Last Year's Big Five Wall Street Bonuses

Rick Davis, McCain's campaign manager, protected Fannie & Freddie from regulation. He was President of their advocacy group.

Davis was paid 2 million over 5 years, according to the New York Times.

Historyforgotten,

Fact.

95% of the worlds oil reserves are owned by state run entities. If private companies like Exxon only can set prices on 5% of the worlds supply, how are these "Tycoons" doing it?

Big Evil Tycoon Exxon has to pay what the market price for oil is, and right now it's very high...so oil and gas are expensive.
The main reason oil is expensive is that a billion suddenly middle class Chinese and Indian people are buying cars.

Exxon has a 7% profit margin, lower than Microsoft's...does that make is Microsoft a "Tycoon"?

Exxon makes 7 cents on a gallon of gas. How dare they!

I think if you take off your conspiracy glasses, you might learn something.

McCain has voted against government SUBSIDIZING alternative energy, preferring to let market forces come up with a solution.
How's that ethanol thing working out?
Higher food prices, food shortages, and it costs more oil to produce than it saves...all financed and subsidized by the government.
By the way, it also increased the price of fuel at the pump. But I'm sure you can pin that on your Tycoons, somehow.

Wow. I knew it was bad, but that is obscene. The executives pay themselves with money based on valuations which (they know) will eventually be shown to be hyper-inflated, leaving us with the choice to either bail them out or allow an important sector of the U.S. economy to fail. Is it possible to sue them to recover some of those assets?

McCains Oil Tycoons started a corporate Country take-over, when they hired McCain to Deregulate companies back in 1998. Follow the paper trail, and who will benifit the most, when the Oil Companies buy every bodies morgages, if McCain becomes president. His advisors, are the same tycoon lobbiest, that started it all. Background check each of them. That is why, McCain is against Greener fuels. His advisors will lose money. Check each one out. Oil, Oil, Oil-Drill, Drill, Drill, is all the Mccamp screams. Well duh. Follow the trail. They just lost 48 oil rigs from Ike, they want their money back, and they are using McCain.

The McCain camp quoted a Washington Post article on Raines, and ran an ad with it.
At the time, it wasn't challenged by Raines, to my knowledge.

If you have a beef, call the Post, but the reporter sticks to his quote.

I would hardly take a criminal like Raines at his word, who was forced to hand back MILLIONS of dollars that he received as a bonus.

drjohn,

Why not get your facts right intead of playing to the gallery.

Frank Raines is and was never an Advisor to Obama or his Campaign.

The lies from the post has been debunked by Raines himself.

You prove my point, that he's accepted more money, and then you say that he's clean in this regard?

Logic, Melissa, logic.

How else, when he takes the fake position of not taking money from lobbyists (after gorging on lobbyist money on it in his other Senate and state senate races, remember)
is he supposed to take contributions?

His OWN STAFF has said its to avoid the "appearance" that he's taking lobbyist money.

But lobbyists are free to bundle money for him!!!!!!!!!

That's why he's number one in Wall Street dollars from individual corporate contributors.

Hippie Chucker,

Obama...Per OpenSecrets.org
$126,349 $6K from pacs the others from individuals
McCain
$21,550...all PAC no individuals. So Obama raises over $440 million dollars and you think the $120K from various individuals buys influence?

Jeez! You can do better than that!

The most surprising statistic I've learned in this election is that the majority of Americans are poor or middle class.

Obama wants to give tax cuts to 95% of families, those making under $250k.

I didn't realize that only 5% of taxpayers in our country make more than $250k.

Meanwhile, McCain wants to give a 4.4% tax cut to those making over $2.8k a year, you know, the fat cats.

It's really depressing.

The bonuses are outrageous when these companies were doing to poorly. That is what deregulation and no oversight with rules was done. John McCain claiming he has always been for regulations. Forget it!! I know better and can prove it. Ask John McCain why his campaign manger Davis worked five years to avoid deregulation of Wall Street companies??? John is very heavily connected to deregulation and all this causes this stock market crisis. But then John supports everyone who is rich, not 95% of the other Americans. John has always shown support for the CEO and executive to receive bonuses, payouts that are a disgrace - even when company is not doing well!!

We do not need Republicans in any more!! Eight years and here we are!! Brink of American financial meltdown. And now he says US TAXPAYERS PAY FOR REPUBLICAN MISTAKES!! NO MORE!! I HAVE HAD ENOUGH LIES!! WORDS ARE CHEAP!! ACTIONS PRESENT/PAST SPEAK LOUD AND CLEAR.

Hippie Chucker, You just want Jim Johnson info but have nothing to say about the multitude of advisers to McCain with these ties? Ok..Jim Johnson served briefly as part of the committee to select Obama's VP. Hardly as damning as what I outlined above.

Re: donations....I am compiling that now and will get back to you after work. I still don't know what difference that makes since individuals have to disclose their employers. Is McCain in the pocket of the oil and gas industry if the employees of Exxon gave more to him? What is your point here?

