Lehman Bros. Gives One Last F.U. To Its Employees And The Rest Of Us

Last week Lehman Brothers started off the unbelievable financial action by declaring Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The gigantic swings in the market haven't stopped since while other monolithic companies teetered on the brink of collapse. Now the Congress is considering a $700 Billion dollar package to save the market from the greed and carelessness within itself. You would think that while the financial sector is trying to pull one over us that they'd be on good behavior, at least until they get their money.

You thought wrong:

Up to 10,000 staff at the New York office of the bankrupt investment bank Lehman Brothers will share a bonus pool set aside for them that is worth $2.5bn (£1.4bn), Barclays Bank, which is buying the business, confirmed last night.

The revelation sparked fury among the workers' former colleagues, Lehman's 5,000 staff based in London, who currently have no idea how long they will go on receiving even their basic salaries, let alone any bonus payments. It also prompted a renewed backlash over the compensation culture in global finance, with critics claiming that many bankers receive pay and rewards that bore no relation to the job they had done.

A spokesman for Barclays said the $2.5bn bonus pool in New York had been set aside before Lehman Brothers filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy in the United States a week ago. Barclays has agreed that the fund should continue to be ring-fenced now it has taken control of Lehman's US business, a deal agreed by American bankruptcy courts over the weekend.

Set aside? Set aside??? If I were employed by Lehman in Europe I would be seething at this news, and I'm sure many are. It just goes to show that these "captains of industry" have no concept of right and wrong and that any money we as taxpayers give them will be wasted away into the abyss of their cold, greedy hearts just as the bad loans were given out over the past few years. The fact that Barclays excuses this behavior is ridiculous.

Conservatives may argue that it is up to the shareholders to allocate $2.5 Billion dollar bonuses to faltering companies, but it isn't the shareholders propping up this faltering system. The people with their backs breaking on this deal includes all of us that mail checks to the I.R.S. every year. Yet these bastards do not even want us to see a return on this escapade in the event that the bailout works.