Friday, December 26, 2008

Press reports document criminality of US financial elite

IntelDaily.com:

"Among the executives remunerated in the millions, even as many of their companies began to report losses from the subprime mortgage collapse, were:

* John Thain, CEO of Merrill Lynch, who was awarded $83 million. His firm, now merged into Bank of America, received $10 billion in TARP money.

* Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs, who took home $54 million. Goldman Sachs spread around $242 million to its top five executives. It has received $10 billion in TARP funds.

* Richard D. Fairbank, the head of Capital One Financial Corp., who was paid $17 million. Capital One was given $3.56 billion in TARP money.

* Bank of New York Mellon CEO Robert P. Kelly, who was paid $8.6 million. His firm received $3 billion from TARP.

Another Associated Press article, published Monday, documents the refusal of the banks to reveal what they have done with the billions in taxpayer funds they have received. The AP put questionnaires to 21 banks that each received more than $1 billion in the government bailout, posing four questions: 'How much has been spent? What was it spent on? How much is being held in savings, and what's the plan for the rest?'

According to the AP, not a single bank provided specific answers." (Emphasis Mine.)

From this same article:

"In a fundamental sense, the entire economy has become a gigantic Ponzi scheme. Now the vast edifice of paper values is collapsing, posing either a revolutionary transformation of economic life on socialist foundations, or the ruination of the working class and broad sections of the middle class.

The ill-gotten gains of the financial aristocracy must be confiscated and used to provide for the needs of the people. No rational and humane solution to the deepening economic crisis is possible without the working class politically settling accounts with the present-day "Ancien Regime" of Wall Street swindlers and their political accomplices."
(Emphasis Mine.)

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