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Author: Goofyhoofy
Number: of 610483
Subject: Astonishing. Two Stories!
Date: 10/6/2008 6:07 PM
No. of Recommendations: 106
Lehman's Fuld: Where Was Our Bailout?
Richard Fuld, the disgraced head of Lehman Brothers <LEHMQ.PK>, said he would wonder "until they put me in the ground" why the U.S. government did not rescue the 158-year-old Wall Street firm and claimed regulators knew the full scale of its condition far before its collapse.
"Until the day they put me in the ground I will wonder," Fuld said in his first public comments since Lehman filed for bankruptcy protection. "I do not know why we were the only one" that was not rescued.
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/business/business-us-financia...
Lehman Managers Portrayed as Irresponsible
Even as the investment bank Lehman Brothers pleaded for a federal bailout to save it from bankruptcy protection, it approved millions of dollars in bonuses for departing executives, a Congressional committee was told Monday.
One Lehman document among thousands reviewed by the House committee showed that four days before the bank filed for bankruptcy protection, Lehman's compensation committee was asked to grant $20 million in "special payments" for three executives who were leaving, Mr. Waxman said. An e-mail exchange recommending a delay in bonus payments was apparently brushed aside.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/07/business/economy/07lehman....
Lehman spent $5 billion in executive bonuses, $4 billion in stock buybacks, and another $750 million in dividend payments in the last year, even as the company was being warned by its own internal auditors that it was facing a liquidity problem.
Author: akm3
Number: 258088 of 610483
Subject: Re: Astonishing. Two Stories!
I don't know, maybe because our legislature wouldn't have approved $700,000,000,000 of bailout money until they saw it was for real...because institutions were failing?
And, schmuck, it is YOUR fault you failed not the governments for not rescuing you. You took on insane risk that anyone with any sense would have known better then to gamble on.
And I'm sure you got a parachute, so shut the hell up.
Author: Jeanwa
I listened to the hearings. A few times they mentioned Alliance Financial and that it was a Financial Sweat Shop. (I don't remember where the congressman got that term.) Where employees were basicly forced into giving loans they knew were bad.
I didn't see it mentioned in either article. I did a search and couldn't find it mentioned.
I, also, thought it was interesting that Fuld said that he felt that Merrill Lynch and Lehman were in the same spot, but that Merrill got a deal. He didn't know why his company didn't get a deal.
Author: omadhaun
Didn't he participate in a Sept conference call where he said everything was beautiful?
Author: DiSab
Why is this guy not in jail?
Author: qazulight
Until the day they put me in the ground I will wonder,"
We can't keep him from wondering, but we could help him keep it short.
Qazulight
Author: Pituophis
Richard Fuld, the disgraced head of Lehman Brothers <LEHMQ.PK>, said he would wonder "until they put me in the ground"...
I think if it was up to Lehman's shareholders that would be today....
Author: kentm401
and the employees
and maybe a bunch of the "rentier holders"
KBM (not one)
Author: maracle
Lehman failing didn't affect the economy the way some of the others would have. That was their problem, they were expendable. Some of these other companies simply could not go down. The consequences of AIG failing are mind boggling, it makes you wonder if any one company should be that integral to the world's economic system.
Author: markr33
Date: 10/7/2008 10:09 AM
Lesson learned - make sure you are big enough to be included in the "too big to fail" category. Hey, maybe that's one reason all the big banks are consolidating? :-)
Author: Michaelpfool
the bankruptcy judge should go after the bonuses. I would imagine the stock buy back was insider and this should also be chased.
whould they even be in bankruptcy if they had retained that 10 billion in capital?
Author: MATZOID
Not astonishing at all. Its the Free Market, Most Merciful, praise be to Him, at work.
I would guess yes, $10B doesn't go very far these days...
Yes, they undoubtedly would. But that $10 billion would rightfully be in the pockets of creditors, lenders, and possibly shareholders, rather than in the bank accounts of a handful of managers who were so obviously incompetent.
One other possibility is that the $10 billion would have given them more "survival time", perhaps long enough to see the "Bailout Bill" passed and an entirely different outcome. At least they might have been gobbled up or changed their business, as Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, and Morgan Stanley have.
I know they have other expenses, but that $10 billion divided by 26,000 employees is $385,615 in salary each. Surely those poor dears could make that last a month or two.
Author: zy1118
Its too bad they weren't borrowing from The Mob. Some of those guys could use a good kneecapping...
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