Community | February 12, 2009 | 34 comments

Merrill Lynch downturn bonuses made millionaires

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bansheewail
WASHINGTON (AFP) - Merrill Lynch quietly paid out at least one million dollars bonus each to about 700 top executive even when the investment house was bleeding with losses last year, a probe has revealed.

They were part of 3.6 billion dollars in the firm's bonus payments in December before the announcement of its fourth quarterly losses and takeover by Bank of America, the investigation by the New York state Attorney General's office showed.

"696 individuals received bonuses of one million dollars or more," New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said of the Merrill scandal in a letter to a lawmaker heading the House of Representatives financial services committee.

-"And Bush, McCain and Paulson forced us to bail them out!! We got jacked!"- Bansheewail, over and out.
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34 comments // Merrill Lynch downturn bonuses made millionaires

  • estee_arie
  • estee_arie
  • birdman1943
    • 0
      birdman1943  
    • Somehow history should be examined.

      The French Revolution-yep!

      In school we learned that they cut the heads off those high government officials who were living high on the hog while they starved.

      The famous expression given by royalty when told the masses were starving said "let them eat cake!"

      Top officials at that bank should be brought up on fraud since they had to get the huge bailout partially due to the greediness handing out these huge bonuses.

      Like in France many years ago heads should roll.

      And like Fidel Castro in Cuba said so many years ago "Viva Revolution!"

    • 3 years ago
  • FreedomForAll
    • 0
      FreedomForAll  
    • Image
    • We need to remember that a Company's Board of Directors is responsible for the oversight of executive management. BODs need to be held responsible for this mess too.....

    • 3 years ago
  • damnneargenius
    • 0
      damnneargenius  
    • FreedomForAll:

      Fair enough.

      Add them to the list. lol

      Seriously, the numbers don't mean much to me until you put them in the context of Ferraris on common denominator standard of living equivalents.

      Why are the people who have been affording steak and lobster their entire lives CONTINUING to afford that steak and lobster lifestyle with money taken from those lucky to live on frozen dinners?

      I see a creative angle for dissent here.

    • 3 years ago
  • damnneargenius
    • 0
      damnneargenius  
    • Image
    • And I can't even get one token Ferrari airdropped to me!!!

      Seriously, WTF is wrong with the world?

      The average person spends their life in miserable, slave-like employment in order to earn enough money to survive and pay taxes, and the esteemed government in combination with the Federal Reserve pyramid scheme are using those taxes to make millionaires out of people that technically FAILED in their relatively easy jobs and are arguably no more talented and far less noble human beings than me?

      Boo!!!

    • 3 years ago
  • SHAWN_RITTIMAN
  • scheell7
    • 0
      scheell7  
    • Good for them! Over many decade they made multit-Trillions profits for Americans. Put the blame were it belongs, Acorn (Obama), and Barny Franks in Bed with FM.

    • 3 years ago
  • mario_a
    • 0
      mario_a  
    • @bansheewail --

      back to back stories featured? AWESOME!

      this headline was a little cut off too, so i shortened it a bit. sorry about this.

      here's your original:

      "Merrill Lynch bonuses made 696 millionaires during downturn: probe"

      Let me know if you have questions,

      mario

    • 3 years ago
  • noxidereus
  • MissG
    • 0
      MissG  
    • This is despicable. And there is still no paper trail for how that first bailout was spent... we need citizen-minded politics! Why should some get high on the hog when others are struggling?

    • 3 years ago
  • ruberube
    • 0
      ruberube  
    • The choice is new world socialism or old world
      capitalism. New fair and regulated competition for business to create green sustainable lifestyles or old ways bogged down by monopolies and centralized money cultures.
      new world socialism that creates heath care and education opportunities or old world capitalism that creates unneeded wars, profiteering and bailouts for duplicitous money cultures - banking, mortgauge industry etc. We are at a historic crossroads- we create a new better model for all or continue the old model that benifits the few!

    • 3 years ago
  • onechance
  • rakuruby
    • 0
      rakuruby  
    • Let's start a revolt don't pay your taxes until they give you a million.Just think what that would do to the economy all receive a million dollars payoff your mortage,buy a new car and if you don't have a house people would buy one really getting our country back in shape.

