• Disrespecting Taxpayers & Shareholders

As CEOs beg for Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) handouts, the new corporate mantra is, “maintain shareholder trust,” … sorry, make that the new corporate mantra is not, but should be, …”maintain shareholder trust.”

All Congress and White House promises of oversight on the bailouts don’t seem to apply to financial institutions. Bank of America received $45 billion from trusting taxpayers, and after its sloppily structured acquisitions of Merrill Lynch and Countrywide Financial, taxpayers watched helplessly as hundreds of millions were paid out in bonuses to the failed company executives. $2 billion went to the senior talent at Merrill for delivering $15 billion in losses for the last quarter. The excuse from B. of A., the 100 year old largest financial services company in the world, was that it couldn’t legally challenge the previously made promises for absurd payouts and bonuses to people who destroyed the companies they managed. Truth likely resides closer to lack of due diligence prior to the acquisition, and forgetting to impose much needed conditions upon closing.

How do The White House, Congress and B. of A. CEO Ken Lewis forget to make the cancellation of these extraordinary payouts part of the negotiation when the acquisitions of Merrill and Countrywide were being so brilliantly conceived? Now the Bank is looking for more bailout money from taxpayers. That’s after destroying one quarter of a trillion dollars in shareholder value. Why are taxpayers continuing to be so generous? Why are Obama and Congress not refusing to provide more money? Why are they not demanding removal of B. of A.’s Board of Directors and CEO? What has been perpetrated on taxpayers and shareholders is well beyond the bounds of abusive, and certainly not within the definition of “trust.”

Leaks of Merrill CEO John Thain spending over a million dollars to renovate his office pales compared to the $83 million he paid himself, before his company imploded, receiving $10 billion from taxpayers last October. Is anyone really paying attention? Handing out bailout money appears to be very easily done. Could it be dished out a little less sloppily perhaps?

The Citigroup version of abuse after receiving its $45 billion bailout from taxpayers includes a very visible $50 million executive jet. No flying coach for these managerial failures. Is there someone coaching these folks on effective PR? Now that the public distaste has become an impossible pill to swallow, Citigroup announces a decision not to take delivery of the plane. And this incompetence requires that it be paid millions in compensation so that it does not leave the fold for greener pastures? Who would hire these decision makers? Another bank adept at taxpayer and shareholder abuse?

Are Obama and Congress making good on their promises? It appears that such lack of interest is as extreme in disrespect of taxpayers and shareholders, as the extent of transparency, control and disclosure is lacking. Their response to the public outrage is disheartening and rather pathetic. What category of oversight does, “… (Citigroup) should not be spending its precious greenbacks on frivolous luxuries,” represent? Getting a Treasury Department official to ask Citigroup to rescind the decision after the furor became deafening was proof of incompetence in the execution of the duties to represent taxpayer interests. Should parameters for use of funds not have been decided on and agreed to before the cash bags were delivered?

Where in the rainbow of possibilities contained in the term, “accountability,” does the taxpayer-funded influence peddling of politicians by these companies, get such interpretation? Should taxpayers be grateful that B. of A. has decided to curtail its visible lobbying for bailout money? It will do so more privately from now on, and the rest of its lobbying activities will advance unabated. Politicians will continue to be influenced with taxpayer bailout money, but the manner of this manipulation will be much less embarrassing to taxpayers. Whatever partial non-lobbying the bank is not participating in, seems to be working. It’s expected to receive another traunch of TARP funds as its own exotic and toxic securities ferment into further billion dollar losses.

All of this has nothing to do with tightening regulations on the banking industry, though some is required. This is about setting in place firm agreements and conditions under which the hundreds of billions are to be accepted and spent on behalf of the taxpayers who will be on the hook for the money. This is about establishing a government agency that would, on behalf of taxpayers, become the guiding body watching over the complex intricacies of the whole financial system and its ability to create derivatives no one understands or analyses. This is also about showing respect for sweat that America’s broad middle class will endure to pay back all of this bailout money.