Ken, whatever you do, don't click this link.

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/WallStreet/story?id=6223972

Bingo

I see the Tidy Bowl Man waving goodbye permanently. Oh, wait, that is a signal for.."Help!!!! Someone throw me a line!"

^^^^

Was a time I thought every politician was named Richard Cranium.  Now I'm certain.  

Oh man Ken, what sets of big brass ones these companies have.  "CBS News correspondent Priya David spoke with several compensation consultants who said that, even in this economy, firms are worried that, if they don't pay out the bonuses, they'll lose their top talent -- people they want to keep around for when pastures turn green again."

Where do they think their so called talent will go, and wouldn't they think their prospective employers would know how badly they f*#ked up their previous job?  I say that congress makes a law that any use of bailout funds for executive bonus' or salary increases be a felony punishable by 5 years for all parties involved.

Here is an excellent article, For the entire thing go here...   http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/11/12-1

The one thing we are not hearing from Congress or from incoming president Barack Obama in the current economic crisis facing the country are the words "anti-trust" and "public ownership."

From the moment the crisis first struck, with the near collapse of AIG, the mantra has been that companies like AIG, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, Citibank, etc.--and more recently General Motors Corp. and Ford--are "too big to fail." That is, it is argued that these companies are so huge that if they were to collapse into the rubble they deserve to be, it would damage the nation irreparably.

The question is, if that is genuinely the case, why were they allowed to be that big in the first place, and why aren't we rethinking that policy?

Bail out should have gone to us. Money would have gone into the banks, kept the economy stable( now there is an oxymoron), and I would have a new car!!!!! No, we are paying for banks to hire prosecutors and such. Golden parachutes for failures, and gods only know what else.

That's what I said when I first heard of the bailout proposal... to give the backbone of the country, the workers and consumers, the propensity to pay: such as their mortgages; credit card debts, etc.... to purchase goods and services, thus stimulating the economy and providing banks with a cash flow to trade themselves out of trouble if they were good enough.

The US Gov't cocked this one up big time and threw good money after bad... giving the safe crackers the combination to the vault and making a worse situation deplorable.  I read today that Germany, France and Britain have declared that they are in recession due to the US financial collapse, and that is far from the end of it.  Things will get a lot worse before they get better, but for that to happen, governments and economists need to learn that stock markets (primarily) and banks should not be the primary focus of any economy.

It's said that money makes money, and to some extent that may be true, but investment in stock and shares is creating artificial wealth in intangible assets, electronic monies that ebb and flow, often with devastating results as market fluctuations leave many investors penniless. 

No, hard work and productivity, the provision of goods and services is what makes money, and when the workforce gets a fair day's pay for a fair day's work, it has the greater propensity to pay, thus stimulating the economy in real terms with actual cash transactions.  And to stop the outsourcing of jobs overseas would also stimulate employment, meaning more people with a fair day's pay have the propensity to pay, given that prices are fair, thus stimulating supply and demand, the economy in general.

Sounds so simple, doesn't it!  Well it is that simple... well it was, until greed complicated matters with more and more ways to turn a profit at the expense of competitors, and more importantly, we the consumers.