The Bonus Mafia of Wall Street

A bonus for just sitting in a chair? Then a pooch also can be seated there as well before those computers.

That is what these humans achieved by just sitting on their chairs. At least the pooch won't for ask for millions after messing up like those humans. It wants only dog food.
May be, that is exactly these executives needs to be fed - dog food!
Some so-called experts warned us that if no bonuses are given, GOOD TALENT won't be available.

But who said manufacturing toxic waste papers to add 000,000,000,000 to losses is GOOD TALENT? That is all what they have to show in their balance sheets after attracting GOOD TALENT. Then shamelessly asked the taxpayers "please, help".

By the way, is it what their Ivy League education taught them? How to increase 0 loss to 000,000,000 losses? And then steal outright from an already undercapitalized employer impoverished by their tricks?

OK. We are partly to blame. In our effort to show that we are far better than Communists, we put our trust on some educational institutions to bring out the best talent.

Unfortunately, our lack of expertise meant we had to believe whatever lies these mavens, mentors and their wards peddled around as principles of management.

Formulas and theories were churned out in confusing regularity while all the time not telling that company analysis is still being done using ages-old ratios. The truth was almost all of them were postgraduate theses done to get a masters degree.

In short, whatever these higher seats of learning churned out was "pure gas", not even worth the paper their "holy words" were printed out by printers not only here in USA but through out the world.

As these yuppies in coats and suits filed past us with their leather attaches in hand and their ivy-league pumped gas inside their skulls through downtown Manhattan, we foolishly thought they were INDISPENSABLE angels who will lead us in the way to the free enterprise heaven.

And as economy boomed, we too thought it was their honest efforts that caused it. But as the economy nose-dived now they stand with their pants down. The stark truth stares at us that whatever wealth we enjoyed so far was just because of the savings our pioneering forefathers built up and not by these Ivy Leaguers.

That they had the temerity to steal even when their nation and their employers were suffering prove that that is all what those gas-heads was doing all these years.

Now, let us come to the basics. WHAT IS A BONUS?

Yes, it is an incentive. But incentive is paid when I improve the company's performance this year compared to last year. If my performance is not maintained, I don't get any bonus.

In some foreign companies, they consider team work leads to performance though it may have been conceptualized by one manager. Bonus is paid to all employees, including the door attendant, PROPORTIONATE TO SALARY.

Unfortunately, here in USA, when you read a job ad which says" you should be a team-player" that has come to mean, you should be a naive person who should be willing to do somebody else's job too as the latter whiles away the time on the internet, chitchats on his messenger, makes calls on the cell phone or plays video game. Managers who are afraid of being shot by fired lazy bums burden the naive hard worker further with no additional pay. The manager still gets bonus by slave-driving such employees.

Anyway, in our heydays, we forgot to watch closely Wall Street's sleight of the hand, by which performance bonus was conveniently transformed to retention bonus. Anybody who had the guts to question that was blackmailed as friend of Communists, a word they knew we all will recoil from.

The stealth continued until war ravaged not only Iraq but our economy too.

So, now the "indispensable" Gods of Wall Street, who demand the last drop of blood from a moribund economy stand exposed. They are not indispensable Gods. They are dispensable demons whose departure won't affect our nation. USA existed before these Ivy-Leaguers and will exist after them.

Experts, don't intimidate the nation by raising the "sanctity of contract" hoopla. Even if it is not in the statutes, any contract that allows tax payer money to be bilked, has no sanctity at all. In fact it is malafide. Sanctity of contracts argument stands only when it is done without adversely affecting the majority constituents of a democratic nation. Under no circumstances, sanctity of contracts can be used as an excuse to steal money.

If this nation will sink without the bonus-eaters, let it be.