Obama and Banks

Obama has proposed a tax on the richest banks--and why not.

Let's start by looking at the compensation of one of the bailed-out banks--Citicorp:

Citigroup Inc filed the compensation data below on 3/13/2008:

Sir Winfried Bischoff Chairman--373,734--base salary, 1,950,000--bonus salary, 6,130,390--total compensation

Vikram Pandit CEO 250,000--base salary, 573,813--total compensation

Gary Crittenden
Chief Financial Officer--403,410 base salary, 14,030,000 bonus salary, 19,369,506--total compensation

Sallie Krawcheck Chair and CEO—GWM--500,000 base salary, 5,820,000 bonus salary, 9,918,267 total compensation

Lewis Kaden Vice Chairman--500,000 base salary, 4,000,000 bonus salary, 6,771,307 total compensation

Michael Klein CEO—Global Banking--212,500 base salary, 5,500,000 bonus salary, 7,861,438 total compensation

*The above executive compensation data is an excerpt from the proxy statement filed for
Citigroup Inc on 3/13/2008

I can go on and on. One of the CEO's from Citicorp made 13,000,000 dollars. See the complete chart here.

So why should we not make the banks the Republicans bailed out with the TARP funds--including Citi Bank above--pay for the havoc they put America in. Their greed and their continued greed does not have our best interests in mind at all. Maybe now they will realize it's not always only about profit, but about doing the right thing.

Under the Republicans they used the money for large bonuses--not for lending money out to help businesses prosper during hard times.

If we stole even a thousand dollars from the federal government, we would be in jail. I feel the bonuses they gave themselves are the same as stealing--and yes, they continue to steal by granting themselves even bigger bonuses.