Americans vent their fury toward bankers, bonuses and bailouts

Posted Dec 11th 2009 12:40PM by Connie Madon
Filed under: Industry, Consumer Experience, Politics, Financial Crisis

A Bloomberg National Poll's findings showed anger and rage on the part of Americans toward bankers, bonuses and bailouts.

Something went terribly wrong last year. A handful of bankers leveraged their banks to the brink of collapse. They used complex derivatives that created investments, which were then sold to investors. Many of the bets that traders placed were based on a false knowledge of the housing market. When the housing bubble burst, Wall Street was caught with its pants down. The fancy derivatives collapsed, bringing the banks to their knees. They cried to the government to help them. The government gave them billions to get them back on their feet.

Things got better. The banks made huge profits. Now the big banks are giving out a record $26.8 billion in bonuses. Meanwhile the greed and excess speculation spawned by the bankers during the collapse, caused 17 million Americans to lose their jobs. Now Americans are angry, and rightly so.

The respondents to the Bloomberg poll expressed anger and rage toward Wall Street bankers. Here are the findings.

Two-thirds of Americans have an unfavorable view of bank executives.
One-half said that the government should not have bailed out the bankers.
Three-quarters said that bankers whose banks received government aid should not be paid bonuses.
Nearly two-thirds said bailing out the banks was a bad idea.

This week, France and the UK both slapped a tax up to 50% on their banks that pay out bonuses.

What should Congress do to help the 17 million unemployed who suffered as a result to the bankers' folly?

Tags: bank bailouts, bank bonuses, financial crisis, inthenews

Print this

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

12-13-2009 @ 10:48AM

mgregg55 said...

My solution? Arrest of the top 5 layers of management in the companies responsible. Denial of all public and private services immediately to them, their parents and their children. 1000% tax on any bonus paid for the past 5 years. Seizure of all assets, removal of American citizenship for them and their families and immediate deportation to Mexico.

Yes, I know. I'm being entirely too kind. Drunken chimpanzees could have provided the same oversight that these business geniuses did.