Overkill on bonuses?
As distasteful as the AIG bonuses are, I'm beginning to think there's attention overload disorder going on now with regard to them. Sure, they're vile and the worst possible display of greed and selfishness given the circumstances. Of course I'd like to see them somehow canceled.
But still, they're not the greatest crime ever, and all this fixation on them I think is distracting us from what Robert Reich has rightly called the bigger problem - that we have as yet exercised no control over the companies getting our money.
As Reich puts it in "The Real Scandal of AIG" (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-reich/the-real-scandal-of-aig_b_175105.html):
"Apart from AIG's sophistry is a much larger point. This sordid story of government helplessness in the face of massive taxpayer commitments illustrates better than anything to date why the government should take over any institution that's 'too big to fail' and which has cost taxpayers dearly. Such institutions are no longer within the capitalist system because they are no longer accountable to the market. So to whom should they be accountable? When taxpayers have put up, and essentially own, a large portion of their assets, AIG and other behemoths should be accountable to taxpayers. When our very own Secretary of the Treasury cannot make stick his decision that AIG's bonuses should not be paid, only one conclusion can be drawn: AIG is accountable to no one. Our democracy is seriously broken."
This point is getting completely lost (if it was ever even noticed) in the mounting furor over the bonuses. But the bonuses, as horrible as they are, are the symptom of a much more significant disease. Time to concentrate on curing the latter before the former (or something equally bad or worse) happens again - and again - and again.
Our national attention span is like that of a small child - or a kitten. We're so easily distracted by bright, shiny objects that we lose sight of more substantial matters. It's happening in this case.
But still, they're not the greatest crime ever, and all this fixation on them I think is distracting us from what Robert Reich has rightly called the bigger problem - that we have as yet exercised no control over the companies getting our money.
As Reich puts it in "The Real Scandal of AIG" (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-reich/the-real-scandal-of-aig_b_175105.html):
"Apart from AIG's sophistry is a much larger point. This sordid story of government helplessness in the face of massive taxpayer commitments illustrates better than anything to date why the government should take over any institution that's 'too big to fail' and which has cost taxpayers dearly. Such institutions are no longer within the capitalist system because they are no longer accountable to the market. So to whom should they be accountable? When taxpayers have put up, and essentially own, a large portion of their assets, AIG and other behemoths should be accountable to taxpayers. When our very own Secretary of the Treasury cannot make stick his decision that AIG's bonuses should not be paid, only one conclusion can be drawn: AIG is accountable to no one. Our democracy is seriously broken."
This point is getting completely lost (if it was ever even noticed) in the mounting furor over the bonuses. But the bonuses, as horrible as they are, are the symptom of a much more significant disease. Time to concentrate on curing the latter before the former (or something equally bad or worse) happens again - and again - and again.
Our national attention span is like that of a small child - or a kitten. We're so easily distracted by bright, shiny objects that we lose sight of more substantial matters. It's happening in this case.
