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WTF? Why does anyone think he can run a bank again?
WTF? Why does anyone think he can run a bank again?
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It's a front job. His actual duties are limited to re-decorating bathrooms for all the board members' homes.
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It's nice to see these guys can land on their feet again without the benefit of a golden parachute. Oh...
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I really need to figure out how to get into this circle of failure. Travel first class, give vague obvious speeches, be completely incompetent, make a lot of money for a year or two, get fired with a parachute, and repeat. Now that's the good life.
Jiminey crickets, me too!
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Pretty much - where do I sign up?
I'll do his job for 250k ;).
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Is this how capitalism rewards success?
How much damage do our leaders of finance have to inflict to not be awarded a CEO position?
Yes, because CEO's sit on each other's boards and so they're buddies and will approve each other being hired and their outrageous salaries (the circle jerk, as many have called it). Of course, with so many outstanding shares of stock in any company, the shares are often too diluted for any sort of shareholder rebellion. In addition, since many shares are held by institutional investors that have their boards comprised of many of these people (and vice versa), they're not going to push for a revolt anyway, as it would lead to a chain reaction where the C-level might get paid for their actual value, not this inflated view.
I wonder what fraction of these institutionally held shares are owned by mutual funds.
Would a law that voting rights must devolve to individual owners of mutual fund shares (even fractional shares) go very far in fixing the problem? Or a law that made the default vote \"abstain\" instead of \"yes\" and required a plurality instead of a majority?
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with all the counterfeit stock out there, do shareholder votes even matter anymore?
I think it's an interesting idea, but I wonder about the administrative feasibility. Who owned what shares on what days to allow for voting rights, seems difficult to determine. I do like your abstain vote idea, but am not sure how much it would help since institutional investors would probably vote yes, for the reasons above.
\"CIT's primary business is lending to small and midsize companies, and if the U.S. economy is going to continue to improve, this is where we need to focus.\"
Then why are YOU leading it?
That's like noticing a kid likes to kick ant hills and thinking to yourself \"I'll get him an ant farm. That should go over well.\"
I wonder if he considers this charity work. Ya know, helping out the little banks grow for \"only\" a pittiance of $500,000 and measly stock shares.
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Ahhhh, the great American circle jerk.
And the American people are left with the bagel? Ewwww.
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Their stock is up on the announcement.
As is their moral repugnance.
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Proof that the board at CIT is their real problem.
We need to establish laws that keep those who have caused our country great economic harm out of our financial industries. We don't let child molesters work with children.
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Child molesters don't have a lobby as good as the banks, nor do give nearly so generous campaign contributions.
It would be nice to have the SEC equivalent of a ban-hammer. I know they probably have it already, but its so rarely used that's its meaningless.
If they actually said to a few of the d-bag C-Level people, \"you can't be an officer in any SEC regulated company anymore\" that might make give them very slight pause....before they lobby to remove that particular SEC lead/administration and revise the rules.
bank regulators already use this power, but it's usually only when someone is brought up on charges of bank fraud or a similar offense. i think the problem here is that despite the shenanigans at merrill, cuomo filed charges against BOA execs, not merrill execs. for example, the OCC frequently uses \"1829 removals\" to remedy cases of fraud or negligence that can be traced to specific individuals or entities. you can read more here: http://www.occ.treas.gov/enforce/eatypes.htm
Interesting- it would be nice to be able to use it for events like \"gross neglience\" or some similar description of mismanagement which causes a systemic risk to out banking system. With great power comes great responsiblity. Yes, I'm mixing civil and tort, but when you are that stupid/greedy/evil/incompetent, you should't get to play in the sandbox anymore. If some private company wants to hire you to ruin their business, have at it.
So rather than hire in someone new from outside of the industry, who might have a clue about a new way to do business that might be sustainable and good for the long term (and would probably take a much lower salary to boot), they bring in a recycled asshat who helped to bring this country's financial system to it's knees. And for this job, they needed to give him 6 million dollars for the first year?
Sorry folks, but our economic system is (as if it wasn't already) broken.
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This sort of thing is why a wave of populism is starting to gather momentum across America. This guy should be in a federal penitentiary for materially misstating the financial condition of Merrill Lynch when he negotiated its sale to Bank O' America. He will get a modest (by Wall St. standards) salary ,but he will also be eligible for over $5 million . That's what is being stated. Now. But ,later ,when the good times start to roll again in the casino that Wall Street has become ,we will discover lots of undisclosed compensation ,conflicts of interest and general dishonesty that we seem powerless to prevent.
Thain should never serve as an officer in any company ,public or private. It is a measure of these people's arrogance that he would even be considered for such a job.
I think you can best describe corporate America like a cult if not a criminal organization. I don't know how driving a company twards bankruptcy using questionable strategies and ' sloppy ' accounting gives you street cred but I guess the brotherhood of ex corporate executives takes care of their own or criminals.
I just don't understand why they get the big bucks.
When something goes wrong, it wasn't their fault according to them. Who would have ever thought that real estate prices would ever drop (hmm... people make pretty much the same money year after year when adjusted for inflation, but homes were going up 20% year. Yeah, that's hard math to figure out).
When something illegal turns up (Enron, etc), the execs had no idea that something like this was happening under their nose; they weren't checking the books, just trying to figure out what to spend that huge bonus on.
But when something good happens, it was clearly their leadership and knowledge that lead their company to that 2% better result. Better make sure that bonus has a few extra zeros to keep them motivated to do even better next year.
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I wouldn't hire that guy to paint my fence, never mind run another fricking bank. But all this somehow boils down to Obama's fault, right? GAH.
First order of business, new platinum french commode.
Nothing says getting down to business like a fancy place to do your business.
second order of business: inflate value of commode by $4 billion, list as income on balance sheet, reluctantly accept $100 million bonus for boosting company profit.
Second order of business: ???
Third order of business: Profit