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Jim Hightower: Who Deserves Wall Street Bonuses?
Wall Street bankers are really mad these days — in both senses of the word.
You’d think these whizzes of speculative finance would be ecstatically happy and filled with gratitude, not anger. After all, having crashed our economy, they were allowed to keep their cushy jobs, get bailed out with trillions of our tax dollars and were permitted to go right back to playing the same old casino games that previously had enriched them at our expense.
Once again, such powerhouse outfits as Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase are raking in tons of money — and, as in the gilded days before Wall Street plunged Main Street into deep recession, bankers have promptly reverted to the selfish ethic of lavishing multimillion-dollar bonuses on themselves. Goldman, for example, already has set aside more than $16 billion to dole out as end-of-year bonuses for its bankers. That’s a pace of self-enrichment that will siphon off nearly half of all the money Goldman takes in this year.
So, why are they mad? Because you and I are not showing them any love. Believe it or not, Wall Streeters actually expected that their return to grandiose banker bonuses would be greeted with huzzahs and “you the man” cheers from an admiring public, rather than another coast-to-coast explosion of anger.
Arrogance and avarice seem to be so hardwired into these people that they view outlandish paydays as proof of their business acumen, productivity and success. The richer you are, the more worthy you are, goes their thinking, so not only do they feel entitled to cash, but also to high-fives and hugs from the hoi polloi.
Excuse me, Your Royalnesses, but being mad at us for not cheering narcissism shows just how bull-goose mad you really are. In fact, if you get any goosier, you’ll start flying south every winter.
Especially infuriating is the ridiculous assertion by Wall Street elites that our bailout money was more of a burden than a help. Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman Sachs, declared last month that he never would have accepted $10 billion from the Troubled Asset Relief Program “if I had known it was pregnant with this kind of potential for backlash.”
Blankfein’s claim is that, while some TARP funds might have been of short-term use, they weren’t really crucial to the recovery of big banks such as his, which quickly repaid the government to get rid of the “pregnancy.”
Rather, he explains, it was the good-old financial genius of bankers such as him that guided Goldman back into the deep waters of prosperity — and huge executive bonuses. He and other Wall Streeters are now using this argument in Washington to fend off new banking regulations, assuring lawmakers that the free market of finance is self-correcting and in good hands.
Hold it right there, slick. TARP funds were the least of the bailout that you received and are still enjoying. First, $12.9 billion were quietly funneled to Goldman Sachs through last year’s backroom bailout of insurance giant AIG — money you’re keeping.
Second, by executive fiat, the Federal Reserve let Goldman magically metamorphose into a bank holding company so it could qualify for cheap funds from the central bank. Third, the FDIC (which exists to insure money that people deposit in banks) put its governmental guarantee behind billions of dollars in Goldman bonds, thus allowing the firm to raise even more capital very cheaply.
Fourth, bank competition was deliberately and drastically reduced as part of the government’s rescue effort, leaving Goldman free to pull more of the investment market into its monopolistic maw. Fifth, and probably most important, the federal government has made clear to speculators everywhere that Goldman will never be allowed to fail — so take all the risks you want, for taxpayers will cover your losses. This is truly a priceless subsidy.
Honesty has long been a stranger in Wall Street circles — but even there, surely there’s a tiny residue of honor that would compel them to admit that any bonus money should go to hard-pressed taxpayers, not to Wall Street’s welfare kings.
— Jim Hightower is a national radio commentator, writer, public speaker and author of Swim Against The Current: Even A Dead Fish Can Go With The Flow. Click here for more information, or click here to contact him.
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» on 11.05.09 @ 08:34 AM
JIM = You’ve ht it on the perverbial ail head once more!
NOTHING gets a red flag virtually waving before my eyes than Wall Street “bail-outs”!
Since the Great Depression, a case can be made that our Nation has become economically “risk avoidant” !
NO ONE is permitted to fail!
Wall Street is simply “legalized gambling”!
ERGO = WHY SHOULD taxpayers subsidize & reward that?
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» on 11.05.09 @ 09:53 AM
Will someone out there please explain to me what it is these bankers and financiers do that is so valuable and unique that they put us haters off by declaring that they will go somewhere else if they are denied their billions in bonuses. Are their skill sets, knowledge, experience, personal attributes, so rare and indispensable that the people of America would be wrong to form massive million-people marches against this greed, self-importance, and entitlement? Are there not truly 10, or 100, or 1,000 bright and capable people ready and able to slip into their places should these gumps take their ball and go home? Why don’t the shareholders of these outfits kick these princes, dukes, barons, and noblemen and women out the door with a note to stuff themselves? Amazing they get away with the crap they dish out….
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