The Audacity of Hope Tackles the Enormity of Inequality

[marmar]

from Too Much: A Commentary on Excess and Inequality:



The Audacity of Hope Tackles
the Enormity of Inequality

Our new White House has begun a counterattack against America's grand divide between the rich and everyone else. But we face, new stats from the IRS make clear, a dramatically uphill battle.

February 9, 2009

By Sam Pizzigati


Last Thursday, the day after President Obama announced a $500,000 cap on executive pay at bailed-out banking giants, the banking industry's trade journal celebrated. The President's cap, the American Banker exulted, would be “unlikely to have much impact” on banking executive compensation.

American Banker, in one sense, has that right. The new White House cap doesn’t apply to most enterprises getting bailout dollars, and, even where the cap does apply, bankers can still eventually pocket millions in stock awards.

But the Obama $500,000 cap does have symbolic value — and a good bit of it. A President of the United States has sent the message that rewards at the top can sometimes be too titanic to tolerate. That’s a necessary first step down the road toward a more equal, less top-heavy America.

We have, to be sure, an enormously long way down that road yet to travel.

Consider, for instance, the story of Mark McGoldrick, a Wall Street trader who spent 2006 with investment banking kingpin Goldman Sachs. McGoldrick took home $70 million that year, a sum that amounted to about $200,000 for every day he labored.

McGoldrick, interestingly, actually considered his labors somewhat undervalued. The next year he exited Goldman Sachs to start his own hedge fund. ........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.toomuchonline.org/articlenew_2009/feb09a.html