Tin Ear

That's all I can say about the people in big finance these days. They have a tin ear. They seem to have no idea how angry people are about the bail out and the money we are having to pony up for it.

Citibank decided it would buy a corporate jet. After a huge out cry the next day they decided to cancel the order. This from the story:

The jet quickly became a lightning rod of criticism. A White House spokesman said President Obama does not believe "that's the best use of money" by companies receiving taxpayer assistance.

I can't see how they would not get the idea that people would be pissed off about this.

Further proof of the tin ear or complete arrogance on the part of Wall Street is what happened at Merrill Lynch.

. . . reports surfaced that billions of dollars were paid to Merrill executives in late December.

Those bonuses were paid as Merrill was about to report a $15 billion fourth-quarter loss, and while Bank of America was seeking more federal funds to help it absorb the mounting losses at the New York-based investment bank.

Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's investigation will center on trying to determine why the timetable for paying the bonuses was moved up to December from its normal period in January; who knew about the bonuses; and how Merrill could justify spending billions of dollars on bonuses knowing it was on the brink of reporting a multibillion-dollar loss for the quarter, a person familiar with the probe told The Associated Press. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.

The usual refrain is that people have to be paid these high bonus or else companies won't be able to retain these "high caliber" people. Further these are such high quality people they can't be easily replaced.

My reaction that in today's market is to say where exactly are these people going to go and get a job. I'd say to them you're going to get a 10% pay cut and maybe just maybe you'll keep your job. Also aren't these the same "high caliber" people that helped to get us into all the problems in the first place. Maybe the fear of unemployment might straighten up these guy.

It seems this culture of entitlement on Wall Street was allowed to continue when the bail out started under Bush. It's rather obvious that the Obama administration has a different view on this. All I can say is it's about time.