Evil Rich Executives

Evil Rich Executives

Well, I risk going against the popular tide here; becoming the proverbial curmudgeon at the water cooler. But what the hay:

Some friends were discussing the populist and politician drummed up horrors we've be hearing about with regard to AIG Executives collecting their bonuses from money we, the tax payers, gave the company. As I read two short posts two of them made, what they said seemed far more sober than the ongoing water cooler mob's calls for these execs heads on pikes. Our politicians riding the torrent doesn't help. Some of what I babble here I must credit to my fellow LOGgers.

Look, I get that we don't like these guys making truck loads of money to begin with and then additionally getting their bonuses after we all paid to save the company which they apparently could not. (Now, I won't even try and argue my belief that we should never have bailed them out to begin with. If you hate that these folks are getting all this bonus money instead of being fired for driving their company into the ground, might I suggest that the best way to teach a child a lesson is to let them fail sometimes?) Anyway, it's an easy task to drum up anger for rich people and for some reason this is especially true of executives. The truth is, bonuses such as these are the absolute norm in the industry and if you expect to attract talent to your executive leadership positions, your company will offer bonuses and pay absurdly high salaries. There is not an evil country club cabal making these decisions, rather it is a little thing called the free market. It is the same free market that earns a guy who can effectively throw balls through nets about a million times more than I make doing infectious disease research. Or the same market that emboldens an actor to say he NEEDS 30 million dollars for making one movie. It's the very same market that allows for Bono to make millions upon millions of dollars for singing pretty and writing thoughtful lines of verse. For some reason we are more forgiving of some rich people for being rich than others.

I suppose if we had to bail out a sports club (ahem...paying for their stadiums) we would perhaps garner a degree of hatred for the insane salary A-Rod gets? You know, we'd sit around at lunch eating our mac n'cheese while pontificating that, "Nobody is worth that much money! It's immoral!" But largely we don't.

The fact is, AIG is a mess. That's why they wiggled their way to the great teat of federal aid. And Mamma opened the green milky floodgates (which she didn't have to give)...apparently without preconditions - I suppose because we didn't bother reading the contract that gave AIG the money? Anyway, here we are kids, in essence shareholders of AIG, and as such we ought to want the company to succeed and to do so we should think long and hard before forcing lofty moral idealism upon it while its competitors maintain the game plan of contractual agreements with executives that include massive bonuses (largely regardless of performance - not unlike actors, ball players, or rock stars really.) Additionally not only do we now have the executives having to return the money that was contractually theirs to begin with, but they also have now become populist targets for all manner of frustrated and out of work people who are depserate for someone to blame - and as the press and pundits fan the fires, picture armed guards outside their offices. So, you tell me, when these guys and gals all resign (and they will), what sort of executive talent would seek to step into their old shoes to try and right that company? Who would dare go within a mile of a company under the thumb and microscopic eye of a government, a press, and a fired up populist mob in desperate need for scapegoats and who are all filled with a righteous indignation and mission to right all perceived economic wrongs? AIG is dead. Doomed. It cannot succeed except by being maintained by ongoing federal life support. If AIG were Terri Shiavo, the feds would have opted to starve her to death ages ago...and perhaps they have.

But we the common folk who are paying for all this can now rest easy knowing that some rich jerks are under the spotlight...a spotlight that ought to be pointed at those who stand behind it and are directing it elsewhere. This has all the makings of a "Reality" TV show...all the false drama of a reality TV "actress" asked by a TV executive to behave more bitchy toward her co-stars. We grow positively giddy with self-righteous indignation as we join in the fun of class warfare that is itself a game in which we are pawns. Think about all the noise being made about the insignificant amount of money being given to these AIG executives? You want to talk about disproportionate response? Assuming this money is being used unethically, it is but a minute fraction of our money that is absolutely wasted by our government...an insignificant fraction! It is less than 1/10 of 1% of the money we gave to AIG ALONE! Have we forgotten how precious little of that spending bill our congress just passed (without reading it) that was actually going to go toward anything that could remotely be considered economic stimulus? How much was just wasted pork for political pet projects and silly social engineering programs? By many miles my friends, bonuses paid to AIG executives will do more to help our economy than the 100x or more money that went to all manner of nonsense in that bill, and yet the former is supposed to have us gathering our torches and pitchforks? Heck, we should have already had them and have the capitol building surrounded ready to burn the monster out.

Don't join this hype. Congress just passed a 90% tax on AIG's bonuses (wasting more time and money and very likely violating the US Constitution by doing so) and we can rest easy knowing that AIG is now the RMS Titanic post iceberg roudezvous. The scapegoat is sacrificed and we can revel in the blood spilled. Cheer on the beheading of the wealthy...reign in their excesses...call them to account. But don't think about the politicians and for darned sure don't think about your own fiscal habits. When we hear our president talk about the need to change "a culture" that allows such excess, we must always be sure to think about executives on yachts. Never actresses on yachts. Never politicians on the board of Fannie Mae and dictating what to do with our money. Never somone on government aid who is still managing to buy iPODS. And never...NEVER...about our own hearts yearning for STUFF. It's always the other guy, and by golly we sure got them good this time, dinna we? Haha!

This whole affair has been a cheap carnival ride. A distraction.