RUSH: First off, Wall Street bonuses. I went back and did some research here during the break, because Obama’s out there saying the corporate CEOs need to park their corporate jets, and they need to stop taking bonuses because there are too many people hurting out there. They just have to stop taking their bonuses because they gotta find what it’s like out there. It’s just not good when these people that have tens of millions dollars already and, quote, unquote, ‘have more than enough’ as defined by Obama. They don’t need to take the bonuses. They need to find out what real people live like.
Back in 2006, in December, there was an AP story about Wall Street bonuses because they were huge at the end of that year, and the headline of the story was: ‘Wall Street Bonuses Flood New York City’s Economy,’ and let me just give you some details here. ‘When Michael Aaron learned that Wall Street investment banks were going to be shelling out record bonuses this holiday season, the savvy wine merchant uncorked his own plan to make serious dough. He paid for a double-page advertisement in The New York Times, boasting a rare bottle of 1995 Dom Perignon. The price tag — $14,950. ‘We thought we’d put this temptation out there,’ said Aaron, chairman of Sherry-Lehmann wine store on Madison Avenue. The $15,000 bottle of bubbly is just one example of how record Wall Street bonuses this year can trickle through New York City’s economy. People are buying multimillion-dollar apartments. They are driving $40,000 BMWs out of the showroom. A report released Tuesday…’ Now, remember, this is December 19th, 2006.
‘A report released Tuesday by the state comptroller said Wall Street is expected to pay out $23.9 billion in bonuses, shattering last year’s record by 17 percent. The impact of such bonuses on the New York economy is profound. Bonuses are expected to generate $1.6 billion in tax revenues for New York state and another $500 million for New York City. For every job created on Wall Street, three other jobs are created in the city and suburbs. ‘Wall Street jobs create jobs,’ said Ken Bleiwas, deputy comptroller. ‘Why? Because they are pumping money into the economy. They’re going out to restaurants, they are purchasing all kinds of consumer goods.” They go on to describe the largest bonuses, which are doled out by Goldman Sachs. The chairman and chief executive is still the guy today, Lloyd Blankfein. He got a record compensation of $54 million in 2006, the bonus, $27.3 million of that. The top 25 execs at Goldman Sachs got $25 million each. It goes on to describe what Bear Stearns paid out. Bear Stearns now defunct. But the point is basic economics. New York state and city are in dire budget consequence straights right now; they’re in horrible shape and they’re going to be even worse because tax revenue is going to be down ’cause Obama’s urging these executives to forgo their bonuses.
Now, Obama says we need to have people trickle up. We need to rebuild this economy from the bottom. ‘Bubbling up,’ right? Well, if that’s the case, when he does these press conferences, why doesn’t he bring out some homeless people, and why doesn’t he bring out some newly unemployed people and tell us how it is that they are gonna cause an economic recovery? How are we gonna bubble up from the bottom? How does this work? How do people who are broke or have very little money cause economic growth? How do unemployed people contribute to economic growth? Well, they don’t. All this is is pitting rich versus poor, upper class versus middle class. This is creating wars between groups of Americans to foment resentment and anger, to keep people in a crisis mode and unhappy over irrelevant things while avoiding taking the steps that anybody who’s had the slightest education in economics knows would be the steps necessary to bring about the recovery that we all want.