~10% of bailout ($70 bn) going to payout bankers

[Ender]

No, it's not the Onion, I checked that first.

Financial workers at Wall Street's top banks are to receive pay deals worth more than $70bn (£40bn), a substantial proportion of which is expected to be paid in discretionary bonuses, for their work so far this year - despite plunging the global financial system into its worst crisis since the 1929 stock market crash, the Guardian has learned.

Staff at six banks including Goldman Sachs and Citigroup are in line to pick up the payouts despite being the beneficiaries of a $700bn bail-out from the US government that has already prompted criticism. The government's cash has been poured in on the condition that excessive executive pay would be curbed.

Pay plans for bankers have been disclosed in recent corporate statements. Pressure on the US firms to review preparations for annual bonuses increased yesterday when Germany's Deutsche Bank said many of its leading traders would join Josef Ackermann, its chief executive, in waiving millions of euros in annual payouts.

The sums that continue to be spent by Wall Street firms on payroll, payoffs and, most controversially, bonuses appear to bear no relation to the losses incurred by investors in the banks. Shares in Citigroup and Goldman Sachs have declined by more than 45% since the start of the year. Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley have fallen by more than 60%. JP MorganChase fell 6.4% and Lehman Brothers has collapsed.

At one point last week the Morgan Stanley $10.7bn pay pot for the year to date was greater than the entire stock market value of the business. In effect, staff, on receiving their remuneration, could club together and buy the bank.

In the first nine months of the year Citigroup, which employs thousands of staff in the UK, accrued $25.9bn for salaries and bonuses, an increase on the previous year of 4%. Earlier this week the bank accepted a $25bn investment by the US government as part of its bail-out plan.

At Goldman Sachs the figure was $11.4bn, Morgan Stanley $10.73bn, JP Morgan $6.53bn and Merrill Lynch $11.7bn. At Merrill, which was on the point of going bust last month before being taken over by Bank of America, the total accrued in the last quarter grew 76% to $3.49bn. At Morgan Stanley, the amount put aside for staff compensation also grew in the last quarter to the end of August by 3% to $3.7bn.

Days before it collapsed into bankruptcy protection a month ago Lehman Brothers revealed $6.12bn of staff pay plans in its corporate filings. These payouts, the bank insisted, were justified despite net revenue collapsing from $14.9bn to a net outgoing of $64m.

None of the banks the Guardian contacted wished to comment on the record about their pay plans. But behind the scenes, one source said: "For a normal person the salaries are very high and the bonuses seem even higher. But in this world you get a top bonus for top performance, a medium bonus for mediocre performance and a much smaller bonus if you don't do so well."

Many critics of investment banks have questioned why firms continue to siphon off billions of dollars of bank earnings into bonus pools rather than using the funds to shore up the capital position of the crisis-stricken institutions. One source said: "That's a fair question - and it may well be that by the end of the year the banks start review the situation."

Much of the anger about investment banking bonuses has focused on boardroom executives such as former Lehman boss Dick Fuld, who was paid $485m in salary, bonuses and options between 2000 and 2007.

Last year Merrill Lynch's chairman Stan O'Neal retired after announcing losses of $8bn, taking a final pay deal worth $161m. Citigroup boss Chuck Prince left last year with a $38m in bonuses, shares and options after multibillion-dollar write-downs. In Britain, Bob Diamond, Barclays president, is one of the few investment bankers whose pay is public. Last year he received a salary of £250,000, but his total pay, including bonuses, reached £36m.

I want to puke. I really fucking do. "Kill the rich" is becoming a very attractive rallying cry.

[Lonestar]

*sends 10th Goddamn email to Senator Webb's Office since the bailout process started*

Seriously, how can this be allowed to happen? How? This baffles the shit out of me. Jesus, this is...no one gives two shits about it.

I was promised that the bailout was needed to avert a credit crisis. It didn't. And now that bailout is going to fucking bankers as bonuses?


BONUSES???

Fucking, we're hundreds of billions of dollars alreayd in the whole with Iraq, and this what we're spending our fucking photocopied money on?


Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ.

[Admiral Valdemar]

I hear capitalism works, LOL. Oh, but some are apparently buying into Marx now.

[General Zod]

I'm sure those bankers are completely honest enough to be left alone without independent oversight and more regulation; I mean, they wouldn't possibly do anything like spend $400,000 of the taxpayer's money on a luxury vacation, they promised to curb excessive spending after all.

