Your Tax Dollars At Work: Government Sachs To Pay Record Bonuses
Goldman Treasury faces, from left: Steve Shafran, Kendrick Wilson III, Henry Paulson Jr., Edward Forst and Neel Kashkari .
Hey suckers (myself included) check out where our tax dollars are headed: Goldman Sachs to Make Record Bonus Payout.
Government Sachs staff can look forward to the biggest bonus payouts in the firm's 140-year history after a spectacular first half of the year. Staff in London were briefed last week on the banking and securities company's prospects and told they could look forward to bumper bonuses if, as predicted, it completed its most profitable year ever.
In April, Goldman said it would set aside half of its £1.2bn first-quarter profit to reward staff, much of it in bonuses. It is believed to have paid 973 bankers $1m or more last year, while this year's payouts are on track to be the highest for most of the bank's 28,000 staff, including about 5,400 in London.
Why are they so profitable? Evaporating competition.
A lack of competition and a surge in revenues from trading foreign currency, bonds and fixed-income products has sent profits at Goldman Sachs soaring, according to insiders at the firm.
And don't forget the highly-corrupted AIG payouts to counterparties at PAR, that were ordered by B-52 and the Federal Reserve. At least $13 billion of your tax dollars have gone directly to Goldman (not including TARP) via this AIG conduit. And the AIG story is not yet finished.
Also, the change to FASB 157 (mark-to-market- accounting) now allows them to fudge asset pricing on the balance sheet, thus eliminating pesky writedowns and improving earnings and therefore bonus payouts.
Then we have FDIC-backed debt issued by Goldman saving the company hundreds of millions in interest payments. Not to mention the TALF and the myriad other Fed and Treasury liquidity programs in which they participate. Have I forgotten anything? The list of taxpayer largesse is so long it's difficult to keep straight.
Jun 22, 2009 at 1:25 AM
Reader Comments (15)
Flight records show numerous occasions when banks receiving federal money have flown their planes to destinations near resorts or executives' vacation homes, including spots in Europe, Mexico, the Caribbean, south Florida and Aspen, Colo. In some cases, it's clear that bank executives were traveling for personal reasons; for other flights, many of which were over weekends or holidays, the passengers and purpose couldn't be established.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124536271699529031.html
As a senator, Barack Obama denounced the Bush administration for holding "secret energy meetings" with oil executives at the White House. But last week public-interest groups were dismayed when his own administration rejected a Freedom of Information Act request for Secret Service logs showing the identities of coal executives who had visited the White House to discuss Obama's "clean coal" policies. One reason: the disclosure of such records might impinge on privileged "presidential communications." The refusal, approved by White House counsel Greg Craig's office, is the latest in a series of cases in which Obama officials have opted against public disclosure. Since Obama pledged on his first day in office to usher in a "new era" of openness, "nothing has changed," says David -Sobel, a lawyer who litigates FOIA cases. "For a president who said he was going to bring unprecedented transparency to government, you would certainly expect more than the recycling of old Bush secrecy policies."
http://www.newsweek.com/id/202875
After two smugglers were stopped last week with what at first appeared to be $134bn in US state bonds, the tension and paranoia surrounding the fate of the dollar hit a new high.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/5586543/Is-this-the-death-of-the-dollar.html
David Rohde, a New York Times reporter who was kidnapped by the Taliban, escaped Friday night and made his way to freedom after more than seven months of captivity in the mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/21/world/asia/21taliban.html?_r=1&hp
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/swine-flu-could-infect-up-to-half-the-population-1711552.html
http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2009/06/book-review-greenspan-problem.html
http://theautomaticearth.blogspot.com/2009/06/june-17-2009-40-ways-to-lose-your.html?ref=patrick.net
http://deathby1000papercuts.com/2009/06/italys-1345-billion-us-federal-bond-train-caper-think-134-billion-is-big-try-25-trillion/
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/19/business/19gold.html
During the 1790's, the British govt. produced counterfeit versions of the "assignat," the infamous (already debased) paper currency used by the French revolutionary govt. (You can find both genuine and counterfeit versions of the assignat on Ebay for just a few, debased Federal Reserve notes.) I wonder if something similar isn't already going on here. Cry "tin-foil hat" if you like, but this story is weird, weird, weird, and nothing seems to add up.
I am also suspicious.
Steve, please don't let up on this story. It is not at all surprising that the seemingly compromised MSM isn't covering this, but I think you have positively captured something huge here. Kind of like how the 450,000 lbs. of yellowcake Lehman listed as an asset in bankruptcy court story was marginally covered and faded into oblivion. This reminds me of "Die Fälscher" [The Counterfeiters] film that came out a few years back. Great film and still relevant today.
that is all true!