But, but, but we need to trust our president. He said he didn't seek higher office just to help out fat cat bankers, so despite what you hear and see there you have it.

Besides the MSM will make Kucinich, and any of his very good ideas, as left wing extremism courtesy of some loon who claimed he saw an UFO. See, the fix is in.

Republicans would threaten a filibuster, the Conservadems would say tax increases are a bad precedent, the Teabaggers would get whipped up by Fox News and say it is an Obamanation and may lead to national gun registration in addition to being a plan for nationalization of banks and world government, Tiny Tim would say it is illegal due to previous bailout agreements, and it will die in committee.

It's so interesting that when the banks were face with compensation limits of half a million bucks a year (10 times the median income in the US) that the banks were suddenly able to quickly repay the TARP money and get themselves free of the regulations.

The problem is we never should have recapitalized the banks in the first place. By doing so we put the Treasury in a big ol' conflicted spot -- in order to get paid back the Treasury had to support bank profitability. Of course the banker bonuses are tied to profits. But in this case the Treasury and Fed have done everything possible to help the banks earn the money. In a zero rate environment it would be very difficult for a bank not to come out ahead. So all these profits are really gifts. You get paid next to nothing on your savings account while the banks lend against it for any fee at all and they pocket the difference.

The make matters worse we gave up our equity stakes in the biggest banks so though the Treasury got some of its money back the taxpayers aren't really sharing in all of these engineered bank profits.

A big tax might help but it falls so short of what we should have done -- we should have nationalized these suckers and run them in the public interest. So sad that we didn't.

Tax the bonuses? In time they'll be taxing you and me. Rather we should have offered a fair market price for the over-leveraged assets the banks were choking on. Take it or leave it, and we'd only take what had value. After that you are on your own. Sink or swim.

But now that the cat's out of the bag we would be better off changing the rules for corporate boards that will give shareholders clout over their employees- the board members and the managements they hire. Swim with the tide or sink.

I say we revert to the mid 1950s - and tax them at around 90%.

In fact......

The entire "Financial Sector" of our economy exists for only one reason - to allow a small group of people to collect massive amounts of money by manipulating the markets. That sector does absolutely nothing of benefit to anyone else. Of course everyone can imagine that they too can participate in that sector and join in the parade of the newly wealthy. So, voters in general don't want that industry to be shut down. And, of course, members of Congress actually do gain big chunks of wealth by allowing that sector to continue it pillaging. So, Congress don't want that sector to be shut down. Obama? Who the Hell knows what he wants?

above an amount that everyone will agree is gratuitous?

Armchair G. says "I like *El Ike"--calls for return to Eisenhower marginal rates.

Could be we have ourselves a bumper sticker!

*Just an inside guerilla joke...on account of how Eisenhower was a hard-core revolutionary....

The whole world has turned into a rubber room of sorts.

The context we have is one where the bigger the fuckup the bigger the reward. We did that with Bush. We are doing it with Wall Street. I anticipate this will continue. We keep eliminating laws which protect us, place our freedoms at risk and arrange it so that the people who have most of the money pay a lesser percentile of tax on income than the common working person.

To be sure, this is objectively and categorically insane.

Taxing their bonuses is a good idea, and clawbacks, too. The MOVE YOUR MONEY CAMPAIGN and a tax should be the first moves to restore sanity and reasonableness to finance. And WE HAVE EVERY REASON TO TAKE THESE STEPS.

WHY? Because they are thriving due to our tax dollars, not due to performance.

MUCH WORSE, when we stop allowing them accounting practices that hide their losses (I believe they are being allowed to virtually keep toxic assets and other losses off their book), WHEN ALL IS SAID AND DONE, NONE OF THEIR PERFORMANCE WILL HAVE SHOWN TO BE SUCCESSFUL, LET ALONE MERIT BONUSES!

ULTIMATELY, We should break them up in an orderly manner, so as not to bring the whole system down.

Very insidiously, they have intertwined and hidden their CDOs and other debt instruments all around the world, in ways that it may be virtually impossible to unravel -- one article noted that it took three hours for the fastest computer they have to slice and dice one CDO.

Difficult yes, but we must do it, lest we be captive for the rest of our lifetimes to a few large banks. For more, see my blog, http://www.wrathofmcgrath.com