He's Coming Around

[Gaspar]

Private companies can pay their top talent what they want.  That's how you get and keep top talent. 

Feb. 10 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama said he doesn't "begrudge" the $17 million bonus awarded to JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon or the $9 million issued to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. CEO Lloyd Blankfein, noting that some athletes take home more pay.

The president, speaking in an interview, said in response to a question that while $17 million is "an extraordinary amount of money" for Main Street, "there are some baseball players who are making more than that and don't get to the World Series either, so I'm shocked by that as well."

"I know both those guys; they are very savvy businessmen," Obama said in the interview yesterday in the Oval Office with Bloomberg BusinessWeek, which will appear on newsstands Friday. "I, like most of the American people, don't begrudge people success or wealth. That is part of the free- market system."

His comments come just days after 2009 bonus packages were announced for Dimon and Blankfein. Dimon, 53, led New York-based JPMorgan, the second-biggest U.S. bank, to a profit during each quarter of the financial crisis. Blankfein, 55, was at the helm when New York-based Goldman's shares doubled last year as profit soared to a record high. The two banks were among those that repaid the bailout money they received from the government during the financial crisis.

Obama said compensation packages over the last decade haven't always been commensurate with performance, and reiterated his call for shareholders to have a say in CEO pay.


This time last year bonuses for these companies were an outrage. "A violation of our fundimental values."

[Gaspar]

He also added  "This is the antithesis of a free-market system."

Oh happy day! He's becoming a Libertarian.

Or perhaps he's just saying what people want to hear?

I'm confused.

[rwarn17588]

I'm confused.

Based on your output in recent days, that's a given.

Badda boomp.

[Gaspar]

Based on your output in recent days, that's a given.

Badda boomp.

Yeah and it's getting worse. 

[Conan71]

He also added  "This is the antithesis of a free-market system."

Oh happy day! He's becoming a Libertarian.

Or perhaps he's just saying what people want to hear?

I'm confused.

He doesn't have a clue what he's talking about, other than hoping Blankfein and Dimon funnel some of that money to his reelection in '12.  He's just reading whatever comes out of the TelePrompTer.

These two are just greedy capitalist Repiglican Wall St. types, I'm sure.

Ooops, not really (sorry for the crappy formatting- you get the picture anyhow):

http://fundrace.huffingtonpost.com/neighbors.php?type=name&lname=Blankfein&fname=Lloyd&search=Search

Lloyd Blankfein
Investment Banker
Goldman Sachs Updated
Q4/2007

$28,500
Garden City NY Donation to Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee

Lloyd C Blankfein
Donation of $5,000 to Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
Political Action Committee,
The Lloyd C Blankfein
Investment Banker
Goldman Sachs Updated
Q1/2007

$5,000

New York NY Donation to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Political Action Committee, The
Lloyd Blankfein
Donation of $4,600 to Presidential elections 2008

Lloyd Blankfein
Investment Banker
Goldman Sachs & Co Updated
Q1/2007
Hillary Clinton
$4,600
941 PARK AVE
New York NY

Lloyd Blankfein
Donation of $4,600 to Presidential elections 2008

Lloyd Blankfein
Investment Banker
Goldman Sachs & Co. Updated
Q1/2007
Hillary Clinton
$4,600
85 BROAD ST
New York NY

Lloyd Blankfein
Donation of $2,300 to Presidential elections 2008
Lloyd Blankfein
Chairman and CEO
Goldman Sachs Updated
Q2/2007

Christopher Dodd
$2,300 941 PARK AVE
New York NY Lloyd Blankfein

Donation of $10,000 to Presidential elections 2004
Lloyd Blankfein

Updated
Q1/2004
DNC
$10,000 941 PARK AVE
New York NY

Jamie Dimon, similar story: $28,500 to Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, donations to Hillarity Clinton, Chris Dodd, Harry Reid, Mary Landrieu, Rahm Emanuel, Max Baucus, Charlie Rangel.  A regular who's who of conservative scum!

http://fundrace.huffingtonpost.com/neighbors.php?type=name&lname=dimon&fname=jamie&search=Search

Remember folks, it was the greedy Republicans and their allies on Wall Street that caused this huge mess.

[USRufnex]

Based on your output in recent days, that's a given.

Badda boomp.

+1

[Conan71]

+1

awww c'mon Ruf. Just going to throw something on the compost pile?  I was expecting one of your "I groped Obama on the Ell when I lived in Chicago" posts

[USRufnex]

awww c'mon Ruf. Just going to throw something on the compost pile?  I was expecting one of your "I groped Obama on the Ell when I lived in Chicago" posts

-1

[Red Arrow]

-1

-1 x 10^(17)    (Should be million billion)

[we vs us]

He also added  "This is the antithesis of a free-market system."

