Five Demands for Wall Street and DC Before Any Bank Bonuses Are Paid This Year

I pointed out on Happy Hour last night that the $140BB Wall Street’s going to be paying out in bonuses this year would buy 29 million Americans full health insurance. See it here from my shot clock, as I dressed up like JP Morgan and danced with a top hat and cane like the big bankers such Jamie Dimon at my namesake’s bank. Bankers are partying like it’s 1999 out of sheer happiness from all the money they’re rolling in: http://bit.ly/2WxeV3
On twitter, someone asked me, “Cody - are you advocating Wall Street giving up those bonuses and having their pay limited by government - it sure sounds like that to me.”

So fresh off my "Five Ideas for Real Health Care Reform" from earlier this week, here are five things we should demand from the bankers/Wall Street/Government as they blow off the idea that they should be saving for another rainy day like the one that came last year in the credit crisis and instead prepare to pay themselves a full 20% of the TARP money they got because they hadn’t saved for a rainy day…

1. We want the banks to pay back every single dime they've gotten from AIG/TARP/TALF and every single other welfare program they've profiteered on in the last 12 months.

2. We want interest rates moved to being set by the free market and/or at least moved to where the free market is trying to set them, right now that's probably about 5% or so, rather than the 0% Fed Funds rate that these banks are borrowing taxpayer money at and then lending that money out multiple times over at 27% to their credit card customers and other borrowers who for some reason aren't allowed access to that 0% Fed Funds Window.

3. We want Goldman Sachs to either start lending money to businesses and individuals or I want it to lose its Financial Holding Company status that allows it to risk $130 billion trading gold, stocks, bonds and derivatives without having to worry about any downside -- the taxpayer guarantees all Goldman losses if and when there are losses while Goldman can keep all its profits and pay out tens of billions of dollars in bonuses if it makes profits with that $130 billion nut we've guaranteed.

4. We want Goldman broken into a dozen smaller, competitive companies after we get our $19BB back from its AIG bailout portion.

5. We want every single bank and bank subsidiary that's been found guilty of and/or "settled" charges of fraud, corruption and any other crime to be shut down immediately and its assets sold off piecemeal to people and/or companies that haven't been found guilty or agreed to settle charges of such things.

PS. From my Five Ideas for Real Health Care Reform article, one of my oft-repeated proposals of demanding that we enforce anti-trust laws against the health insurance companies is actually looking like it’s going to happen DOJ Varney Questions Antitrust Exemption For Insur Cos‎.

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