Kenneth Feinberg, Special Master on Compensation Reform, cited 17 financial firms for “ill-advised” excessive payments to their executives while taxpayers were bailing their companies out with TARP funds. He called this “bad judgement.” Total of the bonuses and other executive payouts: $1.6 billion.
Bonuses for employees of Wall Street financial firms were up at least 17 percent in 2009. You remember 2009 — TARP, unemployment, foreclosures and all that (so tiresome).
More:
Market Watch: “Wall St. bonuses climbed 17% to $20.3 billion in 2009.”
New York Times DealBook: “The Big Money’s Back in Town.”
Goldman Sachs helped alleviate economic suffering by donating $16.2 billion to needy investment bankers. Its own. Company executives also committed a whopping 3% of that amount to help struggling small businesses. Strange; we thought New Yorkers always tipped 20%.
Goldman Sachs was saved from certain doom by the generosity of U.S. taxpayers, many of whom are now unemployed thanks to the machinations of Goldman Sachs. The company paid back the $10 billion in federal TARP funds that saved its assets. Why not? $12.9 billion of AIG’s federal bailout funds were paid directly to Goldman Sachs.
Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com
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