I just threw up into my mouth, reading this article. Not only are the executives of failed banks earning billions of dollars in bonuses, just as much as the early 2000s, but if their income is capped at $500,000… they might need to consider public schools.

I have only one word for these people: guillotine. It’s either that, or move to another community… or, you know what? Maybe if they’re not willing to earn a measly $500,000 for their disastrous management, someone else is willing to do a better job for less money?

Bankers haven’t done much in recent months to earn sympathy, respect, or trust. By parlaying taxpayer-funded bailouts into bonuses, they have lost all credibility. Not only should they lose their salaries, but they should lose their heads. Again, “guillotine.”

Give up the nanny? Oh noes! Apparently, hot chocolate costs $8.50 when you’re a fucking millionaire. Oh noes! Whatever shall I wear to the gala ball? Here’s a hint: maybe you’ve just been fired, even without realizing it yet, for doing the most damage to our financial system in nearly a century. The gala ball is officially not yours to worry about, anymore.

Save yourselves, leave the armed limo driver behind. I just schadenfreuded all over myself.

RTFA: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/08/fashion/08halfmi…

PRIVATE school: $32,000 a year per student.

Mortgage: $96,000 a year.

Co-op maintenance fee: $96,000 a year.

Nanny: $45,000 a year.

We are already at $269,000, and we haven’t even gotten to taxes yet.

Five hundred thousand dollars – the amount President Obama wants to set as the top pay for banking executives whose firms accept government bailout money – seems like a lot, and it is a lot. To many people in many places, it is a princely sum to live on. But in the neighborhoods of New York City and its suburban enclaves where successful bankers live, half a million a year can go very fast.

“As hard as it is to believe, bankers who are living on the Upper East Side making $2 or $3 million a year have set up a life for themselves in which they are also at zero at the end of the year with credit cards and mortgage bills that are inescapable,” said Holly Peterson, the author of an Upper East Side novel of manners, “The Manny,” and the daughter of Peter G. Peterson, a founder of the equity firm the Blackstone Group. “Five hundred thousand dollars means taking their kids out of private school and selling their home in a fire sale.”

RTFA: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-…

The government of Iceland today became the first to be effectively brought down by the credit crunch.

After several nights of rioting over the financial crisis, Prime Minister Geir Haarde, surrendered to increasing pressure and called a general election for May.

A poll would not normally be held until 2011.

Haarde also revealed that he had been diagnosed with a malignant tumour of the oesophagus and would not seek re-election.

‘I have decided not to seek re-election as leader of the Independence Party at its upcoming national congress,’ he told a news conference.

The global financial crisis hit Iceland, which has a population 320,000, in October, triggering a collapse in its currency and financial system under the weight of billions of dollars of foreign debts incurred by its banks

I love the sound of “first to be brought down…” That sort of anthropomorphic language nearly establishes the “credit crunch” as a sovereign and sentient being, just as much as it suggests that other governments might be toppled by risky financial practices. Fortunately, in a country so small, it should be a relatively simple task to audit the financial transactions and speculation that led up to this situation, right? After all, this “credit crunch” is as much the actions of people as it is the current willingness of people to lend to one another. In other words, it’s all people doing these things, not some strange non-human third-party.