    • 3 years ago
  • omordn
    • 0
      omordn  
    • Why are any of you surprised? It was so obvious as to why Bush and Co. wanted to pass their $700 billion stimulus bill when they were in office.

      Let the banks fail and protect those other banks that haven't done anything wrong or unethical.

    • 3 years ago
  • IamJaxBrokenHeart
  • DouginLA
  • mhembree09
  • poptart_invasion
  • ruberube
  • regjoeschmo
  • smallgod
    • 0
      smallgod  
    • F*CK BANK OF AMERICA. If you have your money with them, TAKE IT OUT and put it somewhere else. There are many other smaller banks that still retain good ratings. But Bank of America is one of the major contributors to this crisis. And their knowing purchase of LaSalle Bank for $21 BILLION, Countrywide Financial (responsible for a huge amount of those sub prime loans and faulty securities sold internationally) for $4.2 BILLION, and Merrill Lynch....F*CK THESE PEOPLE. Thain and Lewis....I hope someone sets you on fire with Styrofoam and gasoline.

      They knew all along, and now play Americans and the WORLD for fools. Bank of America needs to die. They made these acquisitions of toxic banks to make themselves "too big to die". They are 100% pure evil. Remove your money from these institutions!

      http://bx.businessweek.com/bank-nationalization/reference

    • 3 years ago
  • islek
    • 0
      islek  
    • They're panicking. They're greedy and trying to milk this dire economic situation for as much as they can because they fear they won't get that lifestyle back. They're going to make a lot more enemies this way, because they are not entitled to any more money than anyone else is. The entitlement they feel is self-imposed.

      Greedy. Selfish. Antagonistic. Pitiful.

    • 3 years ago
  • islek
    • 0
      islek  
    • They're panicking. They're greedy and trying to milk this dire economic situation for as much as they can because they fear they won't get that lifestyle back. They're going to make a lot more enemies this way, because they are not entitled to any more money than anyone else is. The entitlement they feel is self-imposed.

      Greedy. Selfish. Antagonistic. Pitiful.

    • 3 years ago
  • remanns
  • librelover
    • 0
      librelover  
    • Man, it is disgusting the way they blatantly worked to direct as much money in the direction of their own interests with a complete disregard for the American economy's sustainability.

    • 3 years ago
  • larock
  • krush_productions
  • barbara3d
    • 0
      barbara3d  
    • Barney Frank asking"Do you really need a bonus to do your jobs"? That pot calling the kettle black here.

      Barney, Chris Dodd, and many others got HUGE bonuses from Fannie Mae.

      Disgusting people, all of them make me sick.

    • 3 years ago
  • bansheewail
    • 0
      bansheewail  
    • barbara3d:

      Get your facts straight. Campaign contributions and corporate bonuses are apple and oranges. One is measured in billons and the other in thousands. One has this many zeros: 000,000,000 And the other one has this many zeros: 000. The truth will set you free. www.whitehouse.gov

    • 3 years ago
  • barbara3d
    • 0
      barbara3d  
    • Image
    • barbara3d:

      Banshee, where have you been?

      Read this and weep! Bush tried to investigate Fannie and Freddie but the Democrats stopped him.

      This is common knowledge about these bonuses but hidden under all the other B.S. going on.

    • 3 years ago
  • bansheewail
    • 0
      bansheewail  
    • They deserve to fail. period. What happened to the free-market, conservative ideals that deregulated the market to make all these failure possible in the first place. These bankers only want the market to be "free" of federal regulations as long as they are profitable. But, as soon as there performance started to suck and the market started to tank, they came running home to momma with their hands out. They were wrong. They were greedy. They are failures. They should give the money back and find a new line of work. The line starts in the rear.

    • 3 years ago
  • Robroy1
    • 0
      Robroy1  
    • With Bush and Paulson in office robbing the treasury I am not surprised, just think of how much kick back Bush and Paulson made on that deal.

    • 3 years ago
  • bansheewail
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