Ward on Words

Wall Street Journal has a fabulous story today about the success of one particular government entitlement program - the bailout of the banks. While unemployment remains high in America, while those on Social Security are likely to see cuts in their entitlement program in the near future, while our federal, state and local governments are seriously in debt, our financial sector gleams brightly as a vision of success. According to the WSJ story , the average monthly salary in 2009 in finance and insurance is nearly $12,000. A month. Up 23% from a year earlier. More than double the average in NYC. And that's just the wages paid to the new hires. Imagine the possibilities for growth in this sector!!! Especially when you can sell an instrument to one party and sell insurance (or take out insurance for yourself) that allows one to profit when the instrument you created blows up after you sell it off. (As long as you disclose the names of the people who purchase the insur...

On the same day we learned of the bleak June jobs report , with its grim news of nearly a half million lost jobs, the Wall Street Journal is reporting that the firms on Wall Street are on track for one of the biggest bonus payouts ever . 2009 has been particularly good for Goldman Sachs, the Journal reports: "Based on analysts' earnings forecasts for 2009, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is on track to pay out as much as $20 billion this year, or about $700,000 per employee. That would be nearly double the firm's $363,000 average last year, and slightly higher than the $661,000 for the average Goldman employee in fiscal 2007, according to analyst estimates reviewed by The Wall Street Journal." Ahh, the riches that come from having friends in high places! What good would Paulson’s TARP have been if it hadn’t been profitable for his friends and former colleagues at Goldman? He cleared out its competitors, fed it TARP money directly and indirectly through AIG. They’re ...

"Straddling the top of the world, one foot in China and the other in Nepal, I cleared the ice from my oxygen mask, hunched a shoulder against the wind, and stared absently down at the vastness of Tibet. I understood on some dim, detached level that the sweep of earth beneath my feet was a spectacular sight. I'd been fantasizing about this moment, and the release of emotion that would accompany it, for many months. But now that I was finally here, actually standing on the summit of Mount Everest, I just couldn't summon the energy to care." Thus begins Jonathon Krakauer's best seller, Into Thin Air . The thrill of achieving a lifetime goal - to stand on the rooftop of the world – is dramatically diminished by the overwhelming fatigue and lack of oxygen one finds at such a height. Sometimes I think that Washington, D.C. is like Everest. People arrive there and soon find themselves disoriented, out of touch, talking the nonsense that comes from the oxygen depr...

Oh to be a highly compensated Chrysler executive! You get to run your company into the ground, hold your hand out in the hopes it will be filled with government bailout money AND look forward to a big bonus at a time when everyone else is worried about hanging on to their job. According to this article in the Detroit Free Press, Chrysler plans to hand out $30 million in retention bonuses to its executives. And at least six Chrysler execs "are due to receive bonuses of more than $1 million a piece." As they move to line their pockets with millions, Chrysler executives are joining with Ford and GM leaders to ask the federal government for $25 billion in loans. Really? Seems that free markets are fab when you've got the feds to cover your losses. This I do know: when I buy my next car, it will not come from Detroit. Maybe the feds feel compelled to support failed business leadership - but I won't.