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I knew I should have become an interior decorator.

For this kind of freeks, the Financial institutions are in this........It is a shame, Where...we get this psycos ???

I would recommend forcing refunds for ALL of this, and using the returned funds to help ex-employees EXCEPT for Thain, who should be made to disgorge and and ALL bonus money received in 2008. And much of his pay, too...

This Twain? Train? Trane? must have been a great earner for this company and a great earner on his previous job. Where did he go wrong? I think he is cool. The best looking skinny guy RIPPING OFF THE STOCK-HOLDERS and the PUBLIC. I love his looks and his decorating ideas. I love his decorating and spending big money on decorating. I love it!

How can this creep even go out in public? How can he go to a restaurant?

Obviously, Mr. Thain was somehow able to get his MBA without any credits in the classes related to "Fiduciary Reponsibilty". Maybe the U.S. Attorney for the Northeast Region could help him get up to speed before his next CEO position.

I went into work today, Merrill Lynch, to see some great folks get canned. Fulling expecting myself to be part of the casualties. Apparently I still have some time before the ax falls my way. That arrogant office upgrade could have saved 12 of the jobless that walked out of ML today for a year. It was a sad day. More people out of work. Thanks John but your not entitled. Adios.

This is an outrage. While many Americans were losing their home as well as their jobs. Congress was voting to give the major financial institutions a 700B bailout. Americans are not hurting their suffering. And for this man to take advantage of a situation that other Americans willl ultimately pay for is beyond forgivable. We don't want his job. we want everything we paid for. We need to sell it and get families back in their homes. He should be prosecuted fully.

We need to make an example of this low life so that others with his mind set will not take advantage of his/her so-called power. These types deserve to be striped of power and money taken from us, the taxpayer. The free ride is over..........

F the ex employees.

The only thing this guy is entitled to is a serious beating.

It might not have been these outrageous expenditures that did it per se, but Thain is gone. Good riddance to the egomaniacal CEOs of this country, driven by greed and a sense that only they are indispensable. They are too numerous to list here, but you know who you are...and hopefully you too will soon be toppled from those pedestals you placed yourselves on.

Was there a Board of Directors at Merril Lynch? Where were they? One of the biggest problems in American business excesses is the willingness of people to go along to get along.

There should be no who is surprised here. How do you think they got there?

Thain is just one of a long list of wall street thugs.

No wonder the economy is trashed. No true accountability, no true understanding of relative costs, lack of common sense. With this type of culture, at Merrill Lynch, I wouldn't trust them to invest one dime.Thain being a graduate of MIT certainly is no compliment to MIT (More Idoits Taught).They need to teach more ethics in business classes. Not turn out people with such disgusting values.

If these people lived in China they would be shot. leterally

Sound good to me.

I don't know if anyone has seen the 20th anniversary edition on dvd "Wall Street", sometimes art, and rugs and those kinds of things are used as an expense one year, sold the next year or whenever at a profit. Depending on how unique the rug is and how important the artist is. Maybe JT gave up on the stock market as an investment and decided art and precious things were better investments.

I would hope there was some logic to this.

Reply to InvestorNPA on teaching more ethics: I am a high school Social Studies teacher, nearing retirement. Some time ago, the business community and government decided that the teaching of critical thinking skills (done more in social studies classes than anywhere else) was secondary to math and science skills (you know, the IMPORTANT classes). Social studies disappeared from the ACT and SATs. Few high schools require Civics anymore. Universities have gradually eliminated social studies requirements, as their "customers" saw them as worthless detractions toward their goal of living and working in a cubicle.
Result? Perhaps a bit simplistic, but in brief: George W. Bush and John Thain.

Sounds like the King of France, we should set up a guillotine on Wall St. and start executing people like this then move it to the Washington Mall and use it on Congress who failed to put any controls on the TARP money.

We need a revolution, why is everyone just siting back and letting this happen while Wall St. and Washington just flush American Down the Drain?

This behavior is egregious at the highest level. These CEO's on Wallstreet should go to prison. It is so vulgar that the average American is bailing out companies run by incompetant moron's that insist on purchasing items like a $35,000 "commode on legs"...what the hell is that? Thank you wallstreet idiots for ruining our economy and our country...bravo!

What is this a smear campaign....? The share holders of ML did very well by John Thain. Charlie Gasparino and Larry Kudlow are just a couple of MSM lackeys making goo goo eyes for the incredibly incompetent and negligent Ken Lewis.

John cost me a lot of money as a hostile short of ML, I never imagined that he would be able to find a sucker as naive as that moron Lewis. Imagine, this guy is running Bank of America, I wouldn't let him wash my car.

Thain deserves every penny he's gotten, he's about the only guy on the Street that has earned it.

Oh, and don't worry Ken..... I made every penny back and more by dumping on BAC.... I hope that Thain sues the shit out of all of you.

Best regards,

Econolicious

Notorious Rugs sell at a premium. His now famous $87,000 dollar rug is probably worth 3 to 4 times more than that, based simply on it's newfound notoriety. You'd have to check with Sotheby's to get a better estimate, but these 'scandals' do add to the value of the property. Even a JT ashtray would sell at a hefty premium.

To those who are worried that their 401k's are plummetting in value, needn't worry about their Merrill Lynch Stock. It has already been bought by Bank of America, I think for about $29 dollars a share, a much better price than if you owned Citigroup, or BAC. I think Citigroup and BAC will go to zero if they are Nationalized by the Federal Government.

I'm laughing here, but it seems no one has read John Steinbeck's Novel "The Pearl". The reason there is a difference in the Remodeling price is because John Thain is John Thain and can be had for that much money, and Obama can't be had since he gets paid practically nothing to be our President and any remodeling job done by the Federal Government would automatically go to the lowest bidder. The fact that the same designer charged Thain more and Obama less is a reflection on the pricing and business practices of the interior designer, not the client. You're getting it backwards again. But that's to be expected because you are who you are.

John Thain and thugs like him are not worth any of the money they have made for many years. Seems to me that if they were doing the right thing we would not be where we are today. Sorry, all you folks, who like to defend him. The victims of thugs like Thain are the middle class and the poor, who are paying dearly for these excesses and all the various financial manipulations, which are all too well-known now. I don't believe any of the money was gotten honestly, and you'd be hardpressed to find anybody on Main Street who would buy that.