Wretched Excess (James Kunstler)

[Tace]

James Kunstler -- Clusterfuck Nation

Dec. 11, 2006 -- Since the financial "industry" decoupled from the U.S. economy sometime in the past decade, it has been hard to tell, from a chicken-and-egg point-of-view what comes first -- obscenely huge year-end bonuses for Wall Street playas, or jacked up market indices. I mean, do these paper-shufflers get paid extra millions because the Dow goes over 12,000, or do they game the Dow over 12,000 to justify the extra millions? (Or game other sub-systems such as the commodities markets, the derivatives sector, the mortgage rackets, mergers-and-acquisitions, et cetera.) Echo answers...

CNBC reports that fifty executives at Goldman Sachs will each receive bonuses of $25 million or more. Yes, you read correctly. $25 million each. And the reason, according to CNBC is that these sharpies would otherwise jump ship for hedge fund nirvana if not lavishly tipped. Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch also will each smack twelve employees over the head with golden stockings full of $25 million. Note, Goldman Sachs was rumored to have driven the price of oil down for the election season by applying huge sums of money to twiddle the futures market, and note, too, that the Secretary of the Treasury, Hank Paulson, was CEO of Goldman Sachs until the middle of last summer. But, of course, I am fond of saying that I am allergic to conspiracy theories.

I do have another theory, though. I admit, it's just a hunch, a wild-ass guess, a twinge in the gut. It's that come 2007, New York's new governor, Elliot Spitzer, and the new state attorney general, Andrew Cuomo, will go after these grifters like a couple of mastiffs in a basement full of rats -- just like Spitzer went after Dick Grasso, the CEO of the New York Stock Exchange, who, in 2003, received a "deferred compensation" package of $140-million, awarded by a hand-picked NYSE compensation committee composed of executives from the very listed companies Grasso was supposed to regulate. His venality unbound, Grasso then arranged to receive an additional $48-million when the embarrassed NYSE board made him step down from his job.

Of course, this whole sordid tale raises some ineffable questions, such as, how exactly does one's standard of living improve after, say, the first $140 million? How many private jet planes does it take to summon up that certain glow of contentment achieved among the testosterone-for-lunch-bunch? Anyway, the Grasso case is currently awaiting trial. So far, the New York State Supreme Court issued a summary decision ordering him to repay "a significant amount" of the gazillions he walked away with. The cheeky Grasso countersued the NYSE for "besmirching his name." Well he can sue me, too, because I am here to tell you that Dick Grasso's behavior as fiduciary for a non-profit corporation should be heralded from sea to shining sea as the most disgraceful species of money-grubbing turpitude conceivable in a sentient creature above the level of a howler monkey. I hope he spends the rest of his life doing Chinese fire drills in the civil courts and finally dies by getting sucked into the air intake of the starboard engine of his private jet five minutes after the re-po man shows up with a warrant for chattal surrender.

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[Porcupine]

1. Exactly how many Penthouse apartments do these guys need?

After a certain point it becomes clear that the stock exchange is there to benefit the wealthy and fleece the rest of us. This is why.

Actual growth in value in the stock market has been zero adjusted for inflation. Everybody who's 401K money went to stocks for the last 6 years averaged exactly zero growth. Zilch.

These guys get massive bonus's for that performance.