[Aratech]

Not to doubt, but has this been cross confirmed?

If so... Oh, God, the words for the rage I am feeling have yet to be invented.

[Bounty]

Staff needs to be paid, so if part of the bailout money goes to pay the salaries of people that are still coming into work every day to do there job, that's not something to get outraged about. But "a substantial proportion" in bonuses? Ordinarily you'd think that bonuses would be the first on the chopping block when things look bleak for a company. Especially when there isn't much performance to reward, which is what I - naively - assumed bonuses were all about.

If the figures really are public, I'd love to know just what this "proportion" is.

Reminds me of something that was in the news here just the other day: a former PM, Dehaene, has joined the board of a failing bank to try and stop it from, well, failing. It's in line for a bailout package - or may have already received it - and yet he still had to explicitly reject a $0.4m bonus he'd have been entitled to just for showing up at a few meetings - regardless of what he'd actually achieved. He had to come and out and stop the bank from throwing money at him just for being a board member. How the hell does that happen?

[Admiral Valdemar]

These big city execs. are offered such insufferably large bonuses and salaries because there is so much money in the system and so much riding on such expertise. Even if a CEO who has ordinarily delivered the goods (keeping in mind that it's more luck of the draw than skill in business) fails with the company he recently signed on for, the contract he took will no doubt have those bonuses to be paid regardless of the outcome of the guy's initiatives in office. No one would offer anything less today, because another company would simply poach the best people by offering them huge get out of jail clauses in the form of bonuses or pensions etc.

No matter the morality of their actions, it is perfectly legal. The contract is binding, and as such, these people will get their sums even when the ship they commandeered has struck an iceberg and is taking on water. It's no longer their concern.

This is why moral hazard needs to be factored in. I doubt many politicians would get re-elected if the people fully knew the situation and how their cash is being used in such a way and how our society exists solely to prop up the largest pyramid scheme ever devised.

[Knife]

shot an letter off to my Senator over this. I don't expect much out of Hatch though. Been voting against him for years to no avail.

[Bounty]

No matter the morality of their actions, it is perfectly legal. The contract is binding, and as such, these people will get their sums even when the ship they commandeered has struck an iceberg and is taking on water. It's no longer their concern.

It comes across as incredibly counter-intuitive to draw up a contract that fails to tie reward to performance. Is there so much volatility in the executive job market that companies need to shoot themselves in the foot to get staff?

[SCRawl]

No matter the morality of their actions, it is perfectly legal. The contract is binding, and as such, these people will get their sums even when the ship they commandeered has struck an iceberg and is taking on water. It's no longer their concern.

It comes across as incredibly counter-intuitive to draw up a contract that fails to tie reward to performance. Is there so much volatility in the executive job market that companies need to shoot themselves in the foot to get staff?

The common argument for insanely generous salary and bonus structures is that they are necessary to acquire qualified people, and further that these people are necessary for that business to remain competitive. (The other parts of these contracts, such as huge "severance packages" when you quit on your own, bug me too.) Having never been part of any of the worlds where compensation like this is commonplace, I too have difficulty understanding the logic, since, as AV points out, plenty of time it all comes down to luck, or at the very least things outside the control of the personnel.

When it's a private company paying off its employees, really, I can't get all that worked up over it. But when I have to pay for it, one way or another, then I start getting peeved.

[Nova Andromeda]

-This whole mess including the bailout is largest catasterfuck I've even seen or read about outside of things like WWII.
-It appears as though stealing presidential elections, gutting civil liberties, starting wars of agression, and passively robbing the economy aren't enough. Now they are simply looting what's left and giving it all to their buddies (IN PLAIN SIGHT FOR EVERYONE TO SEE!) who will no doubt move all that money to some nice safe haven outside the U.S.
-I just hope I can emigrate before I loss too much of my wealth to these bastards.

-Btw, the idea that you need to pay 'executives' billions of dollars to get the qualified ones is simply absurd. I defy anyone to show that such costs are anywhere near worth it in terms of company performance.