Oh happy day! He's becoming a Libertarian.

Or perhaps he's just saying what people want to hear?

I'm confused.

I don't know anyone who wants to hear that.  Defending banker bonuses is a pretty thankless business these days (rightfully so), and I don't particularly see why he'd reverse himself. 

Actually (with a little googling) turns out he didn't quite say what they said he said.  Not that he isn't being maddeningly coy about these ridiculous bonus packages but he's not as gung ho about our newest Robber Barons as you want him to be.

QUESTION: Let's talk bonuses for a minute: Lloyd Blankfein, $9 million; Jamie Dimon, $17 million. Now, granted, those were in stock and less than what some had expected. But are those numbers okay?

    THE PRESIDENT: Well, look, first of all, I know both those guys. They're very savvy businessmen. And I, like most of the American people, don't begrudge people success or wealth. That's part of the free market system. I do think that the compensation packages that we've seen over the last decade at least have not matched up always to performance. I think that shareholders oftentimes have not had any significant say in the pay structures for CEOs.

[YoungTulsan]

Words versus actions.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2008/10/01/by_perry_bacon_jr_la.html

"It's time to put an end to the run-away spending and the record deficits," the Democratic nominee told a crowd of thousands at a rally where supporters crowded into the middle of blocked-off streets. "It's time to return to the fiscal responsibility and pay as you go, the kind budgeting that we had in the 1990s. You remember Bill Clinton left a surplus for George W. Bush."

Those are words.  They sure sound nice.

[Red Arrow]

You remember Bill Clinton left a surplus for George W. Bush."

Get us another dot com bubble and I'm sure we can have a surplus again.  Be sure to have the bubble end late enough to make the incumbent be the budget hero but early enough to have the next president have a full term recession.

It's also important to differentiate between the annual budget and the overall debt.  Clinton had a few years of budget surplus but the overall debt only had a dent put in it.  (I did not say that you said differently.  I'm only making the point clear.)

[Hoss]

Get us another dot com bubble and I'm sure we can have a surplus again.  Be sure to have the bubble end late enough to make the incumbent be the budget hero but early enough to have the next president have a full term recession.

It's also important to differentiate between the annual budget and the overall debt.  Clinton had a few years of budget surplus but the overall debt only had a dent put in it.  (I did not say that you said differently.  I'm only making the point clear.)

It's not like Bush wasn't inaugurated during the dot com bubble.  He was reaping the rewards as well, he just pushed through those asinine tax cuts.

And yes, I do realize that 9/11 had a pretty big impact on our economy.  It was going in the tank though slightly before that.

[YoungTulsan]

Get us another dot com bubble and I'm sure we can have a surplus again.  Be sure to have the bubble end late enough to make the incumbent be the budget hero but early enough to have the next president have a full term recession.

It's also important to differentiate between the annual budget and the overall debt.  Clinton had a few years of budget surplus but the overall debt only had a dent put in it.  (I did not say that you said differently.  I'm only making the point clear.)

I wouldn't let Bush off the hook either.  Most of what was lost after 2000 was only brought back in bubble form thanks to the Fed practically giving away money.  After 9/11 interest rates were next to nothing and stayed there until the 2004 election.   It was the credit/housing bubble recovery that had Wall Street and corporate America enjoying new record highs while the general economy had its good parts mainly on unnecessary services and consumption, people spending wildly with credit cards and home equity loans.  Meanwhile manufacturing jobs continued to go overseas.  The housing bubble and credit bubbles bursted during Bush's second term.  I don't know how much pull the ruling administration has with the Federal Reserve but I always found it fishy how things went in 2004 followed by Greenspan reigning in the credit frenzy in too quick a fashion to play catch up once Bush had his second term solidified.

The Clinton "surplus" was actually a result of borrowing heavily from intragovernmental holdings (read: Social Security during a convenient time when more people were paying into the system as Baby boomers were in their peak earning years, still a decade or more away from retirement) - combined with the always foolish method of projecting rosy times exponentially into the future.  Look at the stock market, it bases its values of stocks on projections into the future, and it can go up and down 5 times in the same week.  Basing government budgeting on the same foolishness, especially when you cherry pick the best outlook, is only going to fail from there.

[Conan71]

It's not like Bush wasn't inaugurated during the dot com bubble.  He was reaping the rewards as well, he just pushed through those asinine tax cuts.

And yes, I do realize that 9/11 had a pretty big impact on our economy.  It was going in the tank though slightly before that.

With all due respect the bubble had burst when GB II was innaugurated in 2001