It’s Not the Bonus Money. It’s the Principle.

[Joanne98]

And on the ninth day, the president jawboned.

How else to describe what President Obama did on Thursday, his ninth day in office? Angered by news that Wall Street was doling out $18.4 billion in bonuses for 2008 — “the sixth-largest haul on record,” according to a front-page article in The New York Times, despite billions upon billions in losses — the president called reporters in and looked sternly into the cameras. Then he unloaded on Wall Street executives, just as President John F. Kennedy once unloaded on the country’s steel barons.

“That is the height of irresponsibility,” Mr. Obama said sharply, referring to the bonuses. “It is shameful.” Wall Street, he said, was coming to the government for badly needed help — which taxpayers were providing because otherwise “the entire system could come down on top of our heads” — and the government had a right to expect in return that Wall Street would “show some restraint and show some discipline and show some sense of responsibility.” After going on in this vein for a while, he slapped around Citigroup for agreeing to take that new $50 million corporate jet after agreeing to a huge bailout in November. The government’s demand that the plane be canceled should have been unnecessary “because they should know better,” he scolded.

Mr. Obama didn’t take a shot at John Thain, the former chief executive of Merrill Lynch, who was pushed out last week by his new boss, Ken Lewis, at Bank of America, after Merrill reported a $15.3 billion loss in the fourth quarter. But then, he didn’t have to. The revelation that Mr. Thain had spent $1.2 million remodeling his office shortly after joining Merrill in 2007 — and more recently allotted big bonuses to Merrill’s troops even as the firm’s red ink was forcing Bank of America to seek more government help — has transformed Mr. Thain into the new Richard Fuld. He’s the person Americans would most like to punch in the nose.

continued>>>
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/31/business/31nocera.html?em

[SharonAnn]

1. Are you kidding? It's both. The money IS the principle.

[wolfgangmo]

2. I'm also angry about ...

... the fact that these incompetent dolts haven't been fired and blackballed.

[Skittles]

3. YES

ABSOLUTELY :mad:

[AwakeAtLast]

4. or indicted. n/t