Another day older and deeper in debt

(Merle Travis singing his song "16 Tons")

I am so sick of right-wingers and corporatist fascists babbling on about "The Free Market™" as if they actually believed it.

Case in point:

Merrill Lynch & Co. chief John Thain has suggested to directors that he get a 2008 bonus of as much as $10 million, but the battered securities firm's compensation committee is resisting his request, according to people familiar with the situation.

The committee and full board are scheduled to meet Monday to hear Mr. Thain's formal bonus recommendations for himself and other senior executives of the New York company. No decision has been reached, and it isn't known what Mr. Thain will recommend, but the compensation committee is leaning toward denying the executives bonuses for this year, these people said.

Merrill Lynch hired this douchebag and given him a big fat contract. They were clearly stupid. And if his performance wasn't tied directly to compensation, they screwed up.

But if he really presses the point, that contractually he may be entitled to his bonus, he will be shunned and reviled by any other corporation that he approaches, hat in hand, for a job. He will complain that he "deserves it", but if the market is supreme, he's a total failure. He may have engineered the sale to B of A, but so what? B of A has been trying to acquire ML for years, and all he did is preside over a wedding where the invitations had already been sent out:

Merrill has suffered net losses of $11.67 billion this year and is about to complete its acquisition by Bank of America Corp. later this month. On Friday, shareholders of both companies separately approved the deal. Mr. Thain has said he deserves a bonus because he helped avert what could have been a much larger crisis at the firm, say people familiar with his thinking.

Wall Street drives the Free Market™ into the toilet, and wants to be bailed out.

The Big Three™ American auto manufacturers build gas hogs, and want to be bailed out.

Privatize the profit, socialize the risks. That is the real motto of the right-wing business establishment in this country.

Thain deserves exactly $0.00 for his salary, let alone bonus. If he is ever hired by another company, that company should be shunned and destroyed.

Bastard.