Listener of music, capturer of moments, transcriber of events, practitioner of humanitarian magics, lover of the living.
October 21st, 2009
My last post was a short riff on Matt Taibbi’s diligent one-man mission to expose the failures of financial oversight. His reporting has been one of the few salves for my disgust over the unchecked power of financial institutions that have accepted taxpayer money, and his tenacity has helpfully reminded everyone who forgot just how badly we were fucked over last fall. Today’s news regarding impending pay cuts and caps for those institutions represents a much-needed sign of fight from the Obama Administration and a tick in the win column for seekers of justice. (Savor the moment—there’s a good chance this decree will dissolve in some back-room amnesty deal. My faith in our system has only marginally increased).
The news seemed to catch everyone by surprise, including the very employees soon to be affected by the sweeping changes. An avalanche of e-mails overwhelmed mail servers throughout the day as companies prepared for the shock of government intervention. I was lucky enough to secure a selection of e-mails from an unnamed insider, and I’d like to share a few of the highlights with you. Enjoy the schadenfreude!
Guys, they can’t REALLY take the private plane back. How will I get to meetings in Denver, helllloooooo? And okay, no more than 25 grand for country club memberships?! Hah, right. They obviously don’t know what a good country club costs – so out of touch!
When you’re acclimated to a particular lifestyle, it’s got to be tough to take a few steps back. In this case, “a few steps back” represents adjusting to an income that’s a couple of million dollars less and void of the use of a private plane. Jesus, that’s tough.
I just called my lawyer to see if this is legal – news flash, NO IT IS NOT. This is against the Constitution and they can’t take away money that I have rightfully earned by being smart as HELL and knowing how to make money. So we stumbled a little bit last fall! We’re back and going bigger than ever and they want to stop the party?
I’m sure there will be a number of similar reactions over the coming days and weeks. How dare the government reach its filthy Fed hands into the pockets of private business and extract their rightfully earned wealth! It’s kind of like when private business reached into the taxpayers’ pockets and extracted our money, except they turned around and made that into more money for themselves. Who wouldn’t want to keep that party going? Because hey—free money!
This last e-mail may be my favorite:
Stop freaking, bro. They don’t have the balls to go through with this because they know that if they cut off our incredibly reasonable compensation packages we’ll just go somewhere else or quit the financial industry and go Galt on their asses. There are TONS of places that are desperate for financial dudes like us, anyway – who else knows how to make. that. money, SON. Talkin’ bout some money for nuthin’ and some chicks for DEEEEEZ NUTZ! Seriously, let’s take the company jet back to Vegas again this weekend – I’ve got a gigantic duffel bag packed full of cash I forgot about (part of last year’s bonus) and it’s getting musty.
Man, it sure will feel good when we can get a few strings attached to this whole state-sponsored cash infusion for financial industry idiots.
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Listener of music, capturer of moments, transcriber of events, practitioner of humanitarian magics, lover of the living.
Ben
This is funny, but it’s also NOT funny. This is only going to effect 30 some people anyway – and it reeks to me of a political move that makes me “feel” like their doing something to deal with the situation when in fact (as you have noted before) they haven’t done jack to put regulations into place to keep this whole mess from happening again. And what about oversight? Seriously, other than this gesture, what has Obama done that’s different from what McCain might have done? Puh-leeeze