53 percent of Americans polled opposed to Wall Street bail out package

53 percent of Americans polled opposed to Wall Street bail out package

The lil twit(or lil bush) gives new meaning to the term 'Bankrucy Expert'! Everywhere he has been he had to be bailed out, after creating a Bankruptcy!

If ever there was a voting test to establish eligbility, the bush supporters have clearly shown the need! The lil bush record was very clear and documented, but messiania ruled them!

Banker pay faces mark downs after bailout
Fri Oct 17, 2008 - Government bailouts may have saved the world’s biggest banks from ruin, but they will not stop the market slump from crimping bonuses and sparking new rounds of job cuts.

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Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson announced plans this week to inject $125 billion dollars into nine of the country’s largest banks, its biggest effort so far to prop up battered lenders and dealers. But with the money comes restrictions that will limit bonuses and severance pay for years to come. “The government now is in control of everything. Each of these firms now has Hank Paulson on their compensation committee," said Alan Johnson, whose Johnson & Associates advises Wall Street firms on pay. “And once the government starts regulating pay, it will be hard to ever step back."

Wall Street is undergoing the most sweeping changes since the Great Depression. A loss of confidence in brokers fueled the collapse of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc, both acquired by commercial banks. Eager to avoid the same fate, Merrill Lynch & Co Inc ran to the Bank of America Corp, while Goldman Sachs Group Inc and Morgan Stanley became regulated banks to slash leverage and risk. These moves, and closer scrutiny from regulators and lawmakers, are expected to put a lid on Wall Street’s legendary riches.

In possibly a sign of things to come, top Deutsche Bank AG executives, who collectively received $39 million last year, said on Thursday they will forego bonuses this year.

[url=http://www.reuters.com/article/reutersEdge/idUSTRE49G6W420081017:
JOB CUTS[/url]

See also:

So much for the pay and bonus reform provision of the bailout package...
:eek:
Wall Street bankers in line for $70bn payout
Saturday October 18 2008 - Pay and bonus deals equivalent to 10% of US government bail-out package

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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.

[url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/oct/17/executivesalaries-banking:
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Cost of the earmarks in the bailout...
:mad:
Spending spree may leave $1 trillion hole in budget
19 Oct 2008, Congressional leaders and both presidential candidates are proposing billions of dollars in tax breaks and other measures to stoke economic growth, a surge in spending that could send the federal deficit soaring toward $1 trillion this year, creating the deepest well of red ink since the end of World War II.

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The government already has embarked on an unprecedented spending spree to halt the implosion of the US financial system and is borrowing money at levels that some economists fear could undermine the nation’s economic security for years to come. Congress could consider additional spending as soon as next month, potentially digging the nation’s hole even deeper. “We’re going to make Ronald Reagan look like a piker in terms of deficit creation, I think,”said Rudolph Penner, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute who served as director of the Congressional Budget Office during the Reagan administration.

The numbers are adding up fast. Since president Bush signed an economic stimulus package in February, authorizing billions of dollars in rebates for American taxpayers, the government has pledged as much as $1.5 trillion to prop up the teetering economy. It has approved new mortgages for struggling homeowners, salvage operations for faltering financial institutions and a historic $700 billion bailout plan to pump money into banks paralyzed by the financial crisis.

$500 billion already borrowed

The Treasury Department so far has borrowed nearly $500 billion from pension plans, foreign governments and other investors to replenish the coffers of the Federal Reserve. Since the end of August, the national debt has jumped from $9.6 trillion to $10.3 trillion, with borrowing for the bank bailout yet to come. Meanwhile, the budget deficit — the annual difference between government spending and tax collections — has risen rapidly. It jumped from $162 billion last year to $455 billion in the fiscal year that ended in September, largely because of the cost of the stimulus package, as well as slowing tax revenues and rising expenses in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The budget picture looking forward is even bleaker. While the deficit is projected to be about $550 billion for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1, budget analysts have yet to figure in the effects of a recession, which could easily tack on another $100 billion. They also have not included the first $250 billion being spent on the bailout plan, which the White House budget office said this week must be added, even though much if not all of the money is eventually expected to be returned to the Treasury. And with options for a second round of stimulus spending starting at $52 billion — the size of the package proposed earlier this week by Republican presidential candidate John McCain — it’s not hard to imagine the deficit rising to $1 trillion. That would approach 7% of the economy, a yawning budget hole not seen since 1946.

