Working Life

Keep your eye on the ball, which is tough when it come to making sure another chunk of change doesn’t end up in the pockets of the big banks. But, it keeps happening.

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When I come back in my next life, I want to be a banker or a hotshot on Wall Street. Because it’s the kind of work where you can do anything you want, break any laws, never get punished and make a huge amount of money. And the best thing is: you make someone else pay for your fuck-ups. That is the upshot of the settlement reached today with the banks. Another day, another sham.

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So, it’s easy to capture our predicament today–though you’d never get that from the transcribers of press releases (formerly known as “journalists”). Here is is neatly summed up: we’ve been robbed, only little fish are being held accountable for relatively small crimes and, even more to the point, in a political rhetorical world where shareholders are revered, the shareholders are being left to pay the bill.

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It is great that JP Morgan has been sued–and congrats to NY Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. But, we’ve seen this picture before: suits are filed and the executives who committed fraud or financial crimes or misconduct are NEVER–NEVER–held accountable. If we want real change–not phony, uplifting change–these people must go to jail. NO DEALS.

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Really, I can’t tell whether people who work at the major banks moonlight as comedy writers for The Daily Show, or they are so immune to public shame or punishment that they just don’t give a damn.

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Hey, Bank of America shareholder, how does it feel to have the executives deceive investors (in other words, lie), escape any personal responsibility for the lies, cause huge losses and, then, stick YOU with a bill for over $2 BILLION? Well, probably not a great feeling but, screw you, you are just an investor, not a coddled, overpaid executive who just got handed a stay-out-of-jail card.

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   Not surprisingly, Bank of America–one of the truly despicable actors in the mortgage scandal–has violated a deal it struck with the state of Nevada. And Nevada wants to sue.  Here you go: The attorney general of Nevada is accusing Bank of America of repeatedly violating a broad loan modification agreement it struck with state [...]

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   Many of us have been troubled that bankers and financiers have gotten off and paid no price for the financial crisis that obliterated millions of jobs and trillions of dollars in wealth–and, indeed, the CEOs and Wall Street folks are reaping huge pay packages again. The slaps on the wrist for Goldman Sachs and [...]

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    This past week, I made the point that the conviction of Raj Rajaratnam was a tale of a relatively little fish getting nabbed, while the big fish who caused the biggest disaster and heartache for most Americans get away. Or cover-up what they have done. Bank of America, Citigroup, G.M.A.C., JPMorgan Chase and Wells [...]

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   I’m about to dash off to a protest at the main postal office here in Manhattan for a Tax Day demonstration sponsored by US Uncut, the NY chapter of the Coffee Party and assorted other malcontents like me. In that spirit, I thought it worth leaving us with this list of the corporate tax [...]

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Sometimes, I wonder whether we all live in a grand farce. But, actually, it’s a real-life story about a robbery of the people that continues every day–and today is no different. The robbers grow richer.   From The Wall Street Journal a story headlined: "On Street, Pay Vaults to Record Altitude": When it comes to [...]

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   Well, who said you can’t count on stability anymore? That things are changing too rapidly. Not to worry:    It was a tough year for Bank of America what with the foreclosure mess and a sagging stock price. Its chief executive, Brian T. Moynihan, nonetheless received $10 million in his first year on the [...]

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   It seems like much of the political leadership in the country wants to ignore the deep outrage still being felt across the country in the wake of the nonsense, greed and incompetence on Wall Street. Except one judge: Giving voice to the anger and frustration of many ordinary Americans, Judge Jed S. Rakoff issued [...]

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   Though not surprising, this is still a fairly damning revelation, in this morning’s Wall Street Journal: Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and then-Treasury Department chief Henry Paulson pressured Bank of America Corp. to not discuss its increasingly troubled plan to buy Merrill Lynch & Co. — a deal that later triggered a government bailout [...]

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   Those poor AIG executives–they must be pissed about getting all the heat from walking away with a paltry $165 million in bonuses while the folks at Merrill Lynch managed to cart away twenty times that amount just as the government was crafting its takeover by Bank of America.    Remember, Merrill had just posted [...]

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   Two things caught my eye this morning. Item #1: If you want to know how the power has shifted in the world of banking, The Financial Times has a fascinating full-page story entitled "The fearsome become the fallen". It compares the rankings of the leading banks in 1999 to the rankings right now, as [...]

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