Wakefulness

I seem only driven to blog when I wake early thinking about the state of the world. I just need to get the stuff off my mind so I can go back to living in my world. The finance debacle woke me this morning. I just can't get over the failure of the supposed systems that were in place supposedly to prevent the financial rape that has occurred. Where were the mutual funds and pension funds, the biggest stockholders of these companies when the Boards of Directors and senior executives were plundering their companies and the savings of America.

A story about AIG's Board of Directors was the precipitating factor in my wakefulness. These people voted themselves $240,000 each per year while allowing the CEO and other executives to run the company into the ground and with it the American economy. Is their any price to be paid? Apparently not, since they continue to receive their stipends and go on as though nothing happened. Where were they when the bonuses were paid? Didn't any of them see how this would be perceived and raise an alarm. Guess not, since they didn't see how these payments would be perceived. They were too busy taking their own payments for 9 days work last year. CNN says we won't know how much they were paid until the SEC filings in April, but doesn't the government have access to this information. This will fall on the "rescue" effort just as the righteous and deserved anger over these bonuses begins to dissipate. Are they out in front of this or is their concern only after it becomes public.

Citigroup and the CEO's $38M bonus didn't seem to get the traction that AIG did. Perhaps its because we only own 36% and guarantee only $300B of their bad debt. It's time for some wholesale housecleaning. No one is indispensible. Perhaps the former banker on the front page of the NY Times who has been reduced to begging for a job on Craigslist could be hired to replace a couple of those bonus babies. But then, he probably can't teach the Chairman of the Board bridge, so he may not qualify, since this is apparently how some Executives were chosen, according to the author of House of Cards.

All this news is so disheartening. Other than watching my networth collapse I'm not really affected by this mess day to day. Unless the country goes bankrupt I'll be okay, but it doesn't help me sleep. It's all so unfair to all the people who go to work everyday, try and raise kids or live a decent life, not causing harm to the country and their community. I know life isn't fair, but this is out of sight. We can't continue to allow this rape and pillage to continue. We need to break up the companies which are too big to fail. We need to bring back real stockholder suits that can hold executives and Boards of Directors accountable for breaches of their fiduciary duty; we need to bring back serious taxation to the rich [not this asinine use of the tax code to punish AIG, but real taxation for those "earning" over $1M]; we need to beef up the anti-trust unit of DOJ and give them a backbone; we need to hold Congress's feet to the fire. When real anger reaches the halls of power they can move so quickly, albeit thoughtlessly. We need to keep the pressure on them when it comes to the legislation to really address these ills - no let them quietly serve the masters who pay their campaign bills.

The anger we feel towards AIG for the bonuses should also be directed towards the campaign contributions to the very Senators and Congressmen who will be writing the legislation trying to fix the system. The anger towards companies for their lavish parties and conferences should be directed toward the tax system and the people who write it that make these efforts so worthwhile to their bottom lines. We need to demand real reform, not the faux reform of the last week, trying to slake the fallout from the AIG bonus mess. We need to let them know we are watching their legislative response not just their words.