From today’s Times: “Bank of the Ozarks in Arkansas, which received $75 million in taxpayer money, paid $43,400 in 2007 for a personal assistant to coordinate business and charitable events from the home of George Gleason, the bank’s chief executive…”
Wait wait wait, hold up. We the taxpayers gave $75 million to Bank of the Ozarks? We know this information has obviously been released before, but we guess we were distracted by all of the big names and numbers, and it didn’t really hit home for us until we saw it in the surprisingly un-juicy Times story about executive perks. The Bank of the Ozarks. Fascinating. We didn’t even know that people had bank accounts there — we thought they just traded in bottle caps and arrowheads and pieces of bone, or whatever.
Anyway, please continue, Times.
In the case of Bank of the Ozarks, Mr. Gleason, the chief, has an assistant working out of his home to oversee business, charitable and social functions held there.
How interesting. Organizing hootenannies is so much more sophisticated than we thought! It’s almost like: The Ozarks, they’re just like us! Except for the business with the marrying of cousins. But anyway, this makes us feel kind of warm and fuzzy. Perhaps one of the benefits of this “we’re all in it together” bailout business will be that we’re going to get to know our neighbors here in this vast country that is America.
Scrutiny of Bankers’ Perks Will Grow, Too [NYT]
