The Millioniare's Club

This figure is from a Wall Street Journal article about the bonuses that the 9 banks that received TARP funds gave out in 2008.


It shows the number of people at each bank who received bonuses of 1 to 2, 2 to 3, and 3+ million dollars in 2008. Remember, this is the year (under Bush) when everything went to hell. Yet, the banks that needed to be bailed out still found it within their hearts to reward nearly 5,000 people with bonuses of more than ONE MILLION dollars each.

The total money given out in bonuses for these 9 banks in 2008 was almost 33 BILLION dollars. That's a lot of money. How much? Well, a billion is 1,000 MILLION. So, 33 of them is 33 THOUSAND MILLION DOLLARS. If each person got 1,000,000 dollars, then 33,000 people would have received 1 million dollars each. What could you do with 1 million dollars?

Here are some more interesting statistics from the article.

• Six of the nine banks paid out more in bonuses than they received in profit.
  
• One in every 270 employees at the banks received more than $1 million.
• The nine firms in the report had combined 2008 losses of nearly $100 billion.
• The government injected $175 billion into the firms through its Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP)

OK, let's see now. The banks lost $100 billion. (About the 1 year of healthcare reform.) WE (us taxpayers!) gave the banks $175 billion. (Roughly 2 years of healthcare reform.) That's $75 billion more than they lost. Then, they turned around and gave $33 billion in bonuses.

It look to me like WE (us taxpayers!) gave out the $33 billion in bonuses. Otherwise, the banks would have only needed $142 billion in bailouts.

When are the banks going to say "Thank You!"?