Re: Had enough yet?

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Shannon McElyea <shannonm () gmail com>
Date: April 3, 2009 11:55:43 AM EDT
To: David Farber <dave () farber net>, Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com 
>
Subject: Re: [IP] Re:   Had enough yet?

re: " I am astonished to see a little coverage is  of this in the  
mainstream newspapers."  me too.

Maybe AIG playup was a distraction - extra noise at the time when VP  
Cheney was in the news for being discovered by Seymour Hersh of   
running an assassination ring, and Kucinich was calling for an  
investigation. although people do care more about their tax dollars  
going to unwarranted bonuses than going to assassination rings:

http://kucinich.house.gov/NEWS/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=114621

Kucinich Requests Investigation into “Executive Assassination Ring”

Washington, Mar 16 -

Washington D.C. (March 16, 2009) – Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH)  
Friday sent a letter to Chairman Edolphus Towns of the House Oversight  
and Government Reform Committee requesting an immediate investigation  
into allegations made by the investigative reporter Seymour Hersh that  
the White House operated an ‘executive assassination ring’ that  
circumvented Congressional oversight.

Kucinich explains in the letter that, “Mr. Hersh made the allegation  
before an audience at the University of Minnesota on Tuesday, March  
10, 2009.  He stated, ‘Under President Bush’s authority, they’ve been  
going into countries, not talking to the ambassador or the CIA station  
chief, and finding people on a list and executing them and leaving… It  
is a special wing of our special operations community that is set up  
independently. They do not report to anybody, except in the Bush- 
Cheney days, they reported directly to the Cheney office. . .Congress  
has no oversight of it.’”

Kucinich adds, “If true, these operations violate longstanding U.S.  
policy regarding covert actions and illegally bypass Congressional  
oversight… Hersh is within a year or more of releasing a book that is  
said to include evidence of this allegation.  However, we cannot wait  
a year or more to establish the truth.”

The full text of the letter follows:

<snip>


http://www.nowpublic.com/world/dick-cheney-accused-running-assassination-ring
On Apr 3, 2009, at 7:07 AM, David Farber wrote:


I am astonished to see a little coverage is  of this in the mainstream  
newspapers.


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Begin forwarded message:
From: Randall Webmail <rvh40 () insightbb com>
Date: April 2, 2009 7:41:14 PM EDT
To: johnmacsgroup () yahoogroups com, dewayne () warpspeed com
Cc: dave () farber net
Subject: Had enough yet?

Merrill Lynch Bonuses Were 22 Times the Size Of AIG's
By Megan Slack, Huffington Post
Posted on March 31, 2009, Printed on April 2, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/story/134235/

Dennis Kucinich sent out a round of letters to top Treasury officials  
Monday morning, questioning how much they knew about bonuses paid to  
Merrill Lynch executives that totaled $3.62 billion, nearly 22 times  
the total bonuses paid to AIG executives. The payouts made up more  
that 36 percent of the TARP funds the financial institution received  
from the Federal government.

Kucinich points out that unlike AIG, the bonuses were not locked in by  
preexisting contracts and were performance bonuses, as opposed to  
retention bonuses.

    The Merrill bonuses were 22 times larger than those paid by AIG  
($3,620 million versus $165 million). They were also very large  
relative to the TARP monies allocated to Merrill. The Merrill bonuses  
were the equivalent of 36.2% of TARP monies Treasury allocated to  
Merrill and awarded to BOA after their merger. The bonuses, awarded  
mostly as cash, were made only to top management at Merrill. To be  
eligible for the bonuses, Merrill employees had to have a salary of at  
least $300,000 and attained the title of Vice President or higher.

    The Merrill bonuses were determined by Merrill's Compensation  
Committee at its meeting of December 8, 2008, shortly after BOA  
shareholders approved the merger but before financial results for the  
Fourth Quarter had been determined. This appears to be a departure  
from normal company practice, since the type of bonus Merrill awarded  
was a performance bonus that, according to company policy, was  
supposed to reflect all four quarters of performance and was paid in  
January or later. In this case, however, the bonuses were awarded in  
December before Fourth Quarter performance had been determined.

In his letter, Kucinich questions how much information about these  
bonuses was made available to shareholders, as well as the government.

    BOA had knowledge of and influence over Merrill's intent to pay  
out bonuses even before BOA took control of Merrill. According to the  
merger agreement of September 15, 2008, Merrill's bonus awards were to  
be made "in consultation with [Bank of America]." In an undisclosed  
attachment to the merger agreement, made public only recently by the  
Attorney General of New York State, Bank of America permitted Merrill  
the right to award up to $5.8 billion for calendar year 2008  
performance.

    While prior to the merger BOA knew of Merrill's intent to award  
billions of dollars in performance bonuses before the Fourth Quarter  
earnings were calculated, BOA did not disclose the details it  
possessed about the Merrill bonuses and the unusualness of the timing  
of those bonuses to its shareholders prior to their vote on the merger.

    This raises important questions about what you knew about the  
Merrill bonuses, and what you did with your knowledge. If ordinary BOA  
shareholders were ignorant of the details of the Merrill bonus  
arrangement, was the U.S. government as well.

© 2009 Huffington Post All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/134235/





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