[Darth Wong]

I need to find that old Jarislowsky investment book. He's a billionaire investment fund manager, so the accusations of left-wing granola-cruncher won't hold much weight. He also served on numerous corporate boards, and spoke to numerous CEOs who freely admitted that beyond a few hundred thousand dollars, all of the extra compensation is not necessary to entice them to work for and keep the job. The real draw is the power and prestige, not the giant payouts. They would do the job for $250,000 but of course, if the board offers them $36 million in bonuses, they'll take it.

This argument that you need to pay grotesquely large salaries to entice CEOs to do their jobs competently is complete bullshit. Especially in light of the lousy performance of so many of the highest-paid CEOs.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Someone needs to let Wall Street know, because these corporations offering such huge sums at the same time as their HR department is sacking non-execs is atrocious. They are the embodiment of more money than sense, and now they are facing the prospect of people calling time on this bullshit.

[Pelranius]

At least it's only ten percent of the $700 billion. Imagine what Reagan would have let them have (25, 30 at least?) Washington is probably crooked and ignorant enough to let them take much, much more. Progress, but this is like advancing from burning suspected witches to just putting them on the electric chair.

[montypython]

It's more crap like this that makes me eager for the next wave of revolutions to come, that way we can finally 'clean up the rubbish' like Lenin intended...

[Kar Kar]

It's more crap like this that makes me eager for the next wave of revolutions to come, that way we can finally 'clean up the rubbish' like Lenin intended...

I heard some guy with a neckbeard wearing a Che Guevara shirt tell me communism is awesome and will fix all the worlds problems. Unfortunately another guy in a Che t-shirt already sold me on anarchy with punk music and promises of less homework.

I never learned the magic of communism so please tell us how awesome it is and how it works.

[bobalot]

Someone needs to let Wall Street know, because these corporations offering such huge sums at the same time as their HR department is sacking non-execs is atrocious. They are the embodiment of more money than sense, and now they are facing the prospect of people calling time on this bullshit.

These arseholes are supposed to lead by example. If your workforce takes losses or pay cuts, YOU are supposed to take a pay cut, or at least not pay yourself millions. These wankers are the first to call themselves "community leaders" and expect the government and media to take note what they have to say (usually self serving drivel), but they won't take any of the responsibility the community expects of them.

[wautd]

The other day they found out that in August, Mittler (one of the Fortis directors) received a bonus of 4 million euros when they fired him. And if you think that's bad, untill 2 days ago he was still being paid as a financial consultant for Fortis.

Thieves the lot of em

[Ryan Thunder]

Enough of this bullshit. With the amount of money these assholes are making, we could probably pay for most of the government budget by raising their taxes alone.

Hell, up them enough, and you could probably drop them altogether for a sizeable chunk of the rest of the population who actually earn their livings*, anyways.

*Most of you here are going to have to do far more work, earning far less money, after putting far more effort into learning a skillset that you can actually produce legitimate value with (value that *doesn't* jeopardize the economy, I might add) than any of these idiots ever did or ever will, to retire with much less of your life ahead of you.

[J]

On a related note, having also to do with the bailout...

Bloomberg link

Banks Hoard Money Meant to Boost Economy, Lender Says (Update1)

By Jody Shenn

Oct. 23 (Bloomberg) -- Banks getting $125 billion from U.S. taxpayers to unlock the credit crunch are saying they'd rather hoard the money than use it for loans, the head of the largest independent mortgage company said.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is injecting capital into institutions including Bank of America Corp., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Citigroup Inc. on the expectation they would step up lending and investing to prevent the economic slowdown from getting worse. That isn't happening, said Lee Farkas, chairman of Ocala, Florida-based Taylor, Bean & Whitaker Mortgage Corp.

Many large banks have told Farkas the U.S. rescue isn't boosting their interest in offering or expanding credit lines to lenders such as his, even for borrowing secured by ``low-risk, highly liquid loans,'' he said.

``By their own admission, they're taking the money and they don't want to put it to work,'' he said in an interview during the Mortgage Bankers Association's conference in San Francisco. ``Every single one you talk to, from the biggest to medium biggest, is saying the same thing, they want to de-lever.''

Farkas, whose 26-year-old home lender is among the 10 largest overall, said yesterday he encouraged Taylor Bean's 2,700 employees to call lawmakers in support of Paulson's $700 billion rescue package. Now, he's ``disappointed'' with the results.

``The big banks are acting irresponsibly,'' Farkas said. ``They're going to continue to reduce their balance sheets. Period. That's not what the Treasury wants.''

