Its all very well being reasonable about the banking crisis and preparing a second round of throwing injecting money into the system, it all ends up being controlled by these crooks Bankers.
I don't want them to be called irresponsible, I want them to be called the thieves that they are, its highway boardroom robbery.
It's high time a special investigation was launched with a view to:
- Getting our money back.
- Investigating gross misconduct and criminal negligence then prosecuting these a-holes.
Highlighting this issue comes after the break, and is Iceland leading the way back?
The result of a quick profit strategy
The U.S. is experiencing its worst financial crisis since the Great Depression and its most severe recession in decades: a severe housing bust is entering its fourth year of decline and there is no bottom in sight. The recession will last at least 24 months (December 2009) and the recovery may be so weak, and growth sub-par until 2011, that it will feel like a recession even once the economy will be technically out of it by 2010. The banking system is effectively insolvent, as credit losses will swell above $3 trillion and fiscal deficits above $1 trillion loom for the next 2-3 years.
http://www.vancouversun.com/...
Yet still they have sorry excuses for excess
From 10/08/2008
At last night's presidential debate, Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic nominee, said AIG executives who went on the trip "should be fired" and that the U.S. Treasury should be reimbursed.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/...
This was in response to AIG executives taking a holiday
AIG American General, at the St. Regis resort in Monarch Beach, Calif. Executives spent $443,000 on hotel rooms, restaurant tabs, golf and spa visits during the retreat
the retreat was a pre-planned event for a top-producing subsidiary. Only 10 AIG partnering banks attended the event and no AIG executives from its New York headquarters were invited.
In other words, $44,300 per bank.
Correction: Reported numbers vary between 50 and 165 attendees.
Or between $2685 and $8860 per head depending on what accountancy procedure you use.
No wonder my banking statements are often hit and miss.
The banks still have not got the bloody message.
$ 18 billion in bonuses paid out to top executives, that is a nice present of our money to the very same people that have possibly ruined our economy for years if not decades.
Yet at the same time
Banks and financial firms have fired 265,000 people since the collapse of the subprime mortgage market triggered the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.
http://bloomberg.com/...
So they can develop criminally negligent financial tools, give themselves a huge bonus and fire the serfs the rank and file. Then they think that they can go out shopping for a new corporate jet.
The Masters of the Universe need castrating to understand that they have been usurped and are standing before the abyss.
Not only should the money be recovered but their actions need penalising and damages paid back into our common treasury. The Treasury is not a piggy bank for the rich it is our future and our children's inheritance.
I expected a much more robust statement from our President than this
The bonuses are "the height of irresponsibility," Obama said Thursday before meeting Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Vice President Joe Biden at the White House. Firms need to "show some restraint and show some discipline" Obama said.
http://www.star-telegram.com/...
Resonable rebuke has not worked it is now the time to get out Roosevelt's big stick.
I want these fuckers to get the message loud and clear.
- You are under investigation.
- Your days of feeding at the corporate trough are over.
- If found guilty you will be severely punished.
Hope?
US authorities have investigations underway against some of the biggest names in its financial industry, including Washington Mutual, Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae and AIG. Shareholder groups are also more likely to resort to class action lawsuits in the US against misconduct at companies.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/...
I would say that is the very least they can expect for the global misery they are causing.
People are dying in corners of the world whilst these fat cats gargle champagne.
At the economic crisis talks in Davos
Our dear representatives are having a lovely time.
What crisis? Pass the bubbly would you...
Davos hoteliers report that orders for Dom Pérignon and Krug have been scaled down to Laurent-Perrier, Bloomberg reports. At the Belvedere, caviar is no longer on the menu and spending on food and drink is down as much as 40% on a year ago.
http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/...
40% down?
I would have thought a handful of rice and some chicken broth might have sent a clearer message than stopping the caviar and vintage champagne. Only Laurent Perrier? How frightfully sad, sheesh:
Poor babies
Meanwhile
Ingeborg Schäuble, the President of Welthungerhilfe (14/10/8) said: "Almost a billion starving people is a scandal for the world. In contrast to the banks, they themselves are not guilty for their plight. The general rethinking about the role of the state and the international community, brought about by the financial crisis, must be extended to also cover the hunger crisis.
http://en.internationalism.org/...
It's time for some straight talk.
Sen. Claire McCaskill — steaming mad and not going to take it anymore — on Friday called Wall Street executives "idiots" and proposed limits on some of their salaries.
http://www.kansascity.com/...
Claire McCaskill is right, this is the only language that the ex-Masters of the Universe understand, straight up menaces.
Maybe she should head the enquiry.
I agree with Mo Dowd this morning
At least the old robber barons made great products. When you make money out of money, unmoored from morality and regulators, it must unhinge you. How else to explain corporate welfare queens partridge hunting in England, buying French jets and shopping for Lamborghinis?
http://www.nytimes.com/...
The final straw
This was for me when the executives said:
We must pay bonuses to keep our best people.
Or they will go elsewhere.
Now where the fuck is elsewhere? I really would like to know, I would say they need investigating as well.
My reply is that these 'best' people fucked up the system in the first place and rather than being kept they need firing and prosecuting.
So why the title and why Iceland, because:
A little light at the end of the tunnel?
One does not need to be a woman to work at Audur, but the company founders are women and the vast majority of staff members are too. Since gaining its operating licence in April this year, Audur has concentrated on a debt-free, long-term business style - in other words a female business style, the company argues.
In a sign that Audur’s tactics are working well in the current economic crisis, the company is reported to be in talks concerning the purchase of Kaupthing Savings Bank, a daughter company of Kaupthing Bank.
http://www.icenews.is/...
Now, with both its currency and stock market crashing, the small Nordic nation is trying to clean up the testosterone-fueled follies by appointing two women to run New Landsbanki and New Glitnir, the nationalized banks created after the collapse of Landsbanki and Glitnir. According to one government minister, this is all too typical: "The men make the mess and the women come in to clean it up."
Since 2003, Elín Sigfúsdóttir was head of corporate banking at Landsbanki. Birna Einarsdóttir was promoted to head of domestic commercial banking at Glitnir last year. It's worth noting that besides these two, there was only one other women on the combined executive teams of Glitnir and Landsbanki. It's no wonder that psychologist Julia Noakes told the Financial Times that there wasn’t enough "femininity" in the business
http://blogs.moneycentral.msn.com/...
and
While our politicians are stuck in the dark ages, Iceland now has the world's first lesbian prime minister.
http://www.ndtv.com/...
Maybe it takes a country to implode before they see reason.
Way to go Iceland!
Now at home
So Claire is carrying a big stick, well I say say give her some swinging room.
sigh rant over.