Good morning, Christy;

As society boldly plunges ever deeper into NEW-SPEAK , we have the ‘bonus’ of no onus to tie meaning to substance, as ‘appearance’ is all that concerns us, because money is all that matters … and how one gets it does not.

Silly me, I had, somehow, got the impression that the ‘people’ were becoming rather fed up with such crap and had chosen to elect someone who bandied the notion of ‘change’ about.

Two pennies, a nickel and a dime’s worth of ‘change’.

[”Could we have some more, please, sir …” (the motto on the wall reads, “God is love”) … forgive me Mr. Dickens, but our great expectations seem to be crumbling daily and folks are hungry, perhaps desperately so, for meaningful change, not the polishing-up of tired tripe and the continuing aggrandizement of the caviar cla$$ …]

A retention award?

I’d like one of these folks to explain why they are so anxious to retain the people that drove their businesses into the ground. Seems to me that these would be the very people a competent CEO would be happy to see leave and go to their competitors.

I’d also like a pony.

It’s a way of keeping the club closed to outsiders.

Oh, how I long for the general application the duck principle. If it has feathers, if it waddles and if it quacks, then it’s likely a duck.

Please don’t call this a bonus, my a**!

Even so, you’d think that a competent CEO — and one filled with a true sense of being one of the masters of the world — would be concerned about having a high quality of insiders in that club. By their lights, any incompetent riff-raff need not apply, and if caught inside the club should be shown the door immediately.

(I know, I know — I keep saying “competent CEO” . . . As the lawyers here might say, that presumes facts not in evidence.)

Okay, instead of calling it a bonus, let’s call it what it really is: dividing the loot among the thieves.

Honesty and integrity truly are a lost art, aren’t they?

Yet another consequence of having Republics in charge for so long.

here’s the thing;

if you are losing money there are no “retention awards”, the company is losing money, go get another job and help them lose money too.

I have no problem with contractural monetary obligations, I DO have a problem with ANY payment that is not contractural

when companies lose money they either go out of business or lower their costs, they do NOT give out money they are not bound by law to give

I agree. It just pains me to see how throughly the right thing to do has become so tainted with greed and corruption.

OK. You’re asking for more of our money? How about we ask that our award is 3 times bigger than the ones you hand out. Since you’re apparently doing well enough to hand out awards/bonuses/perks to your non-performing senior execs.

How about calling it Bone-us.

-G

Ba dum bum…

Although I agree with the concept that bonus payments on down years are usually to be avoided, retention payments during a merger do serve a different purpose than a general yearly bonus.

During a merger, a company will usually look to find what key people they really need to make sure the company still can operate during the merger period. They then offer to pay these people a little bit more, just during this merger period, so they don’t jump ship early.

This is done to encourage people not to seek new jobs early, especially in the company being absorbed, instead of the stronger company, where most people are assuming they’ll lose their jobs.

Without such a payment, or some other incentive, the company being absorbed usually will lose many key people (a lot of NON management, the key IT people who know how certain vital apps run, the key accountants who know exactly how the company finances run, etc.) and end up where they cannot function through the merger period.

Thus the need for some incentive to hold just those key people a little longer, until the merger is completed.

A pony? Go for the thoroughbred, Peterr. Get with the program!

Christy, the first sentence has a Mack attack.

The retention bonuses are obviously need to keep
highly valued employees from jumping ship.
To Lehman, Bear Stearns and Enron.

Wow some powerful opening statement from the family members at the peanut butter hearing.

For me, the payment wasn’t necessarily the problem — during a merger, it is fairly standard practice to allay the fears of job less, etc., and keep good employees in place. But the “don’t call it a bonus” part was pure, unadulterated bullshit.

Sorry, not buying the PR manipulation. No thank yew.

