The headline to this on yahoo 7 here in Oz was "Cheap and Nasty"

Looks to me like Fuld knew he hadn't come by this mansion honestly and signed it over to his wife to protect the ill-gotten asset.  I sincerely hope the administraotors responsible for investigating and dealing with the bank scum are empowered under law to sieze it anyhow... and should it proven to have been acquired via illicit dealings/proceeds, so it should be, despite the 'sale' to his wife.  In fact, charge her with complicity and being an accessory in the commission of a crime.... cos there's no way on earth she didn't know.

I'll just answer the question in the subject; No!

I just found the following on a finance page at yahoo7.  While the comment comes from a forum type discussion, it does make for some interesting reading.... more here

"In short, the majority of the money lent out by banks is literally created from nothing."

If you think that's bad, have a look at the derivatives trades around the world by the various banks(investment banks are the worst). Basically there are hundreds of trillions of dollars in bets, ranging from commodities and currencies to interest rates. JP Morgan has asset backing of 4% over it's derivative bets i.e for every $100 bet, they have $4 in assets - so the other $96 is basically fictional(then think about that per $100 trillion - $96 trillion of fictional money). Now these bets are hedged in various ways with the idea being that one cancels the other out with a thin slice in the middle collected by the bank(not so thin when you start talking trillions)."

Nasty stuff, that, financial institutions lending money that exists only on paper.  In other words, they're charging interest on monies they never actually had to lend to begin with. 

If my opinion of bastard bankers was pretty low before, it has just taken one hell of a nosedive.

Did anyone get a good look at CitiCorps new $50M corporate jet, bought with bail out funds.  And what's better yet, it isn't even American made.  Who runs this country?  When you find the truth, let me know.

LOL...I was going to post that! Also, CitiCorp deserves a MAJOR drubbing. Tell ya about it later, mate.

BTW, it's the Insurance Co.'s...but I somehow doubt that's news.

They should just take every corporate banker, insurance company CEO or any other related low lives that have squandered bailout monies, dress them in pink tu-tu's and lock them up in San Quentin's general population yard.  We've had to pay out the nose, now they can pay out the ............!  Until this country starts wearing boxers instead of pink panties we'll never fix squat.  Sorry for my plain, rough, working man's vocabulary.

Damned disgraceful at best... but more like downright criminal is what fits this travesty best.  It seems there is no level to which these low-life bastards won't stoop, even when the World is falling into financial decay, and they need to be stopped sooner, not later.  If I were Barack Obama, I'd be demanding every red cent of that bailout money back, because it's obviously going to lurks, perks, excesses and undeserved bonuses, etc... NOT where it was intended.  If some of these banks fall, so be it... people should be withdrawing all their money before they do, and the gov't can/should protect deposited funds for those who can't or don't.

For far too long these corporate figures have been living beyond their means... beyond any reasonable means... to unforgivable excesses more accurately describes it, and this greed must be stopped before it bleeds everyone and everything dry.  I mean, realistically, who needs a $50M personal jet; and a $30M luxury yacht; and a $25M mansion; and a Rolls Royce, Bentley, Aston Martin, Maserati and Ferrari... and $200 +M in cash?  If these corporate high rollers had earned all this honestly, you'd say "good luck to them", but for the most part, they have accumulated these things through dishonesty, deceit, fraud, embezzlement and greed... they are neither earned or deserved.  Frankly, it should all be confiscated and returned to the rightful owners - those companies/owners who were more or less blackmailed ("I/we won't work for you if you don'y pay up) into funding these excesses - or redistributed where they can do the most good.

The power to enable this is in the hands of the people - ie, boycotting goods that support it; withdrawing deposited funds; offloading shares back to the companies, and forcing elected representatives to act against it - but it won't happen if people continue to accept it and sit on their hands.  The time to act is NOW, or it will be too late... a depression will descend upon us.

Just for you starkers    

There's no need to apologise for or excuse your "working man's volcabulary"... it speaks volumes and makes public just how ordinary folk feel about these corporate excesses killing off decency and any hope we have of returning to economic mormality. If anything, Ed, you were rather conservative in your choice of words.  I, and I'm sure quite a few others, have much stronger language which would apply, but we have some modicum of decency and will not stoop to their levels of immoral indecency.

I'm in a similar boat to you, Ed, so yeah, man, I hear ya... loud and clear.

What, just the ONCE???   There is far too much corporate greed and corruption for a one-off tar and feathering.  More would be needed... MUCH more!  However, reducing them to less than what they expect us to live on would be more appropriate... and a prison cell without all the mod-cons to which they've become accustomed would fit the bill just nicely.  I'm not an advocate of violence or over-the-top retribution, because then we are not separated from the animals, so an appropriate prison term is sufficient for me.

I think you've hit the nail right on the head here, Karen!  Their tiny corporate brains haven't been getting enough air or sunshine, so yeah, "commando"  would be good, but me thinks they could do to go hobo for a while... you know, where ventilation is excellent cos everything has holes in it.

More US jobs to go.  The 2,110 job loses at Caterpillar are on top of 20,000 permanent job cuts already announced by the company.

And what the banks/bankers did to contribute is NOT criminal??????

This is why the bankers are responsible for the financial crisis, and have in fact exacerbated it.....

"President Barack Obama on Thursday called it "shameful" that Wall Street workers received more than $US18 billion ($A27.61 billion) in bonuses in 2008 while their firms were receiving taxpayer help."

I'm sure the US taxpaying public did not intend for bailout funds intended to save banks from total collapse to go in bonuses to the tune of US$18 billion.  That's almost USD$20b out of the $450b already spent on bailing out the banks... banks being the operative word here.  The bailout was intended to prop up banks, NOT line the individual pockets of greedy and already wealthy bankers.

See more here..

Because we already know that people are not greedy. Specially not in bad times...

And that cat looks like the cat that WILL approve your loan... And send someone to break your fingers if you don't pay up before half the time the loan is due.

Lets print up more money to cover this round of bailout/stimulis package.  I see $300 million for rubbers, guess that qualifies as stimulis.  And yes, these idiots that run these companies should cut back and quit wasting money and getting bonuses.  And yes, there should be accountability for the money they get.  But lets cut the pork out of this batch of money we don't have.  We can't keep printing money we don't have as that making our money so cheal that it will hurt us in the long run.

(Remember, people should not fear their government, but the government should fear it's people.) Paraphrased from unknown source.

Part of the problem is that we have become or are becoming a cashless society.... accountibility goes out the window when banks can play with electronic money; can loan when they do not actually have the cash reserves, and can reap interest on monies they never had to lend in the first place.  In other words, the banks profit on non-existent monies... by virtue of the fact they say they loaned them.

So what happens when cashless banks go broke... recession, unemployment and the GDP goes down the toilet.  The banks should never have been allowed to hedge bets/lend on funds they didn't have... not ever, and the sooner governments, banks and corporations realise that economies will always go guts up when based on electronic funds/transfers, stocks/shares and prining money willy-nilly without having the reserves/resources to back it, the better.

I predicted this recession 15 - 20 years ago, and so should the World's economists, because there is no such thing as a fast buck and the only way to make one is to earn it honestly.... something the corporate world has lost touch with because of greed.