Corporate Exec's still partying folks--
Op-Ed Columnist
I Ponied Up for Sheryl Crow?
By MAUREEN DOWD
LOS ANGELES
Talk about being teed off.
The economy is croaking and bankers are still partying at a golf
tournament here on our dime.
It's a good argument for nationalization, or better yet,
internationalization. Outsource the jobs of these perfidious, oblivious
bank executives to Bangalore; Bollywood bashes have to cost less than
Hollywood ones.
The entertainment Web site TMZ broke the story Tuesday that Northern
Trust of Chicago, which got $1.5 billion in bailout money and then laid
off 450 workers, flew hundreds of clients and employees to Los Angeles
last week and treated them to four days of posh hotel rooms, salmon and
filet mignon dinners, music concerts, a PGA golf tournament at the
Riviera Country Club with Mercedes shuttle rides and Tiffany swag bags.
"A rep from the PGA told us Northern Trust wrote one big, fat check in
order to sponsor the event," TMZ reported.
Northern No Trust had a lavish dinner at the Ritz Carlton on Wednesday
with a concert by Chicago (at a $100,000 fee); rented a private hangar
at the Santa Monica Airport on Thursday for another big dinner with a
gig by Earth, Wind & Fire, and closed down the House of Blues on Sunset
Strip on Saturday (at a cost of $50,000) for a dinner and serenade by
Sheryl Crow.
In the ignoble tradition of rockers who sing for huge sums to sketchy
people when we're not looking, Crow - in her stint as a federal employee
- warbled these lyrics to the oblivious revelers:
"Slow down, you're gonna crash,
Baby, you're a-screaming it's a blast, blast, blast
Look out babe, you've got your blinders on ...
But there's a new cat in town
He's got high payin' friends
Thinks he's gonna change history."
Northern Untrustworthy even offered junketeers the chance to attend a
seminar on the credit crunch where they could no doubt learn that the
U.S. government is just the latest way to finance your deals and keep
your office swathed in $87,000 area rugs.
In what is now an established idiotic ritual of rationalization, the
bank put out a letter noting that it "did not seek the government's
investment" even though it took it, and that it had raised $3 million
for the Los Angeles Junior Chamber of Commerce Charity Foundation and
other nonprofits. They riposted that they have a contract to do it every
year for five years; but this isn't every year.
The bank cloaks itself in a philanthropic glow while wasting our money,
acting like the American Cancer Society when in fact it's a cancer on
American society.
It asserted that it earned an operating net income of $641 million last
year and acted as though it did Americans a favor by taking federal
cash.
I would ask Northern No Trust: If you're totally solvent, why are you
taking my tax dollars? If you're not totally solvent, why are you giving
my tax dollars to Sheryl Crow?
Coming in a moment when skeptical and angry Americans watched A.I.G.,
Citigroup, General Motors and Chrysler - firms that had already been
given a federal steroid injection - get back in line for more billions,
the golf scandal was just one more sign that the bailed-out rich are
different from you and me: their appetites are unquenchable and their
culture is uneducable.
President Obama served them notice on Tuesday night in his Congressional
address, saying: "This time, C.E.O.'s won't be able to use
taxpayer
money to pad their paychecks or buy fancy drapes or disappear on a
private jet. Those days are over."
But will they notice?
John "Antique Commode" Thain had to be ordered by a judge to tell
Andrew
Cuomo's investigators which Merrill Lynch employees got those $3.6
billion in bonuses that Thain illicitly shoved through as his firm was
failing and being taken over by Bank of America with the help of a $45
billion bailout. Kenneth Lewis, the Bank of America C.E.O., made the
absurd assertion to Congress that his bank had "no authority" to stop
the bonuses, even though he knew about them beforehand.
"They find out they're $7 billion off on the estimate of losses for
the
fourth quarter and they never think maybe we should go back and adjust
these bonuses?" Cuomo told me, as Thain was finally responding to
investigators on Tuesday at the New York attorney general's office.
"He
refused to answer questions on the basis that 'the Bank of America
didn't want me to.' You can take the Fifth Amendment or you can answer
questions. But there's no Bank of America privilege. The Bank of America
doesn't substitute for the Constitution. And who's the Bank of America,
by the way?"
He gets incensed about how ingrained, indoctrinated and insensitive the
ex-masters of the universe are. "They think of themselves as kings and
queens," he said. And they're not ready to abdicate.
Timothy Ashby, PhD, JD, MBA
I Ponied Up for Sheryl Crow?