I’ll tell you guys something very disturbing I heard on the news yesterday;

“most people agree the wealthy should pay more taxes” was how they set it up

then they go and get everyone saying things like;

“when we’re struggling they should WANT to help out”

as if that would be some kind of handout, it’s NOT a handout, it’s the wealthy paying their proportionate share of expenses, it’s getting the middle class assets BACK

in other words, those assets are OURS not theirs

now for the REALLY disturbing part

most of these people earned close to a quarter of a million dollars a year and considered themselves “middle class” and they didn’t think THEIR taxes should go up

bizarre

Ooops — thanks! Missed that tyop… *G*

A pony?

No, no.

You deserve a string of polo ponies, their upkeep forever, including all transportation to the best of international venues, the necessary ’silks’, and all the best trainers, the ‘right’ crowd (and no crowding) . We would be embarrassed to try to ‘retain’ you otherwise (were you one of the Wisdoms who are too big to flop …)

We must not think small, regarding the brightest and the best, little ‘think’ is appropriate only for the little people, the luminaries deserve BIG appropriations, (”… they have not yet begun to appropriate …” John Paul Cajones).

Let us dispense with our meager ‘likes’, and think expansively, as surely, the expense will be borne by others, too circumscribed in their appetites and imaginations to grasp the golden ring of succe$$ and the sublime joys of rugged individualism, a few crumbs, a bit of gruel, a swift kick to the backside and they’ll gratefully scuttle off to their hovels … knowing they shall, if they mind their P’s and Q’s, find their rewards in heaven …

Through their infinite greed, these pigs could bring down the whole sham of “free market” post-industrial capitialism of which only those darn commies could have dreamt.

Yep, I understand Christy. My reply was mostly to Perris disagreeing with any non-contractual payments, and how, in this case, such payments may be justified as actual good business.

I do agree they are trying to sugar coat their way out of bad PR by renaming it to be not a bonus.

And by doing so, they’ve just given themselves even worse PR. Epic fail. *g*

On the bonuses, Paul Wilmott has a nice little op-ed in today’s NYT that explains their perverse incentive effect on risk-taking. It’s a very simple terrifying example of why they should not be getting performance bonuses. As to ‘keeping the team together’, tell that to the captain of the Titanic.

boy was Maxine Waters on fire…….. banks do the work, charge back fees and then they get more money……. why can’t they answer her questions?

It looks that no one wanted her to has the hard questions….. Did you raise interest on credit cards? Did you target ethnic groups?

I like the audio of the conference call. The CEO says the retention payments will be based on productivity in 2008. So you are being rewarded based on past performance. In bad times, that used to be called “keeping your job.”

Link to call here

http://furtherism.blogspot.com…..amage.html

(sorry if it’s been said already…)

And retaining the same bozos that got the company and the industry into the worst mess in living memory is a good idea WHY? Let alone that having said bozos stay with the company should be rewarded WHY?

Feh! (Faugh!)
FunnyDiva

At the bankers hearing we are getting a lot of this doubletalk. Isolated numbers and legalese about they are or are not doing. I stopped listening. It was kind of creepy. The financial system collapsed. We are on the edge of depression, and these guys remain completely unaware.

Paying someone a bonus to stay on a job in today’s job market where wall street people are a dime a dozen ……. With 12 million unemployed and probably another 12 million either under employed or just gave up…… that someone would throw away a million dollar job if they do not receive a bonus!

And for a regular worker bee…… My company is NOT giving annual merit raises this year which means that our bonus program is also wiped out. (Software usually bonus when projects are brought in on time or early)

Do you really think it’s “unaware” — or more like “deliberately obtuse because you silly nothings in Congress and the public can do nothing to us from your puny perch among the have not enoughs”?

What this country needs is more class warfare.

Are you speaking of the banksters being unaware or the Congress members being unaware. I’d vote for both.

You’re right. It’s both. It’s the passengers and crew of the Titanic deciding that they will not let something like an iceberg get in the way of their planning tomorrow night’s dance.

