Tuesday, January 27, 2009

On the Mark -- Bonuses for a Job Poorly Done

If you want to understand why there's no confidence in the financial system, just read one story about the sandbox, childish fight between the heads of Merrill Lynch (former head actually) and Bank of America, which bought Merrill Lynch.

One part of the he-said, he-said fiasco has to do with bonuses paid out to Merrill execs at the end of 2008.

Merrill had a net loss of $27.08 billion (yes, Billion; yes Loss) in 2008.

When did bonuses become perfunctory and not tied to performance?

2 comments:

The Misanthrope said...

I love that the Obama administration called Citibank to dump the private jet that was purchased with taxpayer money. You would never have Bush doing that.

The Misanthrope said...

Just me again, Dowd's column sums up the idiot executives:

How could Citigroup be so dumb as to go ahead with plans to get a new $50 million corporate jet, the exclusive Dassault Falcon 7X seating 12, after losing $28.5 billion in the past 15 months and receiving $345 billion in government investments and guarantees?

You know they are still going to get bonuses too.