Scarcer Credit

Mortgage banks such as privately held Taylor Bean rely on so-called warehouse lending to make new loans and then hold the mortgages until they're sold. The credit lines have gotten scarcer and more expensive over the past year, Farkas said.

Smaller lines cut the amount of loans the companies can make in a given period, potentially reducing competition and boosting home buyers' borrowing costs amid the worst housing slump since the Great Depression. Costlier lines force the lenders to offer loans at higher interest rates relative to current mortgage-bond yields or with larger fees to maintain profit margins.

Farkas, 56, declined to name the banks, saying they weren't necessarily current lenders to his firm. He wouldn't identify the company's lenders.

Scott Silvestri, a spokesman for Charlotte, North Carolina- based Bank of America, wrote in an e-mail that ``we will add to our capital which will increase our capacity to expand our balance sheet and make more loans.'' Brian Marchiony, a spokesman for New York-based JPMorgan, didn't immediately respond to a phone call and e-mail seeking comment. Christina Pretto, a spokeswoman for New York-based Citigroup, declined to comment.

Government Intent

Bank of America Chief Executive Officer Kenneth Lewis said on the CBS news show ``60 Minutes'' on Oct. 19 that the government's plan will bolster his company's lending. ``The intent will be to use it to grow loans and to make more net income,'' he said.

JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon said on an Oct. 15 conference call, that ``we hope to be able to find ways to use it to benefit our shareholders and to continue to be there for our clients.''

Citigroup will spend the taxpayer capital if opportunities make sense, ``even if that would imply growth in the balance sheet as we're bringing down other balance sheet categories,'' Chief Financial Officer Gary Crittenden told analysts on a Oct. 16 conference call.

Rivals Collapse

Taylor Bean made $17 billion of loans in the first half of this year, ranking 12th among U.S. mortgage originators and ahead of larger companies such as National City Corp., HSBC Holdings Plc and Sovereign Bancorp., according to newsletter Inside Mortgage Finance. Since then four of its bigger rivals, including Countrywide Financial Corp. and Washington Mutual Inc., have been sold, failed or ended most lending.

Paulson on Oct. 14 announced his plan to inject $125 billion into nine of the biggest U.S. banks, and potentially another $125 billion into other financial companies. He said that ``the needs of our economy require that our financial institutions not take this new capital to hoard it, but to deploy it.''

Governments worldwide have made similar injections this month, including into U.K., Swiss and Dutch banks.

The reluctance of the biggest U.S. banks to expand in a mortgage warehouse business now offering much safer loans as collateral appears to stem mostly from their desires to bolster capital ratios to appease shareholders, even though many of the companies also benefit from reduced competition, Farkas said.

Kill Competitors

``The best way to kill your competitors is to not lend to them,'' said Farkas, whose company lends mostly through brokers and community banks.

Taylor Bean has survived while independent lenders including First Magnus Financial Corp. and American Home Mortgage Investment Corp. failed because the company never strayed from a focus on loans that meet Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac or Federal Housing Administration guidelines, Farkas said.

The company's capacity to warehouse new loans, through bank credit lines and a unit that issues commercial paper, contracted by $4 billion to $3 billion since July 2007, Farkas said. His current challenges also include maintaining the financing needed to hold contracts to service outstanding loans, he said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Jody Shenn in New York at jshenn@bloomberg.net

So, ummm, that money, which was supposed to unfreeze the markets and get lending going again so we don't have a collapse? Yeah, we'll just hold onto it, thanks. By the way, did you know that we can earn interest on this bailout money by parking it with the Fed? Wonderful isn't it? Hmmm...you know, I could really use another visit to a luxury spa right now...

[Samuel]

I heard some guy with a neckbeard wearing a Che Guevara shirt tell me communism is awesome and will fix all the worlds problems. Unfortunately another guy in a Che t-shirt already sold me on anarchy with punk music and promises of less homework.

I never learned the magic of communism so please tell us how awesome it is and how it works.

Unlike anarchy, you can actually have a communist government. It will work poorly, but it can actually exist.

And there are cases were command economies are better than free market. Like when you are just above starving to death or mobilizing for war.

[J]

And now we have it straight from the horse's mouth, JPM-Chase isn't going to lend out a single cent of the bailout money it's received.

