Jim Hightower: Soft Landing for Bankers, Hard Times for Everyone Else

via CommonDreams:



Published on Wednesday, November 10, 2010 by Creators.com
Soft Landing for Bankers, Hard Times for Everyone Else

by Jim Hightower


I've seen some truly amazing feats of magic, but here's one that beats them all. Right before your eyes, this thing rises into the air on its own, with no wires or mechanical devices giving it lift. And it hovers there effortlessly.

But it's not magic, for magic is an illusion, and this gravity-defying phenomenon of perpetual levitation happens to be real. What is this "it" that keeps floating up, up, up? The annual bonuses paid to Wall Street's top bankers.

By the laws of economics, if not physics, those bonuses should fall to earth this year, because the bankers have performed poorly. Trading is down, profits are flat (despite being given trillions of dollars in almost-interest-free money through the back door of the Federal Reserve), firms are handing out pink slips to lower-level employees, and the blatant greed of bank honchos have ruined the public reputations of their financial outfits.

Who cares, shriek the big-shots, we make our own laws - it's bonus time, baby, so grab all you can! Sure enough, the CEOs of Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and others have set aside billions of dollars to flood their executive suites with bonus cash at the end of this year - money that rightfully should go to shareholders.

Their claim is: "We deserve it, for we took low pay during the crash of 2008-2009." For example, Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman Sachs' boss, was paid a mere $9 million last year, so now he wants that "sacrifice" made up to him. ........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/11/10-0

In the case of the hedge fund manager in Colorado who hit a cyclist, but who wasn't charged with a felony because the judge thought that a felony conviction could impair his earning power. Tough shit. You do the crime, you do the time, right? But these folks are above the law.