Those giving and receiving bonus' while working at bailed out banks have absolutely nothing on the worst Third World kleptocrats that have crawled out of the slime.

The answer is as plain as the nose on your face. The people have the power all along. If people would just stop doing business with these crooks they would either change or go out of Business. Close your accounts with these banks, open accounts with credit unions. The American people are saving more of their income than ever before,dont put the the money in these wall street banks.Without customers they cant exist.

JJ Apple...thanks for your post!

I like your expression: Mass- Passive America, this could be the name of the 'psychic virus', as Jung defined them, that has spread to epidemic proportions throughout North America.
As to your request for any "ideas, suggestions or additional perspectives..." I can only add that Jung himself placed great emphasis on the responsibility of the individual to increase his/her own consciousness through the painful efforts outlined in the individuation process, which in brief, involves a dispassionate and truthful examination of one's shadow (inferior and repressed personality traits), followed by a moral response which amounts to an integration of these qualities which in effect enhances and expands consciousness. After the painstaking work of integrating one's personal shadow one moves on to identify the collective shadow and begin the much more difficult work of dealing with one's partial involvement in the collective unconscious, shadow emanations and projections. The psychological hypothesis explicates the notion that the catastrophic consequences of a mass psychosis will be ameliorated to a degree corresponding to the number of people who have achieved an 'individuated' state; differentiated and awakened from identification with the mass unconsciousness, a collective persona if you will and in this case mass psychosis. It points to the idea of the hundredth monkey phenomenon and the idea in esoteric spirituality where one enlightened master can awaken multitudes of sleeping souls. All who have done this type of work will feel an inclination, a moral and social responsibility, to do what ever they can to assist in the process of the evolution of consciousness and the healing of the illness diagnosed in the collective psyche. This science ought to be taught throughout the education curriculum so that our youth will have a firm understanding of the psychological processes that affect social and collective behavior. Understanding goes a long way to healing an illness of the psyche!

Best wishes

Risingdawn

As economist, Peter Schiff recently quipped:

“Why fret about growing unemployment lines when banks are paying big-time bonuses again?”

How many $TRILLIONS are taxpayers on the hook for with the FDIC insuring banking institution assets and Fannie and Freddie buying up the toxic assets the banks don't want on their books?

So much for the "free market" and "fractional reserve banking".....and a government of, by and for the Wall Street rich and super-rich.

This American obsession with money is repulsive.

This is one of the most sensible diagnosis of our present situation.

Sociopathic Paychecks
The Wall Street Journal reported last week that "Executives and other highly compensated employees now receive more than one-third of all pay in the US... Highly paid employees received nearly $2.1 trillion of the $6.4 trillion in total US pay in 2007, the latest figures available."

This article is largely excerpted from Thom Hartmann's new book "Threshold: The Crisis of Western Culture."

One of the questions often asked when the subject of CEO pay comes up is, "What could a person such as William McGuire or Lee Raymond (the former CEOs of UnitedHealth and ExxonMobil, respectively) possibly do to justify a $1.7 billion paycheck or a $400 million retirement bonus?"

It's an interesting question. If there is a "free market" of labor for CEOs, then you'd think there would be a lot of competition for the jobs. And a lot of people competing for the positions would drive down the pay. All UnitedHealth's stockholders would have to do to avoid paying more than $1 billion to McGuire is find somebody to do the same CEO job for half a billion. And all they'd have to do to save even more is find somebody to do the job for a mere $100 million. Or maybe even somebody who'd work the necessary sixty-hour weeks for only $1 million.

So why is executive pay so high?

I've examined this with both my psychotherapist hat on and my amateur economist hat on, and only one rational answer presents itself: CEOs in America make as much money as they do because there really is a shortage of people with their skill set. And it's such a serious shortage that some companies have to pay as much as $1 million a day to have somebody successfully do the job.

But what part of being a CEO could be so difficult-so impossible for mere mortals-that it would mean that there are only a few hundred individuals in the United States capable of performing it?

In my humble opinion, it's the sociopath part.

CEOs of community-based businesses are typically responsive to their communities and decent people. But the CEOs of most of the world's largest corporations daily make decisions that destroy the lives of many other human beings.

Only about 1 to 3 percent of us are sociopaths-people who don't have normal human feelings and can easily go to sleep at night after having done horrific things. And of that 1 percent of sociopaths, there's probably only a fraction of a percent with a college education. And of that tiny fraction, there's an even tinier fraction that understands how business works, particularly within any specific industry.

Thus there is such a shortage of people who can run modern monopolistic, destructive corporations that stockholders have to pay millions to get them to work. And being sociopaths, they gladly take the money without any thought to its social consequences.

Today's modern transnational corporate CEOs-who live in a private-jet-and-limousine world entirely apart from the rest of us-are remnants from the times of kings, queens, and lords. They reflect the dysfunctional cultural (and Calvinist/Darwinian) belief that wealth is proof of goodness, and that that goodness then justifies taking more of the wealth.

