American People Deserve Warren Buffet's Deal

The Associated Press reports:

In 2007, Wall Street's five biggest firms -- Bear Stearns, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, and Morgan Stanley -- paid a record $39 billion in bonuses to themselves.

That's $10 billion more than the $29 billion loan taxpayers are making to J.P. Morgan to save Bear Stearns.

Richard Fuld, the chairman and chief executive of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc, which filed for bankruptcy protection last week, was awarded $22 million in fiscal 2007, for instance.

Those 2007 bonuses were paid, even though the shareholders in those firms last year collectively lost about $74 billion in stock declines -- their worst year since 2002.
If split equally among the approximately 186,000 workers at the former Big Five Houses, that bonus money means an average of $201,500 per person -- more than four times the $48,201 median household income in the U.S. last year.

If split equally among the approximately 186,000 workers at the former Big Five Houses, that bonus money means an average of $201,500 per person -- more than four times the $48,201 median household income in the U.S. last year.

A billion here, a billion there. Pretty soon you are talking about real money!

The proposed $700 billion bailout of Wall Street investment firms, is a heads I win, tails you lose proposition for the country's large investment firms and their top executives.

Before Congress is stampeded into passing the proposed bailout bill that will buy what may be worthless assets with hard earned taxpayer dollars, it ought to:

1) Mandate Congressional oversight and an equity stake in bailedout firms. The American taxpayer should get the same deal as Warren Buffet;

2) Include real protections for homeowners faced with losing their homes, including allowing them to renegotiate their ballooning mortgage payments;

3) Ensure that when the investment firms regain profitability the profits are shared with the federal government;

4) Establish limits on CEO salaries and bonuses and prohibit golden parachutes! The astronomical executive salaries never reflected market forces. They were the result of CEO board members rewarding members of their old boys CEO network and justified by executive compensation firms whose work was compromised by their conflict of interest - setting CEO salaries while pursuing other more lucrative corporate work for the CEOs whose salaries they were setting.

5) Pass regulations that establish rules governing lending institutions including the hidden banking system of investment firms, hedge funds and private equity firms and ensure transparency of all financial instruments and transactions.