I've been out of the real world for the past week and a half attending bluesfest. I was alerted to this report by my friend Siobhan. Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase reported huge profits for the past quarter, less than a year after taking US taxpayer dollars to ensure their viability. The bailout numbers are staggering and are even hard to comprehend to someone who deals in 7 to 9 figures every day (not my own):
- Goldman Sachs received $13,000,000,000; and
- JP Morgan Chase received $25,000,000,000.
Not only did the US government provide the above aid to the financial institutions, they guaranteed the "toxic assets" held by the institutions. The toxic assets are essentially the loans that they, or other banks, made to people who couldn't afford to pay them back for overvalued homes.
Now, just a few short months later, each of the above banks is showing a profit for the last two quarters, as follows;
- Goldman Sachs - $1,800,000,000 and $3,440,000,000 for a total of $5,240,000,000; and
- JP Morgan Chase - $2,000,000,000 and $2,720,000,000 for a total of $4,720,000,000.
The banks that needed the bailout money so badly to ensure their viability turned a profit in just 8 months, which begs the question "did they really need the money?" Probably not, but the question that is baffling me right now is "where's the outrage?" Aside from some jokes from Letterman, Stewart and the rest of the late night gang, there's little to no reaction from the American public. What gives Yankees? Don't you care about how your government spends your money? Do you even know what's going on or are you too busy watching Lance Armstrong in a race you only care about because Lance Armstrong is in it?
I started this column wanting to complain about the banks in the US for pulling the wool over the eyes of the public and just being the dirty, rotten, filthy, stinking rich pigs they have always been. But now I think the public is dirty, rotten, filthy, stinkingly apathetic and if you keep letting them get away with it then you deserve it.
1 comment:
The other interesting stat I saw, which I wish I had on me right now, was that the average compensation and Sachs has gone UP since the bailout. This means that probably a lot of the LOWER salaries were jettisoned but the larger ones i.e. the "ad wizards who came up with one" - they are still there.
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