CHESSNOID

The last bailout where we gave some taxpayer money to Bank of America and Merrill Lynch to help them. Remember Bush, Bernanke and Paulson said without this money a financial apocalypse would happen.  Well, that happened anyways, but if you want to know where some of that money went and how it has helped the economy, you will not be pleased.  Yahoo:

In mid-December, at the same time Bank of America’s Ken Lewis was begging Washington DC for what became $20 billion more in bailout money, Thain secretly approved an accelerated bonus pool of $4 billion for top Merrill employees. Oh the irony: the $15 billion paid to Merrill executives in fiscal 2008 essentially matched Merrill’s fourth-quarter loss, which is what sent Lewis into a panic in the first place. (Correction: Earlier I reported the “secret” Q4 bonus pool was $15 billion – it was “only” $4 billion.)

All other of Thain’s sins pale in comparison to this dastardly act, which New York State AG Andrew Cuomo is investigating, but let’s list them anyway:

• Grossly understating the extent of Merrill’s potential losses from Bank of America – assuming the latter firm’s stance is to be believed: “The facts are that [Merrill's] fourth quarter was way beyond anything they said would happen,” BofA spokesman Robert Stickler told The WSJ.
• Neglecting to personally tell Ken Lewis about Merrill’s $15.3 billion loss, and going ahead with a pre-planned ski trip when the losses came to light.
• Stumping for his own bonus late last year before backing down in the face of public outrage.
• Spending $1.2 million of Merrill shareholder’s money to redecorate his office in early 2008, including $87,000 for an area rug, $28,000 on curtains (shades of Kozlowski), 15,000 for a sofa, and $35,000 for a “commode on legs,” etc.

In regards to the bonuses paid out, they did indeed use taxpayer money even though the company lost money. Yahoo:

The news that Merrill Lynch paid out $15 billion in bonuses is sure to ignite new questions about the wisdom of bailing out Wall Street. Merrill Lynch took $10 billion from the TARP, allegedly to fill holes in its balance sheet. But instead of using that to repair its financial health, it simply put the money into the pockets of its employees. There is no way to defend this disgusting payout.

These bailouts were approved last year by senators Obama and Biden (now President Obama and VP Biden) who are just equally responsible for the oversight of that money as much as Bush, Bernanke, and Paulson were.  They promise this bailout will be different, but if you look at Congress’ record of the wasted money spent (trillions of taxpayer dollars) on all the previous bailouts to supposedly help the economy, they can’t be believed.