Ward on Words

In February, Frontline aired a documentary "Inside the Meltdown, " a documentary on the financial crisis. I was very busy with work and missed it when it aired on TV, but watched it last night online. I recommend it as a great resource for anyone looking for information about the collapse of our economy. At one point, Senator Dodd recounts the moment the Treasury Secretary informed an elite group of Congressmen about the situation. After being told that Congress needed to hand over vast sums of money or the global economy would collapse, says Dodd, "there was literally a pause in that room where the oxygen left." We were all left gasping for air when we were told that "the system" was drowning in toxic assets and the great titans of capitalism needed socialism to save them. Money from the feds was needed - vast sums of money, trillions of dollars had to go to these Wall Street firms to "bail them out" - no strings attached. That ...

Execs at "too-big-too-fail" AIG got fat bonuses this week, despite the fact that their company has in reality failed and would be out of business were it not for a massive infusion of federal (tax) money. And people on Wall Street and in Washington seem caught off-guard by the populist outrage spawned by these bonuses. The legal obligation claimed by Tim Geithner to use tax dollars to pay large sums of money to failed execs has apparently enraged large numbers of people who live outside of NY and the Beltway. They simply do not understand why, at a time when the economy is in the toilet and millions of people have lost their jobs, the people who played a role in the collapse of the economy are being rewarded with millions of dollars in bonuses. And it is puzzling. We keep hearing that bonuses for performance are an integral part of how Wall Street does business. These struggling firms need to pay large sums of money to "the best and brightest" in order to re...