Democracy in the workplace is known as a union. The most democratic workplaces are the least exploitative, because labor has a power to balance capital and management. And looking around the world, we can clearly see that those cultures that most embrace the largest number of their people in an egalitarian and democratic way (in and out of the workplace) are the ones that have the highest quality of life. Those that are the most despotic, from the workplace to the government, are those with the poorest quality of life.

Over time, balance and democratic oversight will always produce the best results. An "unregulated" marketplace is like an "unregulated" football game - chaos. And chaos is a state perfectly exploited by sociopaths, be they serial killers, warlords, or CEOs.

By changing the rules of the game of business so that sociopathic business behavior is no longer rewarded (and, indeed, is punished - as Teddy Roosevelt famously did as the "trustbuster" and FDR did when he threatened to send "war profiteers" to jail), we can create a less dysfunctional and more egalitarian society. And that's an important first step back from the thresholds to environmental and economic disaster we're now facing.

Okay, we know about all of this. Will anything happen as a result? It's a rip-off of every American taxpayer.

Bushwhacked in the Obamanation, but people never learn. Both sides are bought and paid for, so the Oligarchy doesn't care who wins, they always take the prize.

I went to my bank and withdrew a bunch of cash, about $5000.00. The teller looked concerned. Then a manager came by and tried to be friendly but he seemed concerned as well, then he had the audacity to ask me what I was going to do with the cash. I told him I was going to buy a boat and sail to Jamaica, which wasn't really true, but what the hell? He went and talked to some other person, they had a little conference. Finally they gave me my money. It was my money! What's their problem?

The Bastards Never Die
By JOE BAGEANT

Go to Counterpunch for a short history of oil in the 20th century. And if you think it has nothing to do with banks and finance, I feel sorry for you.

boblecht

Are these payments "bonuses" or hush money? The banks justify the payments by saying they must keep the best talent to rebuild. I suspect they want to keep these banksters within the fold lest they become disgruntled and blow the whistle on the scams and fraud they perpetrated to make billions for the few, then pass the tab to you and me. Dons want to keep their capos in the family because they know where the bodies are buried.

Regarding Citibank--I have taken out five loans in the past 10 years. Four were originated with various Parent Plus college loan lenders. The fifth--a remortgage-- was originated at my local community bank. Since then, three of the four college loans ended up with CITI. Two years ago my mortgage--probably after being sliced and diced--ended up being serviced by CITI. I have always despised this bank because of its lack of corporate ethics. To all you "free marketers"--please explain to me how this company that I hate and would never choose to do business with ended up with four of my five outstanding loans? They have soaked me with a number of spurious charges. In spite of all this free money, they needed me to bail them out? Adding insult to injury, as a taxpayer and citizen I now own 1/3 of CITI, so hear me when I say this-- PUT THIS PREDATOR CORPORATION OUT OF BUSINESS! It is far too big to survive.

Is America Fascist yet? Government of the people by the corporations and for the corporations is NOT Democracy--it is Fascism. You can look it up in your Webster's.

The reason for the billions in bonuses?

Because there are, what, 5 Big Banksters left?

And, between them, they have to share the very small gene pool of ruthless, conscienceless uber-greedy fellow Americans with the right skill set.

No different than, say, major league baseball - there are only so many great pitchers - and the highest bidders get them.

Plus, said uber-greedy fellow Americans need lots of bucks to help assuage the guilt they never admit to but suffer from...

There's a new deck of cards in Monopoly.
Out goes "get out of jail free" (habeas corpus)
In comes "bank error in THEIR favour."

And the Water Works is now the Water Board.

That's why I think this will fall through again, nobody has changed the rules they play by. Sure the banks pumped that initial taxpayer loan up multiple times by waving the magic wand.

The big executives who play this game are being rewarded for doing their magic. We will see!

TheProf has it right. When enough people feel enough pain something will give. I am concerned that before that time, the country will choose fascism and the ensuing battle will be bloody. I suppose it would in any case. The Wall Street Party will not give up without a fight.

My neighbor is almost 40 years old and when I told her the minimum wage in 1966 was $1.40/hr, gas was $.32/gallon and a house could be rented for $80/month she was shocked. It's only those of us who were around back then who know just how much we're being screwed today.

I read that the Europeans did it somewhat differently, imposing some rules on their banks, and the populace was infuriated that AIG gave bonuses to their European subsidiaries. In Europe the governments pay attention to public outrage.

Obama is not alone in this debacle. The House and Senate is still 50% conservative with all those Blue Dog "Democrats" (many formerly Republican) and throw in the moderates and it's impossible to pass progressive legislation. We need a sea change, we need to throw out both sides of the Wall Street Party and replace it with the Main Street Party. With the exception of this website, I find considerable enthusiasm for the Main Street Party with everyone I talk with, working people, small business owners and small farmers.

When the people fear their government there is tyranny,
when the government fears the people there is liberty.
~ Thomas Jefferson

JJ
while you treat the mental illness that has invaded the American mind get together with others move to an agrarian state. Learn to raise your veggies and animals. When things go pop you'll be a long way toward your own survival.

pjd412-- surely true!

