Want to get mad? Read about Merrill Lynch's Bonuses

[Rowe]

NY AG: Before Losing $15 Billion, Merrill Lynch Quietly Made 696 Employees Millionaires

Bearing in mind that Merrill moved up its bonus payments in advance of its announced $15 billion quarterly loss and $27 billion annual loss, we have determined that Merrill Lynch made the following bonus payments:

The top four bonus recipients received a combined $121 million;
The next four bonus recipients received a combined $62 million;
The next six bonus recipients received a combined $66 million;
Fourteen individuals received bonuses of $10 million or more and combined they received more than $250 million;
20 individuals received bonuses of $8 million or more;
53 individuals received bonuses of $5 million or more;
149 individuals received bonuses of $3 million or more;
Overall, the top 149 bonus recipients received a combined $858 million;
696 individuals received bonuses of $1 million or more.

Again, these payments and their curious timing raise serious questions as to whether the Merrill Lynch and Bank of America Boards of Directors were derelict in their duties and violated their fiduciary obligations.

All when they lose 15.31 Billion (recent Quarter), 27 Billion on the Year.

you can read the NY AG's PDF here http://www.oag.state.ny.us/media_cen...l%20letter.pdf

[Kiro]

PROUD TO BE AN AMERICUNT.

[archibaldcrane]

Maybe if it wasn't for the hard work of those millionaires, the company would've lost 30 billion.

800 million doesn't look so bad now does it? DOES IT?

[Azkarin2]

Wow, I'm normally all in favor for huge bonuses but in no way did any of them earn it. On top of that they tried to backdate the timing? Hopefully this doesn't get passed over and I hope that they get f'd over for this.

[Rowe]

I'd say they moved up the timing, normally you'd receive a bonus after quarterly results are in and said bonus would be based on performance. They moved the bonus ahead of the quarterly report because they new the 15.31 billion lose was coming and they wanted to get their money and run.

[Kuya]

I don't know what's wrong with you guys, these people get payed this much because they're better people, better than all of you. Don't hate cause they're richer than you, poor people.

Praise free markets!

[archibaldcrane]

The other thing is, some of these executives (I don't know about at Merrill Lynch specifically, but at some failing investment companies) -did- see this coming - they anticipated the failings of some of their mortgage-backed securities, and they did the intelligent, responsible thing to cover their asses.

They bought securities insurance to protect their investments.

The problem is, they bought the insurance on their jeopardized home mortgaged backed securities...from companies like AIG.

And then the insurance failed.

It's like when you see a river flood and wash out a bunch of homes and people lose everything. You say to yourself "Hey assholes - don't build on a floodplain and you wouldn't be destitute right now!" And then a few of those assholes say "yeah, but that's why I bought flood insurance. Too bad the insurance company went belly up and now my insurance is worthless."

erm i mean yeah fuck those guys!

[EckoGecko]

what in the woorrrld....

[Blarg]

It will trickle down, don't worry guys.

[Beckwin]

mmm yes, this class consciousness itt is making me hard

[Kuya]

We're falling for the socialist trap! Don't give in, let rich CEOs have all your money and ignore that you're becoming poorer while they're becoming richer, because at least you won't be a socialist!

[0ni0n]

Maybe if it wasn't for the hard work of those millionaires, the company would've lost 30 billion.

800 million doesn't look so bad now does it? DOES IT?

Haha, that's rich (pun intended).

The company wouldn't have lost 30 billion dollars if those so called financial genius didn't invent all these derivative securities whose profitability relies so heavily on leverage. Some companies leveraged so much that they had $100 debt for every $1 dollar asset they actually own. While leverage does amplify profits, it also exacerbates losses.

Bank of America literally got robbed when Merrill handed out 4 billion dollars in bonuses. That was why Thain was fired by Lewis, the CEO of BoA.

[_chuchu]

But I don't want nice things

[shaqswede]

As weird as it sounds, I don't have a problem with huge bonuses. Even at Merrill. I work at Bank of America and can actually say this. I can rationalize this because I can see these players are there to plan the global strategy for the companies. Yes, the companies have lost billions of dollars. MANY companies have had issues with this current economic environment. I really believe we are nitpicking at things that are "minuscule" in the grand scheme of these companies. $10MM for salary/bonus is "immaterial" in relation to the $2 TRILLION in assets that BofA has on our books.

Over the past decade, these companies have grown many times over with these players leading the charge. Was there an issue with these salaries/bonuses when the quarterly/yearly net income was still in the billions? The general economy should not affect the salaries/bonuses of the people making the decisions that affect hundreds of thousands of employees. The general economy only magnifies what is occurring at each of these companies.

