fuck off

[sobo]

I think Superior Court judges also get their salary for the rest of their life and my father, a University professor, got his pay and University health benefits until his death. You and I just aren't landing the right jobs, Sobo.

Jiminy Christmas, Matt! HTF did he pull that off? I didn't think univ. profs could get that sort of gig.

You're absofuqnlutely right, man, we're in the wrong business.

[j_b]

Let's see if they (congress, the new "owners") have to balls to actually take back these bonuses.

 

They are certainly trying to respond to popular (and populist) sentiment here, but the fact is the bonuses are really only symbolic and not a real substantive issue, no? I'm watching this whole thing with a bag of popcorn.

 

It is substantive insofar it illustrates very well that the banksters will remain in charge and that this administration has no intention of implementing change: Despair over financial policy

 

Despair over financial policy by Paul Krugman

The Geithner plan has now been leaked in detail. It’s exactly the plan that was widely analyzed — and found wanting — a couple of weeks ago. The zombie ideas have won.

 

The Obama administration is now completely wedded to the idea that there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with the financial system — that what we’re facing is the equivalent of a run on an essentially sound bank. As Tim Duy put it, there are no bad assets, only misunderstood assets. And if we get investors to understand that toxic waste is really, truly worth much more than anyone is willing to pay for it, all our problems will be solved.

 

To this end the plan proposes to create funds in which private investors put in a small amount of their own money, and in return get large, non-recourse loans from the taxpayer, with which to buy bad — I mean misunderstood — assets. This is supposed to lead to fair prices because the funds will engage in competitive bidding.

 

But it’s immediately obvious, if you think about it, that these funds will have skewed incentives. In effect, Treasury will be creating — deliberately! — the functional equivalent of Texas S&Ls in the 1980s: financial operations with very little capital but lots of government-guaranteed liabilities. For the private investors, this is an open invitation to play heads I win, tails the taxpayers lose. So sure, these investors will be ready to pay high prices for toxic waste. After all, the stuff might be worth something; and if it isn’t, that’s someone else’s problem.

 

Or to put it another way, Treasury has decided that what we have is nothing but a confidence problem, which it proposes to cure by creating massive moral hazard.

 

This plan will produce big gains for banks that didn’t actually need any help; it will, however, do little to reassure the public about banks that are seriously undercapitalized. And I fear that when the plan fails, as it almost surely will, the administration will have shot its bolt: it won’t be able to come back to Congress for a plan that might actually work.

 

What an awful mess.

 

 

 

 

[j_b]

I think Superior Court judges also get their salary for the rest of their life and my father, a University professor, got his pay and University health benefits until his death. You and I just aren't landing the right jobs, Sobo.

 

Most of academia is also not paid anywhere close to what someone with similar or even much less expertise makes in industry. Comparing academic wages with those made by business types and lawyers is even more incredible. For example, a science post-doc makes 2-3 times less than a lawyer just out of school.

[utz]

hey glasgopuss, you are so suck