Best analogy I’ve read all day. *G* Bravo!

bonuses in the financial sector are a normal part of compensation calculations for a lot of folks

Can’t they be paid decently so that bonuses can be real, reasonably-sized bonuses? Or that, if they’re really part of the normal pay package, that people pay normal taxes on them, because it’s pay and not really a bonus?

Well, they should be…yes. But they aren’t at the moment. Although I suspect that a whole host of boards of directors will be taking a good, long look at that this year. Don’t you?

Would like to hear one of the Congress members ask these banksters what their definition is for “usury”.

The truth of what you say at least annoys us (to put it mildly), do you suspect that the Congress Critters are, in any meaningful fashion, equally … um ‘bothered’?

‘We’ can do little (our fortitude, apparently, not having been built sufficiently, as yet) but, apart from some small (pipsqueak!) noises from a few of the Critters, what has Congress (and TWO Presidents) done but to hand over more (and more) money with NO strings attached?

Whatever outrage Congress may express seems more in the nature of kabuki than substance.

Or, perhaps I have missed something?

If Congress finds the behaviors of those too big to fail contemptuous, then either they actually do something about it or accept the fact that they (the Critters) will be seen as being in collusion with the the plundering scum.

It is a wee bit like Leahy saying he will investigate the wrongdoings of Bu$h CO: I’ll’ believe’ it when I see it.

As to any ‘consequence’ arising from such an investigation … I would not bet on it.

Given today’s ‘environment’ such doubts and skepticism as I possess hardly qualifies as ‘cynicism’ … such a word well describes certain others, however … those who have gamed and continue to game the ’system’ to the intentional cost and deliberate damage of everyone else.

“There will be a retention award. Please do not call it a bonus,” said James Gorman, co-president of Morgan Stanley. “It is not a bonus. It is an award.”

Paging Mr. Orwell…

Do these guys speak the same language (English) as we do?

Message to James Gorman: Calling it an “award” instead of a “bonus” is worse. The whole issue is that no one thinks any of these people deserve any fucking awards for trashing the economy.

Asshole.

.

Is that the same bored of Directors as last year? I am so tired of the word games from the people in this alternate universe. Retention awards, CDSs, profits = ? ,

Parnel now up at Peanut Butter Hearing

ZOMBIE BANKS MUST DIE.

That’s all there is to it.

Parnell invokes the 5th ammendment

A banker would ask something like this: “Is that (usury) an actual word?”

Beyond the notion of why you would want to retain the same morons of the universe that brought us so low, is one of whether and where they would go if not given $$$ to be retained. This should be a case where the greedheads should be given significant pay cuts and told to walk if they do not agree. I just can’t believe that there is a hungry market out there for their skill sets at the moment. Who will hire them? Lehmann Bros.? E.F. Hutton? Bear Stearns? JP Morgan? Or maybe one of the many banks that no longer exist. . . Let ‘em walk.

Fresh posty goodness up for anyone who wants it…

“Banksters”

good one.

“consequences” are what we need.

The financial sector is riddled with companies laying people off. Many months, they’ve been at the top of sectors with job losses. Why pay retention bonuses in that environment? Where are people going to go, exactly? No one is hiring.

It’s a scam.

Yet another reason that nationalization is the only way. For more reasons, see here, here, and here.

Congrats on your own by line.

William K. Black, Associate Professor of Economics and Law, University of Missouri – Kansas City, held senior regulatory positions during the S&L debacle and is the author of “The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One” (2005). Over at Huffington Post, he nails it, beginning thusly:

“We are being played for chumps. The Bush and Obama plans could only have been designed by failed bankers — for their principal beneficiaries are failed bankers.”

The retention bonuses are obviously need to keep
highly valued employees from jumping ship.
To Lehman, Bear Stearns and Enron.

He he wickedly funny!
*snicker* *snicker*

Not a bonus nor an award but Hush Money. Prevent disaffected employees from spilling the beans. Cover up the kickbacks , fraud, ceo steroid juicing.

bonus is a prosper
which comes with an onus
thought it may prosper be
don’t term it bonus ..

[with apologies to wm. blake ]