NYT link

So When Will Banks Give Loans?

By JOE NOCERA
Published: October 24, 2008

“Chase recently received $25 billion in federal funding. What effect will that have on the business side and will it change our strategic lending policy?”

It was Oct. 17, just four days after JPMorgan Chase’s chief executive, Jamie Dimon, agreed to take a $25 billion capital injection courtesy of the United States government, when a JPMorgan employee asked that question. It came toward the end of an employee-only conference call that had been largely devoted to meshing certain divisions of JPMorgan with its new acquisition, Washington Mutual.

Which, of course, it also got thanks to the federal government. Christmas came early at JPMorgan Chase.

The JPMorgan executive who was moderating the employee conference call didn’t hesitate to answer a question that was pretty politically sensitive given the events of the previous few weeks.

Given the way, that is, that Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. had decided to use the first installment of the $700 billion bailout money to recapitalize banks instead of buying up their toxic securities, which he had then sold to Congress and the American people as the best and fastest way to get the banks to start making loans again, and help prevent this recession from getting much, much worse.

In point of fact, the dirty little secret of the banking industry is that it has no intention of using the money to make new loans. But this executive was the first insider who’s been indiscreet enough to say it within earshot of a journalist.

(He didn’t mean to, of course, but I obtained the call-in number and listened to a recording.)

“Twenty-five billion dollars is obviously going to help the folks who are struggling more than Chase,” he began. “What we do think it will help us do is perhaps be a little bit more active on the acquisition side or opportunistic side for some banks who are still struggling. And I would not assume that we are done on the acquisition side just because of the Washington Mutual and Bear Stearns mergers. I think there are going to be some great opportunities for us to grow in this environment, and I think we have an opportunity to use that $25 billion in that way and obviously depending on whether recession turns into depression or what happens in the future, you know, we have that as a backstop.”

Read that answer as many times as you want — you are not going to find a single word in there about making loans to help the American economy. On the contrary: at another point in the conference call, the same executive (who I’m not naming because he didn’t know I would be listening in) explained that “loan dollars are down significantly.” He added, “We would think that loan volume will continue to go down as we continue to tighten credit to fully reflect the high cost of pricing on the loan side.” In other words JPMorgan has no intention of turning on the lending spigot.

It is starting to appear as if one of Treasury’s key rationales for the recapitalization program — namely, that it will cause banks to start lending again — is a fig leaf, Treasury’s version of the weapons of mass destruction.

In fact, Treasury wants banks to acquire each other and is using its power to inject capital to force a new and wrenching round of bank consolidation. As Mark Landler reported in The New York Times earlier this week, “the government wants not only to stabilize the industry, but also to reshape it.” Now they tell us.

Indeed, Mr. Landler’s story noted that Treasury would even funnel some of the bailout money to help banks buy other banks. And, in an almost unnoticed move, it recently put in place a new tax break, worth billions to the banking industry, that has only one purpose: to encourage bank mergers. As a tax expert, Robert Willens, put it: “It couldn’t be clearer if they had taken out an ad.”

Friday delivered the first piece of evidence that this is, indeed, the plan. PNC announced that it was purchasing National City, an acquisition that will be greatly aided by the new tax break, which will allow it to immediately deduct any losses on National City’s books.

As part of the deal, it is also tapping the bailout fund for $7.7 billion, giving the government preferred stock in return. At least some of that $7.7 billion would have gone to NatCity if the government had deemed it worth saving. In other words, the government is giving PNC money that might otherwise have gone to NatCity as a reward for taking over NatCity.

I don’t know about you, but I’m starting to feel as if we’ve been sold a bill of goods.

•

The markets had another brutal day Friday. The Asian markets got crushed. Germany and England were down more than 5 percent. In the hours before the United States markets opened, all the signals suggested it was going to be the worst day yet in the crisis. The Dow dropped more than 400 points at the opening, but thankfully it never got any worse.

There are lots of reasons the markets remain unstable — fears of a global recession, companies offering poor profit projections for the rest of the year, and the continuing uncertainties brought on by the credit crisis. But another reason, I now believe, is that investors no longer trust Treasury. First it says it has to have $700 billion to buy back toxic mortgage-backed securities. Then, as Mr. Paulson divulged to The Times this week, it turns out that even before the bill passed the House, he told his staff to start drawing up a plan for capital injections. Fearing Congress’s reaction, he didn’t tell the Hill about his change of heart.

