No bonuses for bankers, says Obama

Leaders of banks should give up their bonuses and those of the auto industry stop using their private jets in the current crisis, said the U.S. president-elect Barack Obama, accusing them of being cut off from the realities of the country, in an interview with ABC television that must be distributed Wednesday 26 November. The abandonment by the executives of major banks of their annual bonuses, while the government had to bail several U.S. banks, would be "an example of responsibility," he said. "If you already have $ 10 million and you have to lay off employees, the least you can do is say 'I am ready to sacrifice myself, because I recognize that most people less fortunate through a period rather difficult ', "said Barack Obama to ABC, according to excerpts released Tuesday evening. "Slightly hard of hearing He also severely censured the owners of the three major U.S. automobile group, criticized the U.S. for having visited private jets to Washington to ask for money to Congress to prevent the bankruptcy of their enterprises. "I thought that perhaps they should be slightly hard of hearing about what happens in the USA now," said Barack Obama in this regard. "It is a chronic problem, not just in the automotive industry (...) (but) among captains of industry in general," he said. "When people reach hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses on Wall Street and taking huge risks with other people's money, it shows that (they) have no idea what ordinary Americans live." And when the "auto manufacturers (Americans) are paid much more than their counterparts (Japanese) from Toyota or Honda, and yet they lose money much faster than the Japanese, it tells me that they not what happens. "