PRESIDENT OBAMA is far too absent of outrage over Wall Street's continued abuses. As a candidate, he railed against its "greed and irresponsibility.'' He had more to say in his first month in the White House, after finding out that Wall Street firms were still paying $18.4 billion in bonuses despite bringing America to its financial knees and dropping to their own knees for an unprecedented $700 billion taxpayer bailout.
Some people were outraged last week by a report that a member of the kitchen staff of bailed-out Wall Street firm AIG had received a $7,700 bonus.
Surely that was far less outrageous than the million-dollar bonuses paid to others at AIG who actually carried out the firm's financial business.
After all, the kitchen helper produced something that at least could be eaten. Apart from perhaps overcooking the Chateaubriand or leaving spots on the champagne glasses, what harm could the kitchen helper have done – compared to driving the world economy over a cliff?
One year after the global banking system collapsed the Institute for
Policy Studies (IPS) 16th Annual Executive Excess report --
"America's Bailout Barons" -- shows that the perverse system of executive compensation which
contributed to the financial meltdown is still thriving for top bailout recipients.
Without taxpayer support, the President
of the United States would have no paycheck. Without taxpayer support, the CEOs
of many of America’s biggest financial firms would now have no companies.
Both President Barack Obama and
high-finance CEOs, in other words, rely on taxpayers. Yet the compensation of
taxpayer-reliant financial industry CEOs dwarfs the White House paycheck. In
2008, the 20 financial chief executives whose firms have received the most
bailout money received average pay packages worth 34 times the
president’s $400,000 annual salary.
Last February, amid public anger over millions in bonuses at bailed-out insurance giant AIG,
our top national political leaders rushed to express their outrage -
and even took some steps to place a lid on over-the-top executive pay.
That lid has now come off.
