It seems NY AG Andrew Como has written a letter to the head of the House Financial Services Committee, Rep, Barney Frank (D-Mass) about his concern that Merril Lynch changed their bonus payment schedule so that the bailout package would foot the bill.
Via The Consumerist ( with a PDF of the letter at the end)
In the body of the letter Como says,
Bearing in mind that Merrill moved up its bonus payments in advance of its announced $15 billion quarterly loss and $27 billion annual loss, we have determined that Merrill Lynch made the following bonus payments:
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The top four bonus recipients received a combined $121 million;
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The next four bonus recipients received a combined $62 million;
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The next six bonus recipients received a combined $66 million;
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Fourteen individuals received bonuses of $1 0 million or more and combined they received more than $250 million;
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20 individuals received bonuses of $8 million or more;
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53 individuals received bonuses of $5 million or more;
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149 individuals received bonuses of $3 million or more;
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Overall, the top 149 bonus recipients received a combined $858 million;
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696 individuals received bonuses of $1 million or more.Again, these payments and their curious timing raise serious questions as to whether the Merrill Lynch and Bank of America Boards of Directors were derelict in their duties and violated their fiduciary obligations. We will also continue to examine whether senior officials at both companies violated their own fiduciary obligations to shareholders. If they did, this raises additional serious issues with regard to the inappropriate use of taxpayer funds.
It seems that even in these troubled times, it's still possible to become a Millionaire overnight
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"New" Millionaires?
Don't kid yourself - every single person that got those bonuses already had millions. They just insured themselves against the upcoming losses.
Guiliani link that goes with this post
Here is the link that has Guiliani talking about corporate bonuses,
Corporate bonuses
Why exactly do these people believe they are worth millions anyhow? I say they aren't. It is time that Americans stand up and say cap ALL corporate exec salaries to 20% of what the average worker makes. Bonuses are paid out of net not gross and they are not to exceed more than 2% of net. Secondary checks and balances on how sales are counted and why bonuses were given. The loser is the shareholder, this is anyone who invests in any way. That pretty much is anyone with a bank account as our money is invested by proxy via banks which helps our interest rates at these institutions.
Since NO Net was made NO bonuses should have been given. This is economics 101. Whoever gave the bonuses and were responsible for the bonuses should be forced to pay penalties up to 100% of what was paid out. They should publicly apologize and then they should have to go to England and be chastised since the Brits know how to do it right. Furthermore, the bonuses represent bad faith to us the people who lended the money to them, then ALL of the bonuses should be paid back.
http://www.correntewire.com/ye_olde_writ... fiction link
Just remember...
"executive compensation is not the problem"
Anyone who thinks that close to $1B in bonus payments is any kind of profitability problem at all for shareholders and investors is just, well, a rube. We are so stupid to think that an insolvent bank can't afford to pay out some insignificant amount of little bonuses to the executives who caused the bank to fail. Geez, we are so provincial.