John Thain: Another Wall Street Scumbag

I want to be a CEO. It seems like the biggest scam going. You can do a horrific job, and then demand the most outrageous salary and bonus package.

The latest Wall Street scumbag to surface is John Thain, the CEO of Merrill Lynch. He worked there about a year or so. During that time he decided to redecorate his office, at a cost of $1.22 million. Ridiculous purchases included:

• A rug: $87,784
• A light fixture: $19,751
• A pair of chairs: $28,091
• An antique commode on legs: $35,000
• Four pairs of curtains: $28,000
• Another rug: $44,000
• A small table: $25,000
• A mirror: $5,000
• A coffee table: $16,000
• A trash can: $1,400
  

But I guess you can't be too mad about a successful CEO surrounding himself with luxury right? After all they work hard and steer the ship. Unfortunately, in this case Merrill Lynch was hemorrhaging money so fast it is hard to imagine that they were not literally throwing $100 bills out of their windows as fast as they could.

In the last three months of 2008, the company lost a staggering $15,310,000,000!

So given the horrific nature of their financial situation, it seems pretty surprising that John Thain decided to push up the bonus dates for his executives, demanding that his people get nice fat bonus checks before they disclosed publicly just what a shit job they had all been doing.

In fact the weird bonus move, which included a $10,000,000 bonus for John Thain himself, is now being investigated by New York Attorney General, who called the allegations 'troubling.'

It is little wonder we are in financial meltdown in this country when such fuckers are in charge of our financial institutions with no regard for anyone but themselves and their rich buddies.

This is why regulations need to be in place to ensure that things like this don't happen. Now I know some people will call me a socialist, but seriously, this current system of doing things is not working.

Jon Stewart on the Daily Show recently mentioned a rather good idea on his show. Instead of this trickle down bullshit where the government gives our tax dollars to corporations who spend the money on themselves and don't lend it, how about giving it to the average Americans? Let them spend the money, put the money in banks, use the money to stimulate the economy.

We've tried it the Republican way, and all it produces are rich douchebags spending $1,400 on a fucking trash can for their $1.2m offices.

I'm not against people being rich or successful. But when you are in charge of a company that is pissing away money at a rate of $125,000,000 a day, you should not be getting a bonus at all. And neither should the executives who helped create this shit storm.

$1.2m for an office redecoration may be a drop in the bucket considering the company losses, but no one NEEDS an office like that, especially when their company is falling apart.

Out of interest John Thain signed on at Merrill Lynch with a financial package that was reported to be worth around $83.8m a year. An astonishing income considering what a piss poor job he did. He recently turned in his resignation.

I will right now formally offer my services to any corporation. I'll do a job that is at least as shit as the one John Thain did, and I will settle for a compensation package of just half what Merrill Lynch paid him. Bargain. Email me today!