'Tis quite interesting alright, that some CEOs get lumped in with others.

For example, the current CEO of Citigroup - in July of 2007 said he would only take $1 per year of compensation until Citi made a profit.  He is NOT Sandy Weil - did not create the CITI mess but may, a BIG may, have a start on beginning a turnaround - albeit with 36% ownership by the U.S. taxpayers, a sultan and a few other very wealthy others.

And yet, if - again a BIG if, Citi DOES turnaround and begin to make some headway, the taxpayer may receive their money back.  Bank of America, on the other hand - didn't do their Due Diligence, in my opinion, on Merrill Lynch, but then I am not there and don't see the full picture.  There are many others that I would lump into that pile.  Furthermore, I think Hank Paulson (former Secretary of the Treasury) did a very, very poor job of "dolling out the dough," but then I am in good company with that thought, I know.
We shall see.

Now as to some of the others - they want to pay the money back NOW!  They don't wish for the strings (many are small timers that only (only?) took a few hundred million - some less).  Also it seems that Wells Fargo and JP Morgan/Chase say THEY want to pay back as soon as possible.  We shall see.  Link to the article is here. By the way, JP Morgan began the Credit Default Swap mess - read that the AIG debacle, oh and a few from the old days of Junk Bond King Drexel Burnham Lambert were in on it! (see a previous post on AIG).

Alan Blinder, former Vice Chairman of the Federal Reserve System and Professor at Princeton, had an excellent Op-Ed in the New York Times the other day.  Basically saying "Not so fast towards Nationalization" and yet, he also noted that we have "partially" nationalized some banks already.   He gave a scenario for the "good bank, bad bank" idea:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

While there are many variants, the basic idea is to break each sick institution into two. The “good bank” gets the good assets, presumably all the deposits and a share of the bank’s remaining capital. As a healthy institution, it can presumably raise fresh capital and go on its merry way as a private company.

The “bad bank” inherits the bad assets and the rest of the capital — which, after appropriate markdowns of the assets, will not be enough. So, again, someone must fill the hole. And, realistically, given the mess we’re in, much of that new capital would likely come from the taxpayers.

Here’s a prediction: We will get to the good-bank, bad-bank solution sooner or later. Wouldn’t it be nice if it was sooner?

While the emphasis is mine, the words are his - a full quote from the article.

We shall see, eh?!?