Hey, remember those totally insane bonuses—8.3 million!—that Borders wanted to give higher-up executives even as they filed for bankruptcy, laid off employees, and closed stores all around the country?
Turns out, the Justice Department thinks they’re fucking crazy, too.
Calling it a “disguised retention plan for insiders,” the Trustee’s Office (“the Justice Department agency charged with overseeing the administration of bankruptcy cases”), in a filing made by trustee Tracy Hope Davis, said that “Seeking the approval of the bonus motion at this early juncture, prior to the debtors’ finalizing their business and operational plans is not a sound exercise of the debtors’ business judgment,” according to a Wall Street Journal report.
It’s refreshing to hear someone with some amount of authority admit that Borders upper management is not capable of making sane decisions.
Long decline for insiders.
Rise up, outs.
Great. Awesome. Where were they when Goldman Sachs and all the rest of the bandits were making off with our money? Fuck them.
#2 – Different administrations have different ideas of what constitutes bad judgement apparently.
Remember this when people say there is no difference between Dems and Repugs.
Um, the bonuses I’m talking about didn’t go out to banking execs until well after Obama was inaugurated. This isn’t a partisan issue, it’s a capitalist issue.
Oh please Donolectric, unless you intend to say the Repugs are better than Dems:
1. Obama was president when GS gave their bonus for 2008
2. He could have clawed back the bonuses. But didn’t.
3. Elizabeth Warren is the only major ECONOMIC appointment Obama has made without GS ties
Obama’s biggest donors are GS, they always give more to Democrats than Republicans.
Real Tough. Go after the most transparently pathetic executive enrichment scheme at the 3rd most popular bookselling company(soon to be surpassed by Powells or ExLibris). That will make up for ignoring the exact same schemes, only in hundreds of millions, occurring at banks, energy companies, insurance companies, and other corporations that actually matter and have bought government protection. Kind of like when they wanted us to think Bernie Madoff was THE WORST!!11!! on Wall Street in Fall of 2008.
Small potatoes.
In the interim, the gap between the ultra-wealthy and the other 99.99 percent of America will continue to accelerate as we reach Wehrmacht or similar wealth ratios that make Syria, Egypt, Libya, or Saudi rich-poor gaps look mediocre by comparison.
Revolution cares nothing for why the lack of upwards mobility and the siphoning of the traditional 50-50 split between capital and labor is altered to a 90-10 split, it just flares up whenever things get out of whack, and it lights on fire faster than the wealthy think it will, resulting in a lot of burnt mansions and destroyed governments.
America has a tradition of violent revolutions. The recent quiescent period is an aberration both nationally and internationally.
@2 and 4,
The Trustee’s Office oversees bankruptcy cases. The bailout saved Goldman Sachs from bankruptcy, which means the Trustee’s Office and the Justice Department had no jurisdiction over what GS did with its money. If the government wanted a say, it should have coupled greater oversight with the bailout money, but the Bush administration was still in charge then.
In other words, STFU.
@2 for the fucking win. America for the epic fail.
@6: …Powell’s? Really? You do know they only operate in Oregon, right? If any used bookstore is going to compete at the level of Borders and B&N, it’s going to be Half Price Books; they already operate in like fourteen states, for fuck’s sake.
@10 – uuh sarcasm? heard of it?
yay! justice is served. now we can all go back to watching sports.
Sorry dude. Poe’s Law.
Clearly Borders executives deserved those bonuses for another year of successfully steering their company over the ledge.
There’s a reason all of the big bankruptcy cases file in New York. The judges are more permissive, there’s a culture that this sort of thing is acceptable, and there’s an attitude that the lawyers encourage that, well, the company’s in bankruptcy, we should try to get it out and use whatever means are necessary.
The United States Trustee is swimming uphill against the current in the face of all of that. So good on her for actually objecting at all. And yeah, if a company isn’t in bankruptcy, there’s dick all you can do about its bonus plans except sue.