Since this week marks the 5 year anniversary of Lehman Brothers bankruptcy, I feel there is no one better to kick this list off with than good, old Dick Fuld. Just his smug face irks me.
Dick was the CEO of Lehman Brothers (an investment firm) from 1994-2008. Fuld led Lehman Brothers into doing investments heavily in subprime mortgages. They bankrolled lenders across America to issue these loans en masse. Lehman even participated in the lending process by issuing their own subprime loans. The firm then took all these loans and turned them into bond derivatives and sold them to investors. They were the biggest underwriter of these securities at the peak of the housing boom. And on September 15, 2008 they filed for bankruptcy -- the biggest in the history of the US.
It could be argued that Dick was the whipping boy for the rest of Wall Street. The day after Lehman filed for bankruptcy, the feds swooped in and fixed the issues for the rest of the investment banking world with bailout funds. Don't feel too badly for him. He walked away earning over $500 million from 2003-2008. According to testimony, he even had four $20 million bonuses distributed to himself and three other executives four days before the firm filed for bankruptcy.
My question is this: What makes a business executive so special that they should earn $500 million dollars within 5 years? Especially considering that the average American earns $42,000 a year. And to top it off, Mr. Fuld gambled all of our meager retirement funds, lost them and then walked away with $500 million!!!
In November of 2008 he tried to hide millions in assets by selling them to his wife for $100 in order to avoid them being taken away in lawsuits.
The greed is mind blowing. When is enough money, enough?
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