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Comment by gaius | Hacker News Reader

these bailed out banks want to hand out billions in bonuses to their non-performing employees

If I worked for a bank, and I had nothing whatsoever to do with its subprime business, and had made a trading profit (or was in an unrelated function like IT and had fulfilled all my targets) then damn right I'd expect a bonus, and I'd deserve it too.

It's interesting to note here in the UK that the 70% taxpayer-owned RBS has just posted record losses, where as Goldman Sachs who repaid their TARP money to the US government, plus interest, as soon as they could is doing good business and paying their employees decent bonuses this year.

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Goldman's business was subsidized by the Government, in the form of funding Goldman's transaction partners, so that they could pay Goldman what was owed.

In normal business if my customer goes bankrupt, even if I made the sale and was owed money, I would take a loss on that transaction., and if the loss was large enough it would affect all of my employees, who in turn took the risk of working for me. I took the risk of selling to that customer, I was in the best position to judge their stability, and so would have to deal with the consequences. Goldman didn't have to deal with the consequences of transacting with unstable partners, the Government (in the form of the taxpayers) stepped in to deal with those consequences, and that is why in large part Goldman is able to exist, earn a profit, and pay bonuses.

Goldman's business was subsidized by the Government, in the form of funding Goldman's transaction partners, so that they could pay Goldman what was owed.

That is as true for them as it is for RBS! My point is that the government isn't doing a very good job of running a bank...

Goldman may have repaid their TARP payment, but they received a crazy amount of money through the AIG bailout. The amount of government flowing into these institutions is astronomical, and almost all of them should have entered bankruptcy -- had their assets sold to firms that were responsible.

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