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The Diminishing Returns of Populist Outrage
New York, 10:47 AM
Wed Dec 2
52 posts in the last 24 hours
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The Diminishing Returns of Populist Outrage |
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03/20/09
03/20/09
03/19/09
Well, yes the media is a culprint in inspiring public outrage but these banks need to give us soemthing to work with too. If I see Sheryl Crow or hear about bankers partying in Vegas, then the direct correlation would be frivolity. Rational peoplewho are personally forgoing basics, not these kinds of luxuries, would make the same assumption.
Business people are good with pie charts and powerpoints right? Show me what you actually did with the money that increased lending, took toxic assets off your books, helped cash-strapped homeowners, or changed your policies of bad lending. People are outraged because these banks have not done/shown evidence of redeeming themselves.
03/20/09
03/19/09
03/19/09
Also, good point.
(Disclosure: I work in advertising--but very low, so low, so, so, low...)
03/19/09
There's nothing even remotely justifiable about a bank that lost billions and is now majority owned by the government paying $400 million for stadium naming rights or whatever.
And I don't believe for one second that outfits like Wells Fargo were forced to take bailout cash. Wells Fargo lost its fucking shirt in the CA mortgage business. And if banks like Wells Fargo can't live with the terms attached to their bailout billions, then I say return it bitches!
The problem is that risk for those at the top of the corporate pyramid became totally divorced from reward over the past 10 years or so. And working slobs like me are rightfully pissed off about it.
But I have a feeling that this less-than-authentic sounding "rant" of yours, Owen, is about something else. Have you been taking 3-hour lunches with Denton--whose net worth was once estimated at $290 million--again?
03/19/09
That is socialism!
The underlying idea behind all this outrage is that every worker should be treated equally and fairly and every worker should receive a salary that's commensurate with the work he or she actually does and no more than that. And if corporations won't do that voluntarily, they should be forced to. Again, that is socialism.
They will argue that it's different when they're using public money. First of all, why? Money's money, fairness is fairness. Second of all, that doesn't change the fact that it's socialist.
Now, I am not against this idea myself. I lean pretty far to the left. And I think most execs are way, way overpaid for the amount of work they do.
But what I'm against is socialism masked as "populism", because it's utterly hypocritical. I have a hard time taking any of this outrage seriously because I know that when push comes to shove, if you ask these same people to do something like vote for nationalized health care, they won't do it. That makes no sense to me, but again they see no contradiction. They don't realize that the same greed that they're so outraged about right now with these bonuses and junkets and whatnot is what's driving our private health care industry as well.
Capitalism is either the problem or it isn't. You can't pick and choose.
All this outrage should be directed against capitalists, and pushing the country as a whole further to the left. But because so much of the public is comprised of incoherent idiots, it is doing exactly the opposite.
03/19/09
I'm getting confused as to which slice of the penny I'm allowed to be outraged about.
03/19/09
Sausage and laws, people, sausage and laws.
***Owen! Saw you on CNN last night! You rocked it!***
03/19/09
One thing is to create jobs for people doing stupid tasks; another one is to justify that traders need to earn millions of dollars in order to boost the economy. Bullmarketshit.
Hey, take Madoff out of jail! He bought fancy boats, huge houses in Florida, he decorated a beautiful office in midtown, he employed real people, he was stimulating the economy!
03/19/09
There's a difference between stealing billions of dollars and losing billions of dollars.
03/20/09
Actually, I take the point of some of this rant but, come on, $10 million to consolidate Citi's executive suites? Please. And, no, government does not need to further subsidize the steroid-fueled male masturbation fantasy that is major league baseball by paying for naming rights to stadiums it has already, in almost all cases, fucking paid to build.
Let's just call them all "Stupid Middle Class Taxpayer Field" and be done with it. Maybe if we're lucky we can go there to starve to death when the food finally runs out.
03/19/09
03/19/09
Do you know someone who "fully" understand those things?
It is very simple: semipublic companies are paying millions to their managers while workers (in the same and other industries) have to accept up to 25% cuts in their salaries.
03/19/09
03/19/09
Meanwhile, as we try and decide which hose to use, Rome burns.
03/19/09
03/19/09
Whippets good!
03/19/09
03/19/09
03/19/09
The Northern Trust episode probably marks the high-water mark of idiot populist rage run amok so far. Here was a successful, profitable bank - that only took "bailout" money in the first place because the Treasury Dept. asked all large banks to take part lest their be a run on the few that did - sponsoring a PGA tour event in honor of a longstanding commitment to do so. And for Northern Trust in particular, sponsoring a golf tournament is an exceptionally reasonable marketing move: their primary business revolves around wealthy individuals, not retail clients, and wealthy folk like to watch golf. Yet MoDo herself spends a whole column trying to make them look like robber barons living large off the back of the taxpayer. Would people prefer that the hotel, airline, event planning and hospitality industries fold overnight? Is that going to make things better?
People are assholes. I need to stop paying attention.