Untitled Document
In December, while children were enjoying visions of
sugarplums dancing in their heads, the barons of Wall Street were having
much richer dreams — and all of theirs came true. The top dogs at the big banking houses gorged
themselves on record payouts that have taken greed to new heights of
obscenity. The honcho of Goldman Sachs, for example, grabbed a bonus of $53
million — the highest ever taken. And he’s only been CEO since
June! Likewise, Morgan Stanley’s chief ended the year
with a sweet bonus payment of $41 million; Lehman Brothers’ top
executive got only an $11 million bonus, but he’ll also receive $189
million in stock grants over the next 10 years. Bear in mind that these
lavish awards are in addition to their regular salaries, platinum-level
health-care packages, rich pension plans, and all sorts of kingly perks. Ah, yes, say the corporate royalists, but such
extravagant wealth is richly deserved, for it’s the reward for
“taking risks” in our system of corporate capitalism. But if
it’s “risk” that our economy is to celebrate, then why
not hail drug kingpins as pillars of our society? Besides, these brokers
are risking not their own personal money in their firms’ speculative
ventures but the assets of shareholders and clients. And when their
ventures turn sour, as often happens, they don’t have to pay out of
pocket — in fact, many are paid bonuses anyway. Note also that much of the profit reaped by Wall
Street banks comes from corporate takeovers that result in job cuts,
inferior products, inefficiencies, and loss of competition. Our economy
loses, but the top bankers still walk away with fat bonuses. These guys are greedheaded profiteers — not
“risk-takers” to be either praised or emulated.
Jim Hightower is a national radio commentator,
columnist, and author.
This article appears in Jan 11-17, 2007.
