Not Happy With Everything, They Want More.
One of the fundamental principles of modern ‘professional’ journalism is that old magicians trick; slight of hand. very often, you can learn more about the current situations and political functionings by waiting for blaring, irrelevant news headlines … and then looking at the alternative news sources, to see what isnt being covered.
as economic situations are my personal favorite, i’ll remark upon one which is occurring as we speak.
if you turn to the ‘liberal’ press, you’ll find a barrage of financial articles regarding the individual crimes of greedy and unscrupulous members of the international financial community– namely Maddof [who put together a ponzi scheme totaling over 50billion dollars, while his day job was PRESIDENT OF THE NASDAQ] or that lawyer who swindled large scale investors. Effectively, the business pages of the popular ‘investigative’ press are currently filled with discussions of the moral turpitudes of nasty bad apples. When i see this much focus on individuals, and individual action, i wonder what else is happening.
look elsewhere, and you find an astonishing and remarkable situation- the masters of the universe [aka, the executives of the largest banks in the world] have decided that a 700billion dollar handout with no requirements as to future transparency or requirements on dispersion of the funds wasn’t quite laissez-faire enough… instead they’ve managed to remove the only tiny regulation inserted into the TARP bailout plan– limit on executive pay.
[[as a brief digression; executive pay doesn't matter-- it only adds up to millions, whereas badly dispensed govt bailouts are in the hundred billions. executive pay was simply a hot button issue that 'joe sixpack' was able to comprehend- so when the govt said 'we can hand you 700 billion, and you can do ANYTHING YOU WANT WITH IT, but you have to limit exec pay' joe sixpack could shout at his television 'yeah, you greedy wall st guy, take that!' .... meanwhile the other 699billion could be quietly slipped into their pockets throiugh acquisitions, shareholder dividend, paying off old debt etc... ok, sorry about that, read the last sentence of the previous paragraph again.]]
apparently, at the last minute, the tim geithner/henry paulson led TARP law was altered to only limit executive pay during the process of buying ‘toxic assets’. so, when the treasury abruptly decided to change course, and do ‘monetary injections’, that rule NO LONGER APPLIES, and the executives can take whatever compensation they see fit during these times of excessive crisis, when their companies are insolvent.
congrats wall st execs. you weren’t happy with everything, you needed more.
Reed Mollins
reedmollins@gmail.com