WE DON'T NEED MORE FINANCIAL REGULATION RIGHT NOW...

we need a long wall and lots of bullets. (h/t Atrios) I'm dying to hear from any social or movement conservative about this disgrace.

Bankers had cashed in before the music stopped
By Lucian Bebchuk, Alma Cohen and Holger Spamann
Published: December 6 2009 19:45 | Last updated: December 6 2009 19:45
FINANCIAL TIMES

In 2000-07, the top five executives at Bear and Lehman pocketed cash bonuses exceeding $300m and $150m respectively (adjusted to 2009 dollars). Although the financial results on which bonus payments were based were sharply reversed in 2008, pay arrangements allowed executives to keep past bonuses.

Furthermore, executives regularly took large amounts of money off the table by unloading shares and options. Overall, in 2000-08 the top-five teams at Bear and Lehman cashed out close to $2bn in this way: about $1.1bn at Bear and $850m at Lehman. Indeed, the teams sold more shares during the years preceding the firms’ collapse than they held when the music stopped in 2008.

Altogether, equity sales and bonuses over that period provided the top five at the two banks with cash of about $1.4bn and $1bn respectively (an average of almost $250m each). These cash proceeds considerably exceed the value of the executives’ holdings at the beginning of 2000 (which we estimate to be in the order of a respective $800m and $600m).