Word: bonus
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...Investment banks have been paying out bonuses for decades and in many years those sums were astronomical. Certainly Mr. Paulson, who ran Goldman Sachs before going into public service, knew about it as did everyone in the New York Federal Reserve. Paulson had, after all, had his years of big bonus payments. (Read TIME's story on whether Paulson can save the economy...
...almost impossible to believe that there was any malfeasance in the decision that left the bonus management of the highest performing employees at these companies to the boards and senior managers. But, the government elected to avoid getting into a series of disputes over how thousands of people should be paid. Federal regulators chose to hope that the banks would use discretion when they made compensation decisions during this unprecedented credit crisis...
...Paulson stayed away from the bonus issue for two reasons. The first is that fighting with the banks over which investment banker should be paid what amount would have taken too long. The second was that he did not want to appear to be the de facto CEO of all the companies which got TARP money. He decided that in this crisis the banking executives would have to use their own discretion in the use of the money. He chose to leave this decision to their boards and not the Treasury. And as it became clear that the government would...
...Cuomo, Congress, and the public are angry that these bonuses were paid. It made no sense that the most highly paid people on Wall Street continued to make extraordinary amounts of money with the bonus payments, when their companies had to bailed out by taxpayers. In an ideal world, they would not have been given those bonuses. But, Paulson was not willing to push that point. He did not have the time to make the effort...
...Obviously [there should be] no bonus in a year in which the endowment decreased in value,” Kaiser said, adding that in a time when “everything else is being cut,” it makes no sense to be awarding bonuses...