By Stacie Clifford Kitts, CPA
The wall street Journal reported today that John Thain CEO of Merrill Lynch asked for a 10 million dollar bonus from his struggling employer citing his ability to keep Merrill’s losses under 12 billion dollars – Wow good job – and for the work he did arranging the merger between Merrill and Bank of America.
Mr. Thain wins today’s Duh factor award for withdrawing his request once the Wall Street Journal made it public.
But really, what’s a few million more or less when we’re talking about billions.
The request isn’t so unbelievable is it? After all, the loss could have been worse and he did arrange the sale to Bank of America.
But, on the other hand, the company is struggling and people are losing their jobs.
So I guess the moral here is: if you want a 10 million dollar bonus, you should probably go to work for a company that isn’t loosing its a-s.
Otherwise you’re going to have to settle for what’s available – which in this case is nothing.
In this economic environment, its probably enough to just have a job. I’ve got a feeling that many Merrill employees aren’t going to be so lucky.
Stacie's Tax Stuff 