[url=http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/World/Spending_spree_may_leave_1_trillion_hole_in_budget/articleshow/3613734.cms:
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Budget deficit to grow...
:eek:
Spend Baby Spend: U.S. Budget Deficit to Soar Again
Monday, Oct. 20, 2008 - Signs of hard times getting harder in the U.S. are appearing every day. Home construction has dropped to its lowest level in roughly 60 years. Industrial production has fallen by rates unseen since the early 1970s. Consumer spending continues to decline month after month, even as the holiday season approaches.

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But there is little evidence of belt-tightening in Washington. While the rest of the country switches into austerity mode, there’s almost a boomtown feel in the capital, where a federal spending spree is rapidly driving the federal deficit to record heights. For the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, the gap between revenue collected by the government vs. what it spent was already lofty at $455 billion — an amount equal to nearly 7% of GDP, making it the largest deficit since the end of World War II.

And the red ink will continue to rise, thanks to panicky raids of federal coffers by policymakers trying to stem the financial crisis. President George W. Bush started the current bonanza in February by approving a $152 billion economic stimulus package. When other bailouts, including the recently passed $700 billion financial rescue plan, are counted, Washington is set to shell out some $1.5 trillion in the near term. Projections for the next fiscal year’s deficit start at roughly $550 billion and go as high as $1 trillion, depending on the government’s current obligations, expected further spending measures and falling tax revenues related to the slowing economy.

Rather than causing alarm, though, the rising deficit is viewed by policymakers and economists as a necessary evil to keep the economy afloat. “There is a real threat of a serious recession," says Robert Bixby, head of the Concord Coalition, an organization dedicated to eliminating deficits and shoring up the federal budget. “So it’s appropriate in those circumstances to loosen fiscal policy, so long as it is done on a targeted and temporary basis."

[url=http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1851949,00.html?xid=feed-rss-netzero:
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Uncle Ferd says womens an' politicians spendin' too much money...
:eek:
Does Anyone Care About a Trillion Dollar Deficit?
Saturday, Oct. 25, 2008 - When out-of-control federal spending runs smack into sluggish tax revenues, red ink splashes all over Washington.

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In September, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the deficit this year would be $407 billion, a sum that reflected the $168 billion economic stimulus package approved by President Bush in February and the estimated $188billion spent for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan through 2008. Add to that the $700 billion financial bailout package passed in October, plus another economic stimulus package likely to take shape in the coming months that could cost as much as $175 billion, and you’re talking about an all-inclusive fiscal 2008 deficit exceeding $1 trillion.

You won’t likely see such huge numbers leading the networks' evening newscasts because deficit talk is akin to Washington wonk speak. But David Walker, former U.S. Comptroller of the Currency and now President of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, is out to change that and bring the big picture of deficit woe to America’s attention. “We’ve got all kinds of warning indicators going off, and people are asleep,“said Walker, whose Washington think tank seeks to promote awareness about the debt problem. (Walker stars in the August-released feature documentary, I.O.U.S.A., which focuses on the nation’s credit binge.)

It’s not even the current deficit, as big as it is, that causes so much concern, says Walker. The deficit merely represents the amount that government spending exceeds its revenues in a given year. A far bigger concern is the national debt — the total of what we’ve cumulatively borrowed to finance those yearly deficits. Sometime around 2020, according to projections offered by Walker’s foundation, the U.S. debt will be equal to or greater than annual gross domestic product — a situation not seen since 1946 at the end of World War II. Worsening the picture is the fact that much of that debt is held by international lenders, chiefly China and Japan, who could grow wary of financing our spending and cut off funds, effectively leaving the U.S. in crisis.

[url=http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1853823,00.html?xid=feed-rss-netzero:
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