Less Finger-Waggling, More Solutions

I'd like to know which of the idiots in Treasury - Geithner, Summers, Volcker, whomever - thought that business-as-usual would work when people face losing their jobs and homes and retirement savings.

And, really - are our elected representatives so clueless, so far removed from how the average citizen lives and so devoid of common sense, that they didn't even blink at this crap?

Because it's not just AIG, as Old Buddy Dave pointed out in yesterday's comments - it's executives for Fannie & Freddie. It's Citibank's Vikram Pandit approving a $10 million office remodel (for himself), even after the government had previously criticized the company's plans to buy a $50 million executive jet.

Maybe the reform we need is to knock legislators' salaries down to $50-$60K a year, which is nearly twice the median salary of an American worker. What's happening to our economy isn't a Democratic problem or a Republican problem - it's an American problem, and y'all need to be demonstrating that you understand this better than you do party ideology.

Next, as far as corporate executives go, let's talk about retention bonuses and performance bonuses. If you screw up and your company goes bankrupt, you shouldn't be receiving either. And, frankly, what's with the bonus for doing your job? For the rest of us, it's called a paycheck.

Third, why exactly are we paying fear-mongers any attention at all? It's been almost a decade-long parade of fear. Fear Saddam's WMDs. Fear the terrorists who might have Saddam's WMDs. Fear the gays, the liberals, the pagans, the immigrants, the socialists, the fascists, the communists. They're coming to take away your guns, your Bibles, your children, your tax dollars. This is the spirit that put its thumb in King George's eye? That conquered the West? Turned the tide in Europe when Hitler was on the rise? Sent men to the moon? Builds aircraft carriers? Could have fooled me.

Finally, the media needs a time-out. Or a collective spanking. It's not just loudmouths like Jim Cramer dispensing stock advice; it's bloviating turds like Rick Santelli (who suggested that the AIG bonuses were 'no big deal'). It's every last Sunday talking-head show that has reduced rational discourse and complex issues to endless yammer-fests in which we repeat each other's talking points.

Less filling, tastes like shit.

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