Now, he’s shifted gears again, and is directing Treasury to use the money to force bank acquisitions. Sneaking in the tax break isn’t exactly confidence-inspiring, either. (And let’s not even get into the less-than-credible, after-the-fact rationalizations for letting Lehman default, which stands as the single worst mistake the government has made in the crisis.)

On Thursday, at a hearing of the Senate Banking Committee, the chairman, Christopher J. Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat, pushed Neel Kashkari, the young Treasury official who is Mr. Paulson’s point man on the bailout plan, on the subject of banks’ continuing reluctance to make loans. How, Senator Dodd asked, was Treasury going to ensure that banks used their new government capital to make loans — “besides rhetorically begging them?”

“We share your view,” Mr. Kashkari replied. “We want our banks to be lending in our communities.”

Senator Dodd: “Are you insisting upon it?”

Mr. Kashkari: “We are insisting upon it in all our actions.”

But they are doing no such thing. Unlike the British government, which is mandating lending requirements in return for capital injections, our government seems afraid to do anything except plead. And those pleas, in this environment, are falling on deaf ears.

Yes, there are times when a troubled bank needs to be acquired by a stronger bank. Given that the federal government insures deposits, it has an abiding interest in seeing that such mergers take place as smoothly as possible. Nobody is saying those kinds of deals shouldn’t take place.

But Citigroup, at this point, probably falls into the category of troubled bank, and nobody seems to be arguing that it should be taken over. It is in the “too big to fail” category, and the government will ensure that it gets back on its feet, no matter how much money it takes. One reason Mr. Paulson forced all of the nine biggest banks to take government money was to mask the fact that some of them are much weaker than others.

We have long been a country that has treasured its diversity of banks; up until the 1980s, in fact, there were no national banks at all. If Treasury is using the bailout bill to turn the banking system into the oligopoly of giant national institutions, it is hard to see how that will help anybody. Except, of course, the giant banks that are declared the winners by Treasury.

JPMorgan is going to be one of the winners — and deservedly so.

Mr. Dimon managed the company so well during the housing bubble that it is saddled with very few of the problems that have crippled competitors like Citi. The government handed it Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual because it was strong enough to swallow both institutions without so much as a burp.

Of all the banking executives in that room with Mr. Paulson a few weeks ago, none needed the government’s money less than Mr. Dimon. A company spokesman told me, “We accepted the money for the good of the entire financial system.” He added that JP Morgan would use the money “to do good for customers and shareholders. We are disciplined to try to make loans that people can repay.”

Nobody is saying it should make loans that people can’t repay. What I am saying is that Mr. Dimon took the $25 billion on the condition that his institution would start making loans. There are plenty of small and medium-size businesses that are choking because they have no access to capital — and are perfectly capable of repaying the money. How about a loan program for them, Mr. Dimon?

Late Thursday afternoon, I caught up with Senator Dodd, and asked him what he was going to do if the loan situation didn’t improve. “All I can tell you is that we are going to have the bankers up here, probably in another couple of weeks and we are going to have a very blunt conversation,” he replied.

He continued: “If it turns out that they are hoarding, you’ll have a revolution on your hands. People will be so livid and furious that their tax money is going to line their pockets instead of doing the right thing. There will be hell to pay.”

Let’s hope so.

It's pitchforks and torches time.

[Aratech]

There will be hell to pay.

Not to sound apocalyptic, but that might be a contender for understatement of the decade. From my own experiences, there are few things that will infuriate people and lead to mob mentality faster than the belief that someone is stealing their hard earned money.

[Ekiqa]

Not to sound apocalyptic, but that might be a contender for understatement of the decade. From my own experiences, there are few things that will infuriate people and lead to mob mentality faster than the belief that someone is stealing their hard earned money.

They are not stealing it though. They were given it with no strings attached.

Indeed, this is exactly what was PLANNED by Paulson and co.

[Aratech]

Not to sound apocalyptic, but that might be a contender for understatement of the decade. From my own experiences, there are few things that will infuriate people and lead to mob mentality faster than the belief that someone is stealing their hard earned money.

They are not stealing it though. They were given it with no strings attached.

Indeed, this is exactly what was PLANNED by Paulson and co.

True, I misused the phrase. My apologies.