Jim Hightower: Wall Streeters Want Our Pity -- Gimme a Break

[marmar]

via AlterNet:



Wall Streeters Want Our Pity -- Gimme a Break

By Jim Hightower, Creators Syndicate. Posted February 13, 2009.

Those poor, unappreciated Wall Street execs keep whining about the prospect of pay caps. Someone pass a hankie.



Editor's Note: It looks like the language to cap exec pay may end up being cut from the stimulus bill by Congress.

Listen intently, and you can hear the faint music of the band coming from over the hills. Their drums are pounding out a steady cadence, the bagpipes are wheezing mournfully, and the fifes are trilling plaintively. Coming straight at you, it's The Musicale Marching Pity Corps from Wall Street!

This big banker band -- including a line of baton-twirling lobbyists and a chorus of right-wing talk show yakkers -- is on the march because Obama and other dastardly Democrats have proposed to cap the outrageous pay, bonuses and perks that bailed-out Wall Streeters keep grabbing for themselves. The band's whining refrain (note: You might want to reach for your hankie before reading this) is that these princes of high finance are being picked on.

Yes, trumpet the bankers, we make a lot of money, but we deserve it, and the system cannot function without such rewards for us. Indeed, sniffs a Wall Street consultant, "taxpayers should want banks to retain the cream of the crop." Uh, sir -- wouldn't that be the same cream that has soured America's entire financial system?

Well, they snap, you riff-raffers just don't get it. "The pay scale for Wall Street is different (than) the pay scale for America," explained the chief lobbyist for the Financial Services Roundtable in an ABC News interview this month. "So these numbers look large, but the market value for these executives -- there's a very small talent pool of individuals that have the education, experience and knowledge to operate a global, international services firm in this day and age." ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/workplace/126505/wall_streeters_want_our_pity_--_gimme_a_break/

[KharmaTrain]

1. Get Ready For Chapter 11...The Fall Of The Evil Empires...

I'm following the complete collapse of the broadcast industries. Many of these companies have seen their stock values tank into penny stock range...losing 80% or more of their value just in the past 6 months. And that was before their recent earnings reports came out...double digit loses, and not even coming anywhere near any projections. And someone is gonna invest in that quagmire?

Right now Americans, who can, are voting with their checkbooks. They've lost faith in Wall Street and the corporates. In the past they could play their ponzi schemes as there was always another sucker...and other consolidation or take-over target. I saw an industry totally detach its stock price from revenue and built it on press releases and "projections". They'd buy up competitors and their stock would take off...investors not realizing that the company was just adding to their growing debt. But the "projections" promised cake and cookies for all.

The bigger is better got too big and there's no place to go. Wall Street got caught up in its own games and self-importance...making money, no matter how you did it was and is still the culture. I honestly believe there are those on "the street" who do feel like the victim...their values so distorted that they still don't get it and are just pissing more and more people off in the process.

The high flying days of the Gordon Geckos are kaput...but like an alcoholic who only cares about the next drink, that's where these goons are.

[flobee1]

3. the addict analogy is dead on

there's no time or patience left to give them a methadone treatment or even a nicotine patch
cold turkey is the only option left imo.

these people are money junkies, and its time to go to rehab!

[ixion]

2. they just don't get it, do they...

Banks and such "international service firms" have lost all credibility. Why we're not out in front of the banks calling for these execs resignations -- and why we're allowing lobbying in the face of this mess -- is really beyond me.