24/7 Wall St. – Citigroup has gone to the Treasury to beg for bonuses for some of its most important traders, people who make the banks extraordinary amounts of money. The Treasury’s reaction will probably be that it wants to stay out of a fight with Congress and avoid negative public opinion and will turn the request down.

That would be a mistake.

Wall St.’s primary argument for keeping a high level of compensation for its best investment bankers and traders is that, if they leave, overall losses at banks could get worse.  People can be profit centers. The most successful ones help offset the red ink created by the series of poor decisions that big financial firms made about mortgage-backed paper and commercial credit loans. It is easy to assess the value of the best traders by looking at a bank’s books.

Read Complete Article

Tags: banks, citigroup, congress, credit loans, financial firms, investment bankers, losses, mistake, money, poor decisions, public-opinion, red ink, s-books, treasury

The Consumerist – Humor – If you need a scapegoat for your financial ponzi scheme, there’s a guy on Craigslist who’s looking for a job:

Is your hedge fund in dire financial straits? Are you totally screwed and now realizing that someone has to take the fall? Has your ponzi scheme enveloped numerous celebrity-endorsed charities benefiting Laotian children with AIDS and been discovered by the SEC?

 

I’m your man…

I will take the reins of your hedge fund for as long as necessary to establish credibility, then present a dramatic "mea culpa" to the press declaring that my poor decisions have saddled your company with mounds and mounds of "toxic assets" and "ponzi schemery."

Read Complete Article

Tags: aids, assets, celebrity, charities, children with aids, craigslist, credibility, humor, looking for a job, mea culpa, mounds, ponzi scheme, poor decisions, reins, scapegoat