Sunday, December 21, 2008

Your TARP Money Stolen and Wasted

Executives at bailed-out financial firms still collected monstrously large compensation for doing a poor job:

Benefits included cash bonuses, stock options, personal use of company jets and chauffeurs, home security, country club memberships and professional money management, the AP review of federal securities documents found.

In other words, these self-made captains of industry need their every whim indulged in order to function at a minimal level of effectiveness. Meanwhile, yours truly, also a CEO mind you, makes do with none of the above. There may be a correlation between the size of a bank's balance sheet and the size of its aircraft fleet:

Six financial firms that received billions in bailout dollars still own and operate fleets of jets to carry executives to company events and sometimes personal trips, according to an Associated Press review.

In other words, the banks with the most toxic assets need the most jets to move all that garbage around. I don't need a private jet because I don't own any garbage mortgage pools that I need to airdrop into the TARP's gaping maw.

No way should TARP get another penny.