Current mood:

cranky

What's the color of your parachute?
As early as last Friday I heard that the CEO of Merrill Lynch was resigning because the bank had lost more than the gross domestic product of many third world countries in the sub-prime mortgage debacle.  Until yesterday, I hadn't heard an actual figure for his "retirement" package.  I haven't been asked to leave a lot of jobs in my life, but even when I left under good terms, I've never taken more than $160 million in stock options with me.

You see the disastrous failure of sub-prime mortgage industry has had a personal impact on friends and family who have seen banks and brokers shut down whole businesses.  The risk for larger banks has been spread out as they sold the mortgages to financial institutions outside of the United States, but the full impact may have not yet been felt.

Once I saw a bumper sticker that read, "Rugby players eat their dead".  I wish the boards of multinational banks could say the same.