Lenders’ bailout Day 3 roundup

Bewildered GOP blamed by country; China calls for calm, Lehman gets HUGE bonuses; Obama’s well-heeled campaign donors

First, the House GOP reportedly is “bewildered” by the financial crisis. They’re actually bewildered by the political play out in Peoria, and with good reason …

The GOP is blamed for the crisis — by a 2-1 margin — out in Peoria and elsewhere. In some Rust Belt House seats and borderline Senate seats, you’re going to see a lot of Republicans looking like the Flip-Flop Express on this baby.

Surveys also show an eight-point jump in Palin unfavorables and more.

In what would be schadenfreude auf spaten if not for its high seriousness quotient, China is calling for currency calmness, claiming we face a “financial tsumani.” After all those years we’ve been trying to get Beijing to adjust the renminbi, and now, it gets to rub this in the collective American financial face.

At the same time, Beijing is clearly concerned.

Meanwhile, even as Congressional Dems demand CEO pay restraint as part of Crazy Uncle Henry’s bailout, top staff at Lehman Brothers apparently “forget” to take heed — $2.5 billion times.

Up to 10,000 staff at the New York office of the bankrupt investment bank Lehman Brothers will share a bonus pool set aside for them that is worth $2.5bn (£1.4bn), Barclays Bank, which is buying the business, confirmed last night. …

Many of Lehman's UK staff are particularly angry about the US payouts because it has emerged that in the days running up to the bankruptcy, some $8bn in cash was transferred out of the account of the bank's European business into accounts at the New York head office.

Well, that steaming pile of crap ought to smell good in the halls of Congress today.

Meanwhile, at one of the two “survivors,” Goldman Sachs, they average — AVERAGE — $521,000 a year, secretaries included, in 2006. The old Hankster, before deigning to enter the public sector, cleared a cool $38 mil.

That’s how GS can afford to be Obama’s top campaign donor.

Is it any wonder Obama wants to kick regulatory reform of the finance sector down the road past Nov. 4?

Watch out for the duopoly.