Many of the Bear Stearns executives responsible for the subprime mortgage fiasco that set off a worldwide economic downturn didn’t have to share in the financial ruin they helped precipitate. In other words, these captains didn’t go down with the sinking ship. In fact, they jumped off Bear Stearns and started piloting other major American economic ships.
An article in Mother Jones profiles six Bear Stearns executives who went on to highly successful (and highly compensated) jobs at other companies on Wall Street:
. . . All six continue to work at the top levels of their field, earning salaries and bonuses that have allowed them to live in luxury while the mortgages that made up the bonds they sold have defaulted at alarming rates.
It highlights, in particular, the story of Thomas Marano:
Marano personally signed the SEC filings on at least $8.7 billion worth of residential mortgage-backed securities sold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac . . .
Mortgage-backed securities that went belly up. Marano could have been incarcerated for fraud if the DOJ had been able to prove that he knowingly included so-called toxic assets in the securities he signed off on. Marano vehemently denied any fraudulent dealings (What else would you expect him to do?), which would leave only one option: he was and is extraordinarily incompetent.
Thanks to the mammothly ill-conceived TARP bail-out, Marano also got millions in compensation:
Marano’s compensation is known because he was one of the 25 highest paid people at Ally Financial [parent company of ResCap]. Under the law, seven companies that received money from the TARP were required to submit their executives’ compensation packages to the US Treasury for approval and to disclose them in SEC filings. Special paymaster Patricia Geoghegan approved Marano’s 2012 $8 million compensation—$6.2 million in salary and $1.8 million in stock options—just weeks before ResCap filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on May 14, 2012.
This is just unbelievable. These people’s greed, corruption, and incompetence were major contributing factors to our economic downturn. We suffered the consequences. They did not. In fact, they have been rewarded for failure.
And who rewarded them? The civil government of course. Ever noticed what the “bail-out” funds were used for? Executive compensations and company buy-outs. In other words, a bunch of failed companies used taxpayer money to reward their executives and buy out smaller companies. These smaller companies were actually doing it right in many cases, and they would have been able to rise in the ranks if the civil government had allowed failure to fail. When will this country remember the principles and truths that made her great?
Neither party has the guts to prosecute Wall Street because Wall Street owns BOTH parties!
Yet another example of what happens when the government gets involved in regulating industries. The loopholes will be found and the people in charge will be using them. Everyone else will be held back. Regardless of party affiliation, this won’t change as long as people believe it is the job of the government to back private enterprise.
They are like those four Korean pilots who could not land a 777 without dragging the tail. Thank Som Ting Wong for that one.
See The Two Minute Conservative via Google or: http://adrianvance.blogspot.com and when you speak ladies will swoon and liberal gentlemen will weep.
How do I get a job like that? I’m sure I can mismanage a hedge fund/bank (whatever B/S is)
end the fed.
then, let’s get some real skin in the game:
first, de-beard the bernankster with a national class action against him and his enriched bankster pals for his actions in going retro-robin hood: robbing the dollars of the middle class and poor and unborn to give to his rich puppets and himself.
second, close-shave hank just-gimme-da-money-n-ask-me-no-questions-so-i-tell-you-no-lies paulson for lying to us anyway about tarp and its real beneficiaries (barry’s cronies like the union and solyndra, etal.)
third, defrock choir boy timmy the geith, who deliberately required no consideration from the banksters he gifted.
fourth, unslick the slickster for not only fanning the sub-prime cra inferno but also, with robert rubin and rabbi greenspan, for initiating his “it’s the economy (market), stupid” policy to juice the market for re-election, which policy was improved by voodoo baby’s bernank handler, and has been perfected by smoke and baby face ben.
fifth, find johnny calzone and lock him up for 99 years for embezzlement of mf global’s clients.
sixth, find chris cox and class action sue him for falling asleep at the sec switch while rome burned.
seventh, give son of mario a resounding round of applause for suing to force banks to commit cra sub-prime public malpractice.
eighth, let’s give the liar’s award to barney’s frank and chris dodd for pooh-poohing subprime fallout.
ninth, round up frankie raines, smoke’s money boy, and the whole enriched fannie mae, freddie mac gang for a full accounting and class action suit for their samba blast on joe taxpayer’s grave.
let’s beneficently stop here for the time being.
as the witch once said, it takes village (of idiot thieves).
Please do not engage the moron BobE. This guy is simply an annoying boil on the aZZ of society and simply needs to have all his posts flagged.
The Big Mouth Traitor Mc Cain is one Low Life individual that kisses Obama’s Ass every other day and lies calling himself a Republican! f Obama would turn a sharp corner, Mc Cain would break his nose.
This Low Life Mc Cain makes me ashamed to admit I am a Vietnam Veteran!