Despite bad decisions, bank execs keep jobs
Have you ever heard the saying “the fox is guarding the hen house”? That’s how I felt when I was browsing the news page this morning and came across an article from The Associated Press, explaining how almost 90% of bank executives still have their jobs, even though some of them are part of the root cause of our economic meltdown. The people who work for them however, are not so lucky. I really need this one explained to me.
They’ve been bailed out, but not kicked out.
At banks that are receiving federal bailout money nearly nine out of every 10 of the most senior executives from 2006 are still on the job, according to an Associated Press analysis of regulatory and company documents.
The AP’s review reveals one of the ironies of the bank bailout: The same executives who were at the controls as the banking system nearly collapsed are the ones the government is counting on to help save it.
Even top executives whose banks made such risky loans they imperiled the economy have been largely spared any threat to their jobs, as Washington pumped billions in taxpayer money into the companies. Less fortunate are more than 100,000 bank employees laid off during a two-year stretch when industry unemployment nearly tripled, bank stocks plummeted and credit dried up.”The same people at the top are still there, the same people who made the decisions causing a lot of our financial crisis,” said Rebecca Trevino of Louisville, Ky., a mother of three who was laid off from her job as a Bank of America training coordinator in October. “But that’s what tends to happen in leadership. The people at the top, there’s always some other place to lay blame.”
It defies any normal reasoning to conclude that these people should keep their jobs. JPMorgan Chase, KeyCorp, Capital One, the list goes on and on with executives who made multiple bad decisions and did quite well for themselves. As I mentioned in a previous article, these banks have received billions of dollars and no fundamental changes have been made in the direction they are taking their companies.
What is even more troubling is the cavalier attitude some of these companies are taking toward the American taxpayers, who are now the majority shareholders, thanks to the $700 billion bailout plan. A spokesman for KeyCorp said they were too busy preparing their annual earnings report to answer the questions of taxpayers.
“The on-the-record comment I would make is that we declined to comment even though we’d like to, because we don’t have time,” spokesman Bill Murschel said.
I honestly can not believe they would have the audacity to say something like that. Do they really think we are that naive? More and more, I question the validity of the original bailout plan and by proxy, the economic stimulus package being strong armed through Congress. More money down a rat hole comes to mind.