The bailouts in W. European countries, vritually all of which are far more democratically governed than the US, may or may not reflect similar tendencys toward fascism/oligarchy there.

In any case, those bailouts don't in any way affect the validity of the premises one can draw about the USA's internal condition.

Why was it that the cost of health care reform needs to be paid for but the billions in bank bailouts was just added to the deficit without a peep about how it was going to be paid?

risingdawn -

Thank you for your post.

Whether the US mass population suffers from a formal psychosis or from a form of clinical mass hypnosis (asuming the two disorders are technically distinguishable), I agree that it is nevertheless clearly a very mentally unhealthy populace.

Unhealthy as they are, most Americans seem either to not know, or not suspect, or in any case not care about their own un-natural passivity toward the illicit uses of power against them, as perpetrated by their political and economic ruling class.

I believe the key to restoring healthy instinctual responses to the individuals who comprise Mass-Passive America can't come simply thru US progressives fighting logistical political battles for them, in their name.
Americans must instead first become aware that they ARE dysfunctionally passive; aware of Why they have become so, and aware of How and By Whom their passivity is systematically cultivated and maintained.

Even a modest amount of mass/individual insight, here, could have a profound effect on helping Americans behave more politically reasonably in the future.

As one Jungian to another, I would welcome any ideas,suggestions, or additional perspectives you may have as to how US political progressives could better go about Psychologically educating mass Americans in these regards.

It seems evident to me that, without any such greater psychological self-insight, most Americans will continue to allow their country's present slide into fascism and mass mental illness to continue, unabated -- arguably toward a world-engulfing, ruinous outcome, much as we saw happen with the fascist Axis meta-state, led by Germany, several generations ago.

Yeah, but you see, you have to look at this from the banks' standpoint. The big execs deserve the bonuses because they were VERY successful in scamming the public and getting the banks bailed out with taxpayer money, and then turning in huge profits besides! These guys are heroes in the banking industry, where morality simply doesn't exist!

Congress could have prevented bonuses, forced the banks to help homeowners stay in their homes, and demanded an accounting of all the money by simply writing it in the legislation. They didn't because they didn't want to. Goldman CEO Paulson asked for a blank check and got it.

Every excuse or feigned outrage from OBAMA and Congress is an insult.

I didn't even get a thank you note. Did you?

Joe

Over $10 billion for so few republicans (you know they are republicans) in these banks.

And the republicans want a mere $6 billion for the ENTIRE US population as start-up money for their universal "health care co-op" idea.

Does it get more glaring than this?

Ok, now... Whoever was not expecting something like this to happen please raise your hand. Anyone?

I'm usually not the nostalgic type, but every once in a while I get a hankerin' for a good old-fashioned tar & featherin' of slimy swindlers. This is one of those whiles.

As a Canadian I watched with equal horror and shock, as I did when Bush led the way to war, as the American people were being prepared for the largest financial heist in history. I thought, and almost every Canadian that I talked with thought, wow! how dumb can these people really be? I mean, they are about to be ripped off for their future and their children's future and they are going to allow it to happen? And guess what? Yes! They allowed it to happen. Unbelievable!!! I am a Jungian psychologist and I think the citizens of the US have succumbed to a mass psychosis of which the world has never seen. The Elite's know how these psychological processes occur, as this information has been adequately described in the annals of modern psychology, and they have used this science to achieve their ends: Fascist government! Goodbye freedom and prosperity and hello slavery and poverty!

It's only money. Yeah right!

Good ole US taxpayers, guaranteeing the bonuses of their Wall Street heroes. Oh those masters of the universe.

This will be remembered as the beginning of the end for Amerika--the rich now can await their punisment not by their fellow citizens, but by the rath of JEHOVA GOD!

Thank you, Obama voters

for all that change you can believe in.

Let them eat cake.

This baffles the mind how billions of tax payer money could go to these giant banks and the people get the pink slips. When Bush beat Gore in 2000 I told all my friends to prepare for a world wind of disaster, hurry into their local colleges and get a degree because things were going to get worst. Well, they ridiculed my ideas and decided not to pursue higher education and now they admit they were wrong, well too late. In 2002-2003 when Bush and most of Washington went in pursuit of an Iraqi war I tried to organize as much support on and off campus against it but everyone was too busy in their own lives to join a humanitarian cause and decided to wait out the storm, well the storm continues on with no end in sight. When Obama was running for office everyone was ecstatic while Nader warned us of his hypocrisy and betrayal but no one listened because either they were blinded by color or liberal guilt and we are stuck with a puppet. Now we are in the mist of yet another of the many turning points healthcare, financial crises and the never ending fight against a women’s right to choose and no one seems to care enough to set off a movement. Before we become a fascist country where health care is strictly for the elites, welfare only for corporations and a women’s right to choose is stripped from her we must act and do it soon because there comes a point in every situation where it will be too late to act.

Our Czar at work! Business as usual. I'm so glad they were too big to fail.