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In an all out effort to help people, top Wall Street bankers have spent the last few months in deep planning sessions, working feverishly with the cleverest consultants to develop innovative models and intricate flow charts that will make money move as it should. They’re pushing themselves relentlessly to finish this task before the deadline.
Who are the people these conscientious bankers are so determined to help in these tough times of economic stress? Themselves.
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What? You thought maybe they give a damn about you? Hello, These are Wall Street bankers, the inscrutable gods of finance. If you’re not one of them, you don’t exist. Forget the needs of millions of Americans crushed by Wall Street’s greed-fueled financial recklessness, these lords of Goldman Sachs, Chase and every other giant bank have been plotting behind closed doors to ensure greater wealth for themselves.
They were in a stew because Obama (that heartless fiend) was going to let their millionaire’s tax break expire at the end of this year. This meant that the multimillion-dollar bonuses they’re set to grab in January would be taxed at a rate nearly five points higher than they’ve been enjoying.
Thus, they’ve been conniving to manipulate the rules so their bonus loot would come to them this month, rather than next, allowing them to dodge any reforms that would make them pay taxes like mere mortals do. Indeed, they even devised a new label for the extravagant, unmerited, and infuriating windfalls they pay to themselves. Their bonus payments are henceforth to be called “long-term incentives.”
Luckily, though, their crisis has passed, for their lobbyists and Republican lackeys in congress got Obama to cave in to their greed and extend millionaire’s tax break for another two years. Such unsurpassed avarice is why most people reflexively feel the need to barf anytime they hear the phrase, Wall Street banker.
“Tax Bite Fear Puts Bonuses On Table Early,” New York Times, December 6, 2010.