And they are evil. Sen Claire McCaskill (D-MO) said angrily on the senate floor what most Americans are thinking.
We have a bunch of idiots on Wall Street that are kicking sand in the face of the American taxpayer. They don't get it. These people are idiots. You can't use taxpayer money to pay out $18 billion in bonuses. They owe us some common sense.
But common sense is what the "idiots" don't have – it has been so long since they had to call upon that quality. Following one disaster after another that have rocked the foundations of the American financial sector,the fat cat bankers and financiers came hat in hand, begging for bailouts with public funds. Despite the government pulling their chestnuts out of the fire that the sleaze balls had themselves started, no lesson in shame and humility has been learnt. The financial institutions were bailed out, we were told, so that they can start lending money again to consumers and businesses. But the vultures and jackals of Wall Street still don't understand. Instead of injecting money into the faltering economy, they have been again caught lining their own already bursting pockets. What's the difference between merit pay and scavenging? Don't ask the greedy bastards who paid themselves fat bonuses, took expensive hunting trips and spa vacations, renovated offices (and bathrooms) in lavish styles befitting a Saudi monarch, shopped around for a $50 million luxury jet and who knows what else. And they have the chutzpah to continue being stingy when it comes to issuing loans because they want to "invest" their (ours, really) money for maximum growth.
When asked about the unseemly bonuses, Merril Lynch's clueless ex-CEO John Thain said, “You have to believe there’s value in the franchise. If you don’t pay your best people, you will destroy your franchise." Really? Where will those "best people" go if one takes away their ill begotten goodies? Can they teach school? Can they make anything from scratch? Can they flip hamburgers according to simple specifications barked through the drive-through window? Can they dig ditches? What exactly are they good for except to filch other people's money and make bad decisions based on greed? Let loose these wonder boys (yes, they are mostly men) of the cloistered and incestuous world of finance into the real world and let's find out how they survive without the crutch of easy money.
Another glib explanation for where the bonuses came from when bankruptcy was looming large, is that they came not from the government bailout funds, but from a "separate pool." What? Do they really think we are buying that ludicrous baloney - as ludicrous as claiming that they only peed in a "separate section" of the swimming pool?
(cartoon by David Horsey)
Update: Maureen Dowd too is fuming about the same idiots.
Accidental Blogger 
6 responses to ““These people are idiots””
Your blood is boiling and its showing through for a change…
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I don’t understand why the government wouldn’t give them the money with strings attached: “You are not allowed to give your CEOs obscene bonuses if we bail you out.” And I’d like to see the Obama administration act to this effect, if it legally can (and if not, put serious public pressure on). I actually have more of a problem with government than with Wall Street on this point — how else would you expect Wall Street power players to act? Of course they’re going to do this if they’re legally entitled to do so. So don’t give them money with no restrictions — it’s like giving heroin to a junkie and telling him his probation officer won’t be checking in for a week.
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What I regret is that we will soon repress this anger, again, and it will only smolder, as it usually does. Meanwhile, we’ll continue to buy the false ideology of markets, expertise, scarcity, value, incentive, and freedom, as we usually do. Funny, isn’t it, that Thain urges nothing more than a leap of faith: “You have to believe…”? Isn’t it funny how Sen. Daschle has evidently earned his “lavish lifestyle by dint of his name”?
Joe, you insult junkies.
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Hear hear! Great post, Ruchira!
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Ha, I like it. You know things are ugly when a comparison can be accused of insulting junkies!
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Did you see the Rachel Maddow show where Rachel declared herself to be a bank ( no fear, minimal paperwork, only a paltry 4 or 5 pages) in order to qualify for the bailout money? Maybe that’s what every citizen in the country ought to do, if it were at all possible.
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