Ratigan: Lloyd Blankfein Made $410 Million In The Past 3 Years
Here Comes the Story of the Goldman Hurricane
Submitted by Dylan Ratigan
It is true that our economy was hit by hurricane Mr. Blankfein, but it was one created by you and your cohorts. The financial services industry lobbied for the repeal of the Glass Steagall Act in 1999. That allowed banks to use their custodial power over your money to assume huge risks in investment markets.
They also lobbied for the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000, which allowed banks to trade their crooked insurance in secret and exempted from all supervisory authority. And to help grow the hurricane, then CEO of Goldman Sachs Hank Paulson made a personal plea to the SEC to allow banks to leverage more money against their capital. As much as $4,000 for every $100 in capital they held.
Wall Street may claim this was caused by a perfect storm, but the only thing perfect about it was their ability to line their pockets at the expense of our country. Look at just the past few years of compensation for some of the CEO's testifying today. Numbers that don't even include the expected record-breaking 2009 bonuses.
- $410 million for Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein over 3 years
- $195 million in that timespan for JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon
- $132 million for just two years work at Morgan Stanley for John Mack
Brian Moynihan has just stepped into his role as CEO of bank of America. But he stands to do just fine... His predecessor Ken Lewis made 150 million for 5 years before stepping down. Unfortunately for the rest of us, their man-made money-making hurricane has devastated this country.
- 10 percent of this nation is out of work. Real unemployment stands at 17.3 percent .
- The deficit has skyrocketed over the past ten years. Our national debt now more than 12 trillion dollars.
- More than 2 million families have lost their homes to foreclosure in the last 3 years. And seniors are denied interest on their savings, just so banks can receive tons of cheap money to try to gamble their way out of their hole.
So to you hurricane-makers, we say it's time for you to come clean on your actions, let us fix your crooked system and finally pay us back for your destruction.
Today, Morgan Stanley CEO John Mack and JP Morgan's Jamie Dimon talked about clawbacks they've instituted for their banks to recoup future losses... but what about the clawbacks for the bonuses you made over the past 10 years? The ones you made on the massive fraud that the American taxpayer is currently paying for?
Not to mention, the record-breaking bonuses to be awarded next week gambling with our bailout money. Take a listen to Mr. Mack's justification during a recess this morning. Potentially record profits Mr. Mack but they are clearly the result of a windfall of taxpayer support. So it only makes sense that this country follow the lead of Great Britain and France and enact a windfall profits tax.
Look at it this way: If we found out Katrina was the result somebody's get-rich quick scheme, wouldn't we demand restitution?
Jan 15, 2010 at 12:23 AM
Reader Comments (15)
i'll add more comments as warranted...
(What Condition My Condition Was In, Mickey Newbury)
WilliamBanzai7
(yeah, yeah, oh-yeah, what condition my condition was in)
I woke up this mornin’ with the sundown shinin’ in
I found every kind of scamming Wall Street banksta testifying within
They tripped on a subprime cloud and landed with a bailout high
They tore all our savings on a jagged sky
I just dropped in to see what condition the Financial Crisis Commission was in
(yeah, yeah, oh-yeah, what condition the Financial Crisis Commission was in)
They pushed all their trading bets into a derivative black hole and then they all fell in
They scratched and clawed themselves out from the 2big 2fail bankruptcy bin
It got me so up tight I couldn’t unwind
I saw so much quantitative cr@p It broke my mind
I just dropped in to see what condition the Financial Crisis Commission was in
(yeah, yeah, oh-yeah, what condition the Financial Crisis Commission was in)
Someone painted April fool in big black letters on Lloyd Blankfein's behind
Goldman had its foot on the AIG gas, left the road and blew a FWMD land mine
Eighty miles outta Wall Street and I got no spare
Eighty miles straight up downtown Washington somewhere
I just dropped in to see what condition the Financial Crisis Commission was in
I said I just dropped in to see what condition the Financial Crisis Commission was in
Yeah yeah oh-yeah
where did those lyrics come from ?
Which Mack quotes were not-attributed correctly by Dylan?
Let me know and i can at least fix them for this piece...
I have never gone after John Mack like I have Blankfein...
Mack has admitted fault and been humble from the beginning...
So I leave him alone...
Plus, he tells in public the story of how hung up on Paulson, Bernanke and Geithner when they told him Morgan Stanley had to file, and how he later told Geithner to go fuck himself. It may be self-serving, but it made me happy regardless.
You're not considering it correctly. You see, you unlock this door with the key of imagination. Beyond it is another dimension: a dimension of sound, a dimension of sight, a dimension of mind. You're moving into a land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas. You've just crossed over into... the Obama Zone.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzlG28B-R8Y
what has he created...?
Do the RICH & POWERS THAT BE think that this might end well???
Our American Republic was, is and will run through The Fed, Wall Street and related financial institutions and systemically-important and rich companies (and their executives). All else be damned. Now if only we had a Thomas Jefferson-like writer today to explain it all in a clear, cogent manner so the citizenry could understand. Oh, to dream. But would a book like that ever get published?
History teaches us that human nature does not change. The haves screw the have nots, over and over. The only thing that changes is the construct in which this happens.