Lets focus on getting the general economy back to a healthy and growing state. We need jobs and spending to get there. When this happens, we can deal with the larger salaries/bonuses/perks that these leaders have. If this is an issue once the economy turns around and is a growth state again, I will be tremendously surprised.

[Khamsin]

I'm in the wrong industry! Time to apply for a job where they pay you $10 mil in bonuses on your bad years.

[Ramor]

I'm in the wrong industry! Time to apply for a job where they pay you $10 mil in bonuses on your bad years.

amen. how do i go about getting one of these jobs

[Elvis]

rabble rabble rabble!

[Septimus]

As weird as it sounds, I don't have a problem with huge bonuses. Even at Merrill. I work at Bank of America and can actually say this. I can rationalize this because I can see these players are there to plan the global strategy for the companies. Yes, the companies have lost billions of dollars. MANY companies have had issues with this current economic environment. I really believe we are nitpicking at things that are "minuscule" in the grand scheme of these companies. $10MM for salary/bonus is "immaterial" in relation to the $2 TRILLION in assets that BofA has on our books.

Over the past decade, these companies have grown many times over with these players leading the charge. Was there an issue with these salaries/bonuses when the quarterly/yearly net income was still in the billions? The general economy should not affect the salaries/bonuses of the people making the decisions that affect hundreds of thousands of employees. The general economy only magnifies what is occurring at each of these companies.

Lets focus on getting the general economy back to a healthy and growing state. We need jobs and spending to get there. When this happens, we can deal with the larger salaries/bonuses/perks that these leaders have. If this is an issue once the economy turns around and is a growth state again, I will be tremendously surprised.

Wait a second... One hundred forty nine people received $858,000,000 dollars in bonuses. Merrill Lynch lost $15,310,000,000 dollars in the last quarter, which means that 5.6% of the money that was lost in this last quarter was from their bonuses. That is great that Bank of America has $2,000,000,000,000 in assets, then why does the government have to invest $20,000,000,000 in Bank of America with an additional $188,000,000,000 in protection against further losses?

These are not great thinkers who grew the companies, they are con artists who used a shell game of bad mortgages to make fake money look like real money, and our economy is in a catastrofuck as a result. The purpose of a bonus is supposed to be to reward people for doing a good job; the packaging of toxic assets in a Ponzi scheme that brought down their own companies and possibly most of the world's financial institutions is hardly a job well done. Not to mention that the majority of Americans do not get bonuses anymore because it hurts the bottom-line of the various corporations for whom they work, yet the well-off executives seem to think that their bonuses do not affect the bottom-line of the corporations for which they work.

The point is, the whole "Let them eat cake" attitude that seems to be circulating around these days didn't work well in the past and most people would agree that they would not like a repeat performance of their outcomes.

[Aerin]

As weird as it sounds, I don't have a problem with huge bonuses. Even at Merrill. I work at Bank of America and can actually say this. I can rationalize this because I can see these players are there to plan the global strategy for the companies. Yes, the companies have lost billions of dollars. MANY companies have had issues with this current economic environment. I really believe we are nitpicking at things that are "minuscule" in the grand scheme of these companies. $10MM for salary/bonus is "immaterial" in relation to the $2 TRILLION in assets that BofA has on our books.

Over the past decade, these companies have grown many times over with these players leading the charge. Was there an issue with these salaries/bonuses when the quarterly/yearly net income was still in the billions? The general economy should not affect the salaries/bonuses of the people making the decisions that affect hundreds of thousands of employees. The general economy only magnifies what is occurring at each of these companies.

Lets focus on getting the general economy back to a healthy and growing state. We need jobs and spending to get there. When this happens, we can deal with the larger salaries/bonuses/perks that these leaders have. If this is an issue once the economy turns around and is a growth state again, I will be tremendously surprised.

$10MM is also immaterial to the people barely getting by. Seriously screw the little people, I mean honestly who needs them to spend money and... oh wait

NO NO I KNOW, banks are the ones who really need money to loan out. So see, when those banks lose a ton of money, the only thing they can really do is give out huge bonuses to those who already have money... hmm that doesn't sound right for some reason. Odd.

[MrW]

I can't wait to get another really cool business degree. I will then proceed to make my way to the top by networking. Finally, I will run companies/economies into the ground and collect my winnings. Yes, this pleases me.

This is an utter shame. Talk about getting laughed at.