These bonuses are ridiculous and some disgorging ought to be taking place soon or extinguish the companies.

The WaPo said Franklin Raines was an advisor to Obama.

Raines, Johnson, Pritzker.

Key figures in the sub-prime mess and FNMA.

All Obama supporters and workers.

Again, Melissa, I could write a lengthy post detailing all the lobbyist connections that Obama has.

That's not the point.

My point, if you got it, was to say there are plenty of operatives on both sides, who play this game. Axelrod's company is famous for "astroturfing", for example. Google that, and then come back and we'll talk about Obama's "new politics".

Melissa, from the Post

"The commercial's main charge is based on an April story in The Washington Post that said Raines has "taken calls from Barack Obama's presidential campaign seeking his advice on mortgage and housing policy matters." Reporter Anita Huslin says Raines told her that during an in-person interview...."

Like I said, we can play this game ad nauseum. Plenty of dirt on both sides.

Please, debunk Jim Johnson, if you don't believe Franklin Raines. I'll wait.

Please, provide a side by side comparison of who took money from Fannie and Freddie's lobbyists. I'll wait.

Obama is second only to Chris Dodd, the CHAIRMAN of the board that "oversees" them.

Is anybody talking about investigating these Companies? A Company doesn't just declare bankruptcy from the blues.

Is anybody asking questions about these Companies Financial Statements especially the five years financial summaries of the Companies?

Is anybody asking questions about the Auditors' Reports for the past five years?

Have they been window-dressing their Financial Statements in the last five years?

Is there collusion between the Boards of Directors and the Auditors?

Bankruptcy is a process and like all terminal diseases, it gives Symptoms, it manifests, it relapses, it degenerates before it gets the final blow.

This Process could take three years before a Company finally succumbs to insolvency or bankruptcy.

If these Companies paid bonuses as late as 2007, it means that the Company made good Profits that after Tax and all other Appropriation Items have been taken care of, they still had enough for bonuses - Except the Bonuses are charged to the Profit and Loss Account before the determination of Profit before Tax (PBT) (Which is illegal).

While the Government is talking of Bailout, which I see as a reward to the Directors of the Companies, those same People that greedily ran the Companies aground, Prosecutors and Forensic Accountants should be called in to dig out the dirts that have long gone unnoticed to the Investors of these Companies, which has now culminated into bankruptcy, Buy-outs and Bail-outs.

Hippie Chucker, Here you go! Some facts for you to wrap your hands around. Just doing my duty to informed the low information voter!

But McCain's own campaign staffers are those special interests, a fact that casts doubt on both McCain's hiring judgment and his ability to pursue tough reforms of Fannie and Freddie.

Aquiles Suarez, listed as an economic adviser to the McCain campaign in a July 2007 McCain press release, was formerly the director of government and industry relations for Fannie Mae. The Senate Lobbying Database says Suarez oversaw the lending giant's $47,510,000 lobbying campaign from 2003 to 2006.

And other current McCain campaign staffers were the lobbyists receiving shares of that money. According to the Senate Lobbying Database, the lobbying firm of Charlie Black, one of McCain's top aides, made at least $820,000 working for Freddie Mac from 1999 to 2004. The McCain campaign's vice-chair Wayne Berman and its congressional liaison John Green made $1.14 million working on behalf of Fannie Mae for lobbying firm Ogilvy Government Relations. Green made an additional $180,000 from Freddie Mac. Arther B. Culvahouse Jr., the VP vetter who helped John McCain select Sarah Palin, earned $80,000 from Fannie Mae in 2003 and 2004, while working for lobbying and law firm O'Melveny & Myers LLP. In addition, Politico reports that at least 20 McCain fundraisers have lobbied for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, pocketing at least $12.3 million over the last nine years.

For years McCain campaign manager Rick Davis was head of the Homeownership Alliance, a lobbying association that included Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, real estate agents, homebuilders, and non-profits. According to Politico, the organization opposed congressional attempts at regulation of Fannie and Freddie, along the lines of what John McCain is currently proposing. In his capacity of president of the group, Davis went on record in 2003 and insisted that no further reform of the lenders was necessary, in contradiction to his current boss's sentiments. "[Fannie and Freddie] are subject to an innovative and stringent risk-based capital stress test," Davis wrote. "The toughest in the financial services industry."

Hippie Chucker,

When you donate as an individual you have to disclose your employer. This argument is ridiculous (plus you have your numbers wrong for McCain anyway...)

Franklin Raines was never an adviser to Obama. Why can't you make your argument honestly! Oh..I see...you operate just like McCain's campaign!

Melissa...get YOUR facts straight. McCain has taken less than 15k from them over his ENTIRE senate career. Your Candidate, in his short senate career, has taken
$164,000.

Playing the "but so and so works for a candidate" is just as damning for Obama...ever hear of Jim Johnson or Franklin Raines?