“This is America,” Mr. Obama said on Wednesday. “We don’t disparage wealth. We don’t begrudge anybody for achieving success. And we believe that success should be rewarded. But what gets people upset — and rightfully so — are executives being rewarded for failure. Especially when those rewards are subsidized by U.S. taxpayers.”
It's no entertaining video, but it is certainly a well-stated, temporary remedy for a growing frustration with corporate CEOs:
Boo Hoo in the Boardroom
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I agree. Hearing this on the radio this morning, I nodded affirmation. I would have liked to hear more blame -- not blame for getting us into this... I suppose shame is a better word. At least in the NPR story in which I heard this sound byte, the President's comments were in relation to the Madoff scandal.
One has frequently heard others questioning just how this was allowed to happen, what oversight failed, how Mr. Madoff could knowingly do this to people. What I haven't heard, is anyone be shocked that he doesn't feel ashamed -- really ashamed, not simply embarrassed -- for what he did. He probably does feel bad that other people lost, but he never made it past the "fair play" part of free market theory; he made a judgment that he was more adept at manipulation and rightly stood to profit off of the inferior dupes. Justice never was, and never should be, simply the power of the strongest.
I don't know of any way to punish this sort of injustice if the guilty don't recognize their error. Imprisonment, forced restitution, or whatever else doesn't correct the problem. Having a bully sweep your cards into a pile after pounding on the table to knock down your card-house doesn't rebuild it -- even if he says he's sorry. The problem is that I don't know how to make that asshole realize that he shouldn't knock down the house in the first place. The bigger problem is that I'm not sure we can.
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