Nine US Banks Paid Out $33 BILLION in Bonuses
Posted on 31. Jul, 2009 by Cameron in Bad Company, banksters, capitalism
Following on from yesterday’s story about Goldman Sachs as the root of all evil, today we get the information that:
Nine banks that received government aid money paid out bonuses of nearly $33 billion last year — including more than $1 million apiece to nearly 5,000 employees — despite huge losses that plunged the U.S. into economic turmoil. … The nine firms in the report had combined 2008 losses of nearly $100 billion.
And if you think things are going to change, don’t be deluded. Here’s what the Obama White House had to say:
"The president continues to believe that the American people don’t begrudge people making money for what they do as long as…we’re not basically incentivizing wild risk-taking that somebody else picks up the tab for," said White House Spokesman Robert Gibbs.
What happened to Obama’s feigned outrage last year before the election? It’s all gone, baby. It disappeared to the same place as his promises about Gitmo, prison camps, climate change and health care.
If the NBA has a salary cap, why can’t American corporations? One of the key problems with capitalism is the open-ended nature of the upside. It breeds unlimited greed. Surely we can combine the good aspects of capitalism – eg incentives for creativity and effort – but restrict the upsides? I know we have tiered taxation, which effectively acts as a way of channeling some of that upside back into the system, but it doesn’t stop companies and individuals trying to bleed the economy for as much money as they can get their hands on, despite the negative consequences.
It still seems to me that we need another system, one that limits the greed but retains the incentives.
The Great American Bubble Machine
Posted on 30. Jul, 2009 by Cameron in Bad Company, capitalism, US politics
Rolling Stone magazine has a Hunteresque story about Goldman Sachs:
The first thing you need to know about Goldman Sachs is that it’s everywhere. The world’s most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money. In fact, the history of the recent financial crisis, which doubles as a history of the rapid decline and fall of the suddenly swindled dry American empire, reads like a Who’s Who of Goldman Sachs graduates.
More Bank Anger
Posted on 26. Jun, 2009 by Cameron in Bad Company, banksters
Interesting… 2 weeks ago I started a big campaign to get people to vent their anger about banks via Twitter and what story did News.com run today?
"Bank Customers Deposit Their Anger On The Internet".
Of course, News.com didn’t mention my stories. Coincidence?
Three (3) the mobile phone company – SUCK
Posted on 25. Jun, 2009 by Cameron in Bad Company
I just got off the phone after a very annoying phone call with a Three "customer support" person.
The guy was just rude, obnoxious and uninformed.
I’ve had a 3G card from 3 for the last 18 months and never used it. But I’ve paid my $29 a month – so they have done very well out of me.
When I did try to use it a couple of days ago – because my TPG account has been capped for a couple of days – the throughput on the card was terrible, I’m talking single digits. I rang 3 support and was told their network is overloaded in my area (inner suburb of Brisbane) and that it might take a month to resolve.
So I rang them back today and asked them today to cancel my account – and was told there would be an $80 charge! When I explained they are not providing me with the service I signed up for, the guy on the phone had the temerity to try to tell me that it is MY FAULT because I recently moved house!! And that just because they agreed to give me coverage in one location, didn’t mean they provided access across 100% of the country!
I explained that I’m not in Alice Springs – I’m in an inner suburb of Brisbane where they normally DO provide access but they haven’t provisioned their network sufficiently.
But he just kept talking over me, not listening at all. I had to raise my voice for him to even stop talking for a second to let me finish my sentence.
Eventually he went and "spoke to a supervisor" and agreed to cut my cancellation charges in half. I said that I refused to pay them a cent more and asked to speak directly to a supervisor. He said someone would call me – WITHIN 48 HOURS.
It takes 48 hours to get someone to call me back?
What kind of operation are they running?
Network is down.
48 hours to get a call center supervisor to call me back.
Pathetic.
They have made $522 bucks out of me on this card and provided ZERO SERVICE.