… and why are WE bailing out their sorry, corrupt asses….?
But I repeat myself.

How much money did Lehman Brothers pay each of its head honchos in bonuses for the last several years?
I have to assume the bonuses were based on profits and that the persons running the company knew the profits were full of hot air and snake oil. Sounds like Enron, sounds like the S&L scandal.

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/…..estigator/

McCain campaign says Palin won’t talk to Troopergate investigator.Filed Under: Ethics
By Ali at 9:21 pm McCain campaign says Palin won’t talk to Troopergate investigator.
The McCain campaign said tonight that Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) “won’t speak with an investigator hired by lawmakers to look into the firing of her public safety commissioner” in the controversy known as “Troopergate.” The campaign declared the investigation to be “tainted,” despite the fact that the five-member committee is composed of three Republicans and two Democrats. Palin had previously agreed to cooperate and thus was not subpoenaed. Reporting the story tonight, Keith Olbermann said, “It is like installing a giant neon sign over her head saying, ‘I’m hiding something.’”

sounds tons like bush

man, mkkkain really is trying to emulate this president

however they point out, was she tanning while preggers?

also, I would like to know, did SHE pay for this upgrade since SHE is the one that wanted it for vanity purposes only?

also, did SHE pay for the tanning bed?

I think we need to find out if she paid for the bed or “earmarks”

my pillow has earmarks when I wake up in the morning

Per Wiki, the term “financial services” became more prevalent in the United States partly as a result of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of the late 1990s, which enabled different types of companies operating in the US financial services industry at that time to merge. The financial services industry constitutes the largest group of companies in the world in terms of earnings and equity market cap. It is also a slow growing and extremely fragmented industry, with the largest company (Citigroup), only having a 3 % US market share, again according to the Wikipedia.

The “Investopedia” sez that Financial Services is

A category of stocks containing firms that provide financial services to commercial and retail customers. This sector includes banks, investment funds, insurance companies and real estate.
Financial services perform best in low interest rate environments. A large portion of this sector generates revenue from mortgages and loans, which gain value as interest rates drop. Furthermore, when the business cycle is in an upswing, the financial sector benefits from additional investments. Improved economic conditions usually lead to more capital projects and increased personal investing. New projects require financing, which usually leads to a larger number of loans.

Back in June, Morningstar provided this assessment of the Financial Services sector:

For almost half a decade, the financial sector was engaged in a rampant race to grow assets. Once-boring, slow-moving financials companies gobbled up almost any type of asset served by mortgage brokers, builders, and leveraged-buyout artists. And within the financials sector, few companies grew as fast as the nation’s major investment banks. Take Lehman Brothers (LEH), the most recent victim of the current crisis. In less than five years, the firm’s total assets exploded from $312 billion at the end of 2003 to $768 billion in the first quarter of 2008, an astounding 2.5-fold increase. What’s most disturbing is that during that time, equity increased only 1.8 fold, amplifying the leverage of what was already a highly leveraged balance sheet.

As it turns out, financials also suffer ill effects if they engage in obsessive eating. To avoid permanent harm to their health, many now need a serious diet, or in the sector’s lingo–deleveraging. A few things you can do to delever: sell assets, cut the dividend, hit the breaks on spending, and raise capital. Many financial institutions needed to take all these steps, and quickly. The investment banks have once again led the way, with the first to raise capital being Citigroup (C) (not a pure investment bank, but its need for capital came from this line of business) and Merrill Lynch (MER). Bear Stearns, the most troubled among the group, shortly followed with an extreme solution: selling itself to a competitor for a pittance. Lehman didn’t stay behind for long and recently announced that it will raise another $6 billion to boost capital. In addition, Lehman disclosed that in the second quarter of 2008 alone it sold $130 billion in assets, almost 30% of all the assets it had accumulated since 2003.

Nevertheless, we don’t believe the industry’s deleveraging process is over. Although we might have passed the peak in the recapitalization process, we don’t think the industry is ready to resume asset growth. Assets of financial firms, excluding a few like J.P. Morgan (JPM), are likely to remain flat or decline further in the following quarters.

One thing that will certainly keep growing in the following quarters is loan losses. Until this point, the industry has been busy estimating what the final bill will be for its reckless behavior during the past five years. Non-performing loans mounted in recent quarters and write-offs of various securities reached unprecedented levels, but substantial charge-offs have yet to hit the books. This is about to change. Over the next few quarters, we expect many financial institutions–including Washington Mutual (WM), Wachovia (WB), and National City (NCC)–to report significantly higher net charge offs, in some cases higher than ever before. The question remains whether the capital, future earnings, and loan-loss reserves that are supposed to absorb all these losses will be high enough to leave a meaningful amount for investors. In our view, the answer in several cases is a resounding yes, but for some financials, more pain is in the cards.

This was back in JUNE, fer pete’s sakes. But I don’t know of any sector “average” tracking, equivalent to the Dow Jones 500, or the Lipper Index, etc. But I think we’re seeing the Financial Services bubble bursting, or some subset of it.

Bob in HI

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26727937/

McCain campaign spokesman Ed O’Callaghan told a news conference Monday that the governor, the Republican nominee for vice president, will not cooperate as long as the investigation “remains tainted.” He said he doesn’t know whether Palin’s husband would challenge a subpoena issued to compel his cooperation.

The campaign insists the investigation has been hijacked by Democrats. It says it can prove Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan was fired because of insubordination on budget issues — not because he refused to fire a state trooper who had divorced Palin’s sister.