I’m sure I’m not alone, but I’m a bit nonplussed over the fear stated by some on Wall Street that limiting pay of top Wall Street executives would cause a talent drain. These are the very executives who got caught up in a wild frenzy of greed and gluttony, and they’ve shown no indication that they think they were excessively exuberant. These are the hedge fund traders with the over-stimulated brains who dreamed up the unfathomable financial instruments on which they leveraged company fortunes. They caused the collapse, and screwed everyone within their reach, which was global, in the process.
Jail seems appropriate, and in a rational country they’d be fired and sent to work the soup kitchens – our new growth industry. But if limiting their incentive bonuses achieves the same result, I’ll take it.
Piece of Mindful 
It may be true that we overcompensated our Wall Street lords, but we overcompensate a lot of other people. If you start the guillotine, it is hard to stop it.
They caused the collapse
“They” had lots of help, including political pressure to increase lending to marginal actors in our economy. These actors signed for loans from which they walked away in such numbers that our securities market is now dead.
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Besides your post once again demonstrating your irrepressible envy of those who are your betters, your ignorance of high finance also shines through.
Perhaps you would you care to explain why these very same awful men are being hired in droves by the Federal Reserve and the US Treasury Dept. to run this nation’s various economic recovery programs?
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Knight, the reason we’ve hired these same people to run the recovery is because we’re now entering a phase of neo-fascist economics. I hope it will pass.
But the they includes almost all groups in the economy. The rating agencies for giving AAA ratings on SHIT paper, the Fed for too easy money for too long, the borrowers who knowingly lied on their liar loans, the government for pushing Freddie and Fannie to buy almost half of that shit paper, the investment banks for selling – and actually being the biggest buyers of it (which begs the question: if they knew they were selling such shit why did they buy so much of it?) and the incompetent regulators who, in many instances, came from the same financial institutions that sold all of that shit.
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A rather “shitty” answer, Mr. Budge.
I must say I don’t know what neo-fascist economics is, but I’ll go with anything neo-fascist if it will help clean out the scum in this country.
But all you’re saying is the people who built this economic system are the only ones who really know how to run it, right?
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No, I’m not saying that at all. What I’m saying is that the government is getting deeper into bed with the guys that screwed it up so much. JPM is running the Fed commercial paper intervention, GS has been hired to manage TARP purchases, etc. We’re increasing the system of crony capitalism and public/private enterprises. That’s what the fascists did.
There are plenty of people who could manage us out of this clusterfuck that didn’t work for GS, MS. C, JPM, BAC and all of the rest of the financial zombies that should be subject to economic Darwinism.
Capitalist love market intervention because it lets them write the rules, stifle competition, and ensure their survival.
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Interesting Bill Moyer interview with Simon Johnson tonight – he doesn’t say “neo-fascist” but does talk about the prospects of busting up the oligarchy. He says he isn’t totally pessimistic, but I didn’t get much hope out of him.
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Dave Budge– I kind of doubt you’ve discovered anything new. Maybe what’s going on is more obvious to you but it’s nothing new.
Marx described the process in terms of infrastructure and superstructure. The superstructure is the social institutions that sit atop the infrastructure. Therefore everything built upon the infrastructure is formed by and controlled by the infrastructure. If you have a capitalist economy for an infrastructure you’re going to get certain kinds of social institutions that reflect capitalism. Government is one of those institutions.
You can call it whatever you want or slap a new label on it but it’s always been that way.
And you really should be more careful using the word fascist when you probably mean national socialist.
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No, I mean fascist economics – public private partnerships that increase both the power of government and the entrenched interests of capitalists.
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You and FDR – what a a pair!
FDR: The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to the point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself. That in its essence is fascism — ownership of government by an individual, by a group or any controlling private power.
At last, we are in harmony.
