Wall St. Is Winning - Record Bonuses
 

now that was a "change people belived in"

http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker...&asset=&ccode=


Elizabeth Warren, chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel, is the rare public official who doesn't mince words.
But Warren admits to being "speechless" at reports of record bonuses on Wall Street.

"I do not understand how financial institutions could think they could take taxpayer money and turn around and act like it's business as usual," Warren says. "I don't understand how they can't see that the world has changed in a fundamental way - it's not business as usual. All I can say right now is they seem to be winning this argument."

In the accompanying video, taped at The Economist's Buttonwood Gathering at Pace University, I asked Warren about Treasury Secretary's claim at the same event that the government has been "remarkably effective" in combating the financial crisis.

"It is not the case people go to bed wondering if there will be an economy in the morning," she quips, but "we still have lot of serious problems."

Comparing the situation today vs. a year ago, Warren observes:

Even Too Bigger to Fail: A year ago the big concern was systemic risk and how to deal with 'too big to fail' firms, she recalls. Now "the big are bigger, we wiped out a lot of small folks and there's more concentration" in the banking system.
Still Toxic: TARP was created explicitly to remove toxic assets from bank balance sheets. "They're still there by and large."
Stress Test Failure: Unemployment has "blown through" the worst-case scenario in the stress test from February, Warren notes. But "we haven't repeated the stress test, or revealed any more information about what's going on inside these financial institutions."
In sum, "all the things going on [a year ago] that were serious, serious problems for the financial institutions seem to me are still serious, serious problems," she says.

Finally, Warren pulls no punches when it comes to her criticism of former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson for his failure to put any restrictions on or monitoring of the initial TARP funds, and for using the money for something other than "toxic asset relief," as originally intended.

"I have a real problem when we describe to taxpayers their money will be taken and used one way and in fact it's used another way," she declares.

So in the end, Warren did find her voice and spoke quite candidly, a very rare trait among public officials.

I wonder how much bonuses they'll give themselves when they implode the dollar :(

Don't worry Obama will make another speech about it and give them another warning about how they better do the right thing or else!!!

It is doubtful that the old WS dog will learn new tricks (or, even wants to). Back to recession in 5 or so (credit or otherwise, depends on what the next big trend is). :)

Its pretty clear that Obama is keeping everyones mind off the financial problems and targetting the healthcare, smoke and mirrors..

Going to be a Merry Christmas for a few.

what do people expect? they received this money to these institutions with few to no strings attached. this is the cost of rushing through legislation. remember? no time to debate? no time to discuss? there's just no time!!

obviously they are going to act like its not their money... particularly when there's safety in numbers and they have the support of the government via their connections and friends and have no repercussions/consequences to worry about.

i lol at all you that continue to blame obama...

our govt is gone... its now just a group of greedy, power hungry people that dont care what side of the aisle they sit on..

its all about money now.. personally, i have lost all hope of the political process and as soon as america wakes up an realizes that it doesnt matter who the president is, its the govt as a whole thats fucking us, maybe people will start doing something about it..

You have to admit that his whole healthcare plan is doing a great job pulling the media off the financial sector and wallstreet and its helping keeping them out of the media.

Man you guys sure don't know how to get your shit together... always complaining and arguing until the end of time... no fucking wonder you guys are stuck in the mud on just about every major decision ever proposed.

the government sent the message that it's ok to run a bank as they've been run, we'll bail you out regardless. this proves the banks know this.

it's disgusting.

The house of cards will fall. Dow 10000 is just a temporary upswing towards zero. Gold baby gold...

you mean bullion, right?