Paying Workers More to Fix Their Own Mess:
So read a New York Times headline today. I usually don’t use this blog to weigh in on political or financial issues, but it’s my blog, so why not?
This business with AIG amazes me. I can’t imagine the arrogance that would lead this company to believe it’s okay to reward people for incompetence, and to such a large degree, especially when the company is on its knees, supported by the overburdened taxpayer. What stuns me even more, however, is that the leaders at AIG didn’t foresee that such an outlay would inspire a tidal wave of public outrage.
What were these guys thinking?
You know how, in the movies, the thief or villain ends up accidentally killing himself because he’s still trying to stuff his bag with gold when the temple is caving in? All the sane characters are running for their lives, but these guys — these money-enslaved charlatans — are so focused on continuing their thievery that they either miss the danger signs completely or engage in a false sense of immortality and invulnerability.
Every time I read one of these stories about Wall Street managers gorging on bonuses, I think of those Hollywood movies. The comparison isn’t exact, but it’s close enough.
These guys don’t even have the decency — or the intelligence — to be sly about satisfying their greed. Until recently, I suppose, they had no reason to. Why practice discretion when everyone was admiring your rapacious acquisition of money, money and more money?
Even the grand dame of newspapers, The New York Times, put these guys on a pedestal and made them demi-gods on their basis of their earnings, their “bonuses.” As someone who has to struggle financially, I was sickened by the Times series on the titans of finance, called the New Gilded Age. There’s no way you can convince me that anyone should receive a bonus of $20-$30 million dollars a year or more, not when the company is paying it lowliest worker a mere pittance.
The idolatry made these guys feel invulnerable. In a way they were, and still are. None of them has been fined, or even charged with contravening any laws, either human or divine. Right now, it looks the most that any will suffer is a little egg on their faces, which is entirely bearable when you have golden eggs in your bank account.
So I admit, that yes, up until now, these masters of the universe had absolutely no reason not to think they could continue to gorge themselves at the company trough. They needn’t fear anyone saying anything because no one ever had.
Until late last year.
Public rage about the bailout and financial bonuses was already stirring by the turn of the year. Citibank had to duck in the face of fury over an airplane it ordered eons ago. AIG itself already suffered scorn and had to beat a hasty retreat about exuberant spending for corporate events. How could these folks at AIG not realize that they were risking a tsunami of fury that would wipe them out and do even more damage to an industry that so many now despise?
It’s like waving a red flag in front of a bull. Did they actually think they’d get away with it?
I think they thought just that — and that’s what bothers me the most. The continuing feeling of invulnerability, the belief that they can do what they want, no matter what. It bothers me, too, that Congress and President Obama are passively endorsing that sentiment, by doing nothing. Now, there are congressional hearings today. I’m sure there’ll be a lot of pithy dialog and showmanship. But I would be really surprised if anything solid came of it.
And so, I continue to simmer, to be angry, not just at the conspicuous inhumanity, but incredible discrespect shown by those who enjoy a very unique type of public trust.
If you’re going to be greedy and lack a certain basic moral decency, then at least show me, the taxpayer, enough respect to be wary of my rage. Don’t tell me you have the right to “eat what you kill” when you, in fact, haven’t “killed” anything — but the very thing you’re supposed to be nourishing, the economy itself. Don’t tell me you have the right as “the best and the brightest” to be compensated for doing a brilliant job, when your performance was anything but. Worse, don’t tell me that you deserved to have your way because you’ve always had your way, and if I don’t let you have your way, you’ll go — and leave me to clean up the mess you made.
Then again, why should you do any of these things, when the men and women I’ve elected to congress, put on a show and then secretly pat you on the back and let you go on your way?
