to serve the public. Feds and/or other banks should take over the bad banks, chop them up, sell them off, prosecute the crooks, and let the good banks do business, asap. On the news representatives from the local banks were saying come see us, we have capital. They just reminded people that they aren't just going to hand money out. You have to prove you have income (they'll call your employer), you'll need money down, and other sensible rules. This is the way it was not too long ago. When talking about this mess, people seem timid to say, well, perhaps we should make sure borrowers can pay the loan back and have a reasonable down payment. What's up with that?

Sometime I feel like we are trying to save the dinosaurs, but the dinosaurs want to get one last meal.

A little déjà vu. They were interviewing some bankers last night, and the reporter started reading some emails from Wall Street brokers. The content and tone were just like those conversations that took place at Enron. They were saying stuff like, sure hope we are millionaires and retired when this stuff comes crumbling down.

Just trying to understand the components of the problem: Who's To Blame For the Mess We're In?

snippet:

So let's review:

1.) Bailing out LTCM set a very bad precedent
2.) Deregulation exposed banks to unnecessary risks
3.) Deregulation led to the development of an entire shadow market in CDSs
4.) Lowering interest rates to 0% after inflation led to massive speculation in real estate
5.) Lack of any regulatory oversight encouraged outright fraud

All of these combined led to a terrible problem that we are now paying for.

9/29/2008 12:50 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Geez! Bankers, welcome to the average joe's and jane's world ;-)

"The basic argument for the bailout is that the banks are filled with so much bad debt that the banks can't trust each other to repay loans."

9/29/2008 12:56 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The House just rejected the bailout.

9/29/2008 2:55 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Finally the house did something right!!! Good for them.

9/29/2008 3:29 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Finally the house did something right!!! Good for them.

Biggest one day point drop in Wall St. history. Is it worth that for the smug feeling of schadenfreude?

9/29/2008 5:17 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yes, it is worth maintaining the integrity of American Capitalism. Maybe if you and your kind valued something more then the garbage paper you were peddling, you'd understand.

9/29/2008 6:33 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Fighting the culture wars every election is what is bringing this country down.

If every race is about who hates abortion, gays and mexicans more than the other guy, who is more of a christian too, well surprise; the gov is run by idiots.

Even Palin ran for f-ing mayor of a 6000 person town on abortion and that the other guy was not a good enough Christian. And she is STUPID which proves my point.

9/29/2008 7:59 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The stock market can drop 10000points for all care. It might be down were it belongs at the point. Sheesh...Why should I pay these leaches trillions of dollars just to prop up them up. Did it ever occur to you that maybe if we had companys that were profitible and did something useful for the world we wouldn't need to prop it up? What do you think proping up these corrupt institutions is going to do for us? The same politicians, the same corporate leaders, the same Fed bankers, etc. If it takes a trillion to bail them out this time...it will take 10 trillion to bail them out the next time. Let them die. Get your money out. They don't deserve our support.

9/30/2008 5:15 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

THe Joker said, "Lets give this (country) an enema!"

Folks there isn't a single institution, nation, or person on earth that isn't corrupt! It comes with the territory that we will have to balance ourselves between the tony sopranos and the Marx brothers. Its a tragedy a comedy, a fist fight, and a love session. All we have is the law which is written by us and each other. Some will steal when we let them. Others won't and we won't reward them. NO go and do something tomorrow that is nice and good. Then on monday tear someone a brand new ass hole.

10/04/2008 10:35 PM  

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