Congratulations, You’re Paying $6k a Year to Prop Up Big Businesses

http://thecontributor.com/congradulation-youre-paying-6k-year-prop-big-businesses

We’ve heard a lot about tax avoidance and tax breaks for the super-rich. With regard to corporations alone, the Tax Foundation has concluded that their “special tax provisions” cost taxpayers over $100 billion per year, or $870 per family. Corporate benefits include items such as Graduated Corporate Income, Inventory Property Sales, Research and Experimentation Tax Credit, Accelerated Depreciation, and Deferred taxes

Image source and article: http://thecontributor.com/congradulation-youre-paying-6k-year-prop-big-businesses

How Some CEOs Cheat Their Way To Higher Pay

(Related to this previous post.)

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/09/13/2620121/ceo-pay-performance-based-cheating/

Because executive compensation in the form of stock is tax-deductible for companies under a 1993 law, and much of the performance-based compensation executives draw is paid in stock, such gaming of performance targets ends up hurting taxpayers. Economist and former Labor Secretary Robert Reich said taxpayer losses due to manipulating performance targets are measured in the billions of dollars.

Image source and article: http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/09/13/2620121/ceo-pay-performance-based-cheating/

Barney Frank: Why Are Bankers Paying Themselves So Much Money?

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/scarce/barney-asks-question

If they really are running businesses that are so stressed that they can’t do their basic work, why are they paying themselves so much money. Where did these enormous salaries come from if they were in fact in such serious trouble?

Click through for video: http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/scarce/barney-asks-question

Big Banks Are Even Bigger Five Years After The Financial Crisis

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/09/11/2603151/big-banks-bigger-years-financial-crisis/

Looks like “too big to fail” is now “too bigger to fail.”

Federal Reserve officials, including Chair Ben Bernanke, have acknowledged that there is still a ways to go to end the problem of too big to fail.

Image source and article: http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/09/11/2603151/big-banks-bigger-years-financial-crisis/

Banks Make Record Profits In Second Quarter

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/08/29/2552861/record-bank-profits-pave-highest-banker-bonuses-crisis/

(Maybe the invisible hand is invisible because it doesn’t exist.)

At the same time, banker pay is set to spike up above the 2009 bonus levels that brought criticism on the industry. The banks aren’t just on track to pay $127 billion in compensation and $23 billion in bonuses. They’re also returning to the dangerous compensation structures that helped drive the fraudulent behavior and gambler’s mentality underlying the financial crisis.

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/08/29/2552861/record-bank-profits-pave-highest-banker-bonuses-crisis/

Elizabeth Warren Asks The Most Obvious Question Ever And Stumps A Bunch Of Bank Regulators

“There are district attorneys and US attorneys who are out there everyday squeezing ordinary citizens on, sometimes, very thin grounds and taking them to trial in order to ‘make an example,’ as they put it.

I’m really concerned that [banks] too big to fail has become too big for trial. That just seems wrong to me.”

h/t: http://www.upworthy.com/elizabeth-warren-asks-the-most-obvious-question-ever-and-stumps-a-bunch-of-bank?g=2