Love of Money = Root of all Evil

Beckett is visiting the aquarium today, so hopefully we'll have some fun pictures up in the next day or two. But I wanted to comment on one obscene aspect of the bailout.

The full article with links is available here

NY AG Andrew Cuomo is seeking to force John Thain, former CEO of Merrill Lynch, to release the names of the Merrill executives who shared over $3.6 billion in bonuses before the merger with Bank of America. Thain is refusing, and said this about the bonuses:

"Bonuses were determined based upon the performance and the retention of people, and there is nothing that happened in the world or the economy that would make you say that those were not the right thing to do for the retention and the reward of the people who were performing," Thain said, according to the transcript.

Mr. Cuomo's office recently released information that suggests that Merrill Lynch may have moved up the bonuses in order to pass the cost on to tax payers, and claims that the bonuses were not spread evenly throughout the organization — but were structured in such a way as to enrich the top Merrill executives. Cuomo says that the top four bonus recipients received a combined $121 million, and that 696 individuals received bonuses of $1 million or more.

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So here are my quick thoughts:

1. John Thain is pure evil and Cuomo should keep trying to figure out how to throw him in jail.

2. It has been really tough to see the financial crisis hit New York, in large part because so many of our friends are in the financial industry and have been hit with layoffs. And I'm certain that most of these individuals are hard workers who played no part in the policies that have devastated the economy.

3. BUT, if you are ever in a position where your yearly bonus is a cool 30 million while Rome burns, then I assume you are in a position where you should have, at the least, had oversight over the whole company. If it falls then you get nothing. And hey, how about you not give 30 million to those guys and instead you keep 300 guys employed at $100,000 per year and fire the guy who allegedly needs to be "retained and rewarded" for losing billions.

4. Again, anyone who had any role whatsoever in the loss of all of this money should not collect any bonuses and there is no need to retain anyone. Easy sports analogy: If I lose every game I play, nobody gets rewarded, and nobody is good enough that they need to be given a bonus to be retained. Just ask the Detroit Lions. Their core is so awful that, assuming they could get back 3 or 4 quality players and/or picks, I would assume not even Calvin Johnson is untouchable.

5. Finally, although I feel for those departments that actually made money this year, if your company would no longer exist without the largesse of the federal government then nobody gets bonuses, duh.