Toronto Star: Culture of greed under attack

[marmar]

McQuaig: Culture of greed under attack
Barack Obama may not get it but the SEC finally is taking action

Published On Tue Apr 20 2010
By Linda McQuaig
Columnist


Anyone hoping to see the financial titans of Wall Street brought to heel couldn't help but feel glum when Barack Obama defended the latest round of grotesquely large bank bonuses.

“I, like most of the American people, don't begrudge people success or wealth. That is part of the free-market system,” the president said in a recent interview with BusinessWeek, commenting on the multimillion-dollar bonuses paid earlier this year to Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan, and to Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman Sachs.

What was most disturbing about Obama's comment was his apparent belief that Wall Street in some way resembles a free market — rather than a sheltered casino where bankers can get incredibly rich playing the odds and count on government to bail them out when the wheel goes against them.

“I know both those guys,” said Obama, referring to Dimon and Blankfein. “They are very savvy businessmen.”

Of course, business savvy is easier to come by when government can be counted on to help in a pinch. For instance, following the 2008 financial meltdown — triggered in part by the actions of JP Morgan, Goldman and other big banks — JP Morgan got a temporary injection of $25 billion from U.S. taxpayers; Goldman got $10 billion. ........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.thestar.com/opinion/article/797733--mcquaig-culture-of-greed-under-attack

[Angry Dragon]

1. Perhaps

some of the people that post on DU are correct and Obama is bought and paid for.

[Raster]

9. He is bought and paid for. He's just packaged a bit more "acceptable."

You don't get to be President or pResident unless you are owned. The last President we had that was not corporate owned was Jimmy Carter, and they took care of him.

[Captain Hilts]

2. The Toronto Star is probably North America's last progressive paper. nt

[marmar]

3. Yes. I like that their editorial page is pretty unapologetic about its progressivism.

nt

[Captain Hilts]

4. Yes. I read it regularly. I used to read the BGlobe and Inky, but they've

taken hard right turns and though I do read conservative columnists, I don't want to reward what they've done.

A dear DEAR friend of mine was a major official with the Star. Great guy. Played cards with the Beatles and flew with the Blue Angels.

[gcomeau]

5. Bull. Shit.

That full quote is:

"And I, like most of the American people, don't begrudge people success or wealth. That's part of the free market system. I do think that the compensation packages that we've seen over the last decade at least have not matched up always to performance. I think that shareholders oftentimes have not had any significant say in the pay structures for CEOs."

Changes the meaning just a teeny tiny bit now doesn't it? He was doing the OPPOSITE of defending the damn bonuses and I am sick of seeing people mutilate that statement to make it say the opposite of what he actually said and any major newspaper getting that quote that wrong this long after it happened is fucking inexcusable.

[Captain Hilts]

6. I see where you're coming from, but until he gets the Goldman folks out of his cabinet...

he's vulnerable on this issue.

[Skittles]

7. that's the part where he tosses a bone to the people

[Bluenorthwest]

8. The real problem is calling what we see 'success'

although he says it is not tied to performance. Success is not tied to performance, a wonderful meta lesson for our nation. That is not the opposite of defending them, it is defending them with an asterisk. Not the same.