By MAUREEN DOWD
LOS ANGELES
Talk about being teed off.
The economy is croaking and bankers are still partying at a golf
tournament here on our dime.
It's a good argument for nationalization, or better yet,
internationalization. Outsource the jobs of these perfidious, oblivious
bank executives to Bangalore; Bollywood bashes have to cost less than
Hollywood ones.
The entertainment Web site TMZ broke the story Tuesday that Northern
Trust of Chicago, which got $1.5 billion in bailout money and then laid
off 450 workers, flew hundreds of clients and employees to Los Angeles
last week and treated them to four days of posh hotel rooms, salmon and
filet mignon dinners, music concerts, a PGA golf tournament at the
Riviera Country Club with Mercedes shuttle rides and Tiffany swag bags.
"A rep from the PGA told us Northern Trust wrote one big, fat check in
order to sponsor the event," TMZ reported.
Northern No Trust had a lavish dinner at the Ritz Carlton on Wednesday
with a concert by Chicago (at a $100,000 fee); rented a private hangar
at the Santa Monica Airport on Thursday for another big dinner with a
gig by Earth, Wind & Fire, and closed down the House of Blues on Sunset
Strip on Saturday (at a cost of $50,000) for a dinner and serenade by
Sheryl Crow.
In the ignoble tradition of rockers who sing for huge sums to sketchy
people when we're not looking, Crow - in her stint as a federal employee
- warbled these lyrics to the oblivious revelers:
"Slow down, you're gonna crash,
Baby, you're a-screaming it's a blast, blast, blast
Look out babe, you've got your blinders on ...
But there's a new cat in town
He's got high payin' friends
Thinks he's gonna change history."
Northern Untrustworthy even offered junketeers the chance to attend a
seminar on the credit crunch where they could no doubt learn that the
U.S. government is just the latest way to finance your deals and keep
your office swathed in $87,000 area rugs.
In what is now an established idiotic ritual of rationalization, the
bank put out a letter noting that it "did not seek the government's
investment" even though it took it, and that it had raised $3 million
for the Los Angeles Junior Chamber of Commerce Charity Foundation and
other nonprofits. They riposted that they have a contract to do it every
year for five years; but this isn't every year.
The bank cloaks itself in a philanthropic glow while wasting our money,
acting like the American Cancer Society when in fact it's a cancer on
American society.
It asserted that it earned an operating net income of $641 million last
year and acted as though it did Americans a favor by taking federal
cash.
I would ask Northern No Trust: If you're totally solvent, why are you
taking my tax dollars? If you're not totally solvent, why are you giving
my tax dollars to Sheryl Crow?
Coming in a moment when skeptical and angry Americans watched A.I.G.,
Citigroup, General Motors and Chrysler - firms that had already been
given a federal steroid injection - get back in line for more billions,
the golf scandal was just one more sign that the bailed-out rich are
different from you and me: their appetites are unquenchable and their
culture is uneducable.
President Obama served them notice on Tuesday night in his Congressional
address, saying: "This time, C.E.O.'s won't be able to use
taxpayer
money to pad their paychecks or buy fancy drapes or disappear on a
private jet. Those days are over."
But will they notice?
John "Antique Commode" Thain had to be ordered by a judge to tell
Andrew
Cuomo's investigators which Merrill Lynch employees got those $3.6
billion in bonuses that Thain illicitly shoved through as his firm was
failing and being taken over by Bank of America with the help of a $45
billion bailout. Kenneth Lewis, the Bank of America C.E.O., made the
absurd assertion to Congress that his bank had "no authority" to stop
the bonuses, even though he knew about them beforehand.
"They find out they're $7 billion off on the estimate of losses for
the
fourth quarter and they never think maybe we should go back and adjust
these bonuses?" Cuomo told me, as Thain was finally responding to
investigators on Tuesday at the New York attorney general's office.
"He
refused to answer questions on the basis that 'the Bank of America
didn't want me to.' You can take the Fifth Amendment or you can answer
questions. But there's no Bank of America privilege. The Bank of America
doesn't substitute for the Constitution. And who's the Bank of America,
by the way?"
He gets incensed about how ingrained, indoctrinated and insensitive the
ex-masters of the universe are. "They think of themselves as kings and
queens," he said. And they're not ready to abdicate.
Timothy Ashby, PhD, JD, MBA
Da** nobody sent me an invite--to this ridiculousness of waste and fraud!! and a mockery of what the President has set forth. It's an in your face--act of disobedience. I believe there will be a penalty.