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Not quite in harmony. FDR did more to destroy competitive practices than any other president in American history. He said that competition was inefficient – and he didn’t ever think about the over-reach of government power. He was just fine throwing people in jail because they had the temerity to sell milk under his price controls – while millions of people were starving.
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You know, war on two fronts and all of that – normalcy returned.
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So is that it? We hope for a large multinational war to get us out of this mess?
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No – I’m just defending FDR’s throwing the milk man in jail.
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Nice defense.
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Oh – you mean you want me to defend him against your accusation that he did more to destroy competitive practices than any president in history. I took that as hyperbole. Many things you did not like came out of FDR’s reign. Libertarians did not fare well, but the country, as a whole is far better off before than after his stay in office.
I cite stronger labor unions, Social Security, unemployment insurance and public works – trails that I still walk on today, dams that still hold water for parched area farmers. Just for starters. The only president I can think of who did more for the public good was Nixon.
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…but the country, as a whole is far better off before than after his [FDRs] stay in office.
Paging Mr. Freud.
I see the sodium pentathol has kicked in.
Can I quote this forevermore?
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What’s that line: those that would trade freedom for security deserve neither.
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Fred – there’s an illusion, common among conservatives, that progressives go around fixing things that don’t need fixing, and that people go along because they are what … otherwise occupied? Too dumb to know better? Do you think we are just ignorant busybodies?
Health care reform will come about because there is a real need. Thirty years hence, your side will still be saying there’s no real problem to fix the market would have handled it. You’re kind of useless.
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Dave – you seem to approach things from a Social Darwinist angle – that if we’re not constantly challenged for survival, that we lose our cutting edge skills. It’s not like that at all – people who are secure in their existence operate on a higher level than people who fear for survival. Do not the moneyed classes have better education and higher earnings than the working classes? If cutting edge survival skills are at the fore, why aren’t the lower classes on top?
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RightSaidFred– Maybe Wulfgar the Prevaricator can do something with Mark T’s quote. You never can tell what the meaning of meaning is.
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That’s a straw man argument.
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Nah. That’s just an insult.
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Not hardly Dave – we’ve argued many specifics, but in a larger sphere I have long thought (and said on occasion) that Social Darwinism is the heart of your philosophy.
Oh, wait – you’re going to say that even though I have made the point before, it is still a strawman. So let me be specific: The essence of your philosophy, as I hear you over time, is the idea that people need to be unencumbered by the leveling of government to allow the best of us to prosper so that the rest of us can benefit from the activities of the best of us. You believe in greater good, and differ from my side in that you think we are all better off with minimal interferences by thee collective, which weighs us down and stifles our creative forces.
Is that fair? If so, then by implication, without the leveling activity of government, there has to be winners and losers, and we have to let the losers lose so the winners can win, otherwise we are all losers.
Have I misstated your philosophy? Oversimplified, I’m sure, but I think I’ve caught the essence.
Our philosophy on this side merely says that government can provide a safe atmosphere in which we carry on our business – winners still win, but losers don’t perish. It’s a little more humane. And when we all get to share basic goods like education and health care and basic foodstuffs, we are freed to pursue higher activities.
It’s the opposite of Darwinism – we’re not merely surviving – we are all blessed with a healthy life from which to start life’s endeavors.
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Regardless of the fact that you’re wrong about me as a Social Darwinist let’s build the example that outlines your fallacy.
D) Roosevelt hurt freedom
M) You’re a social Darwinist
D) Regardless, my position on Darwinism has nothing to do Roosevelt.
M) Yes it does. You want to eat poor children,
D) What does that have to do with FDR’s anti-competitive policies and the fact that he reduced the supply of food when millions of people were starving?
M) Hey, we’ve argued this before and you’re a goddamned capitalist pig who doesn’t give a shit about poor people.
I rest my case.
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Take it up above, if you will. Your characterization of my comments is a bit extreme – are you not demonizing me? And if by freedom you are talking about regulation and progressive taxation, then I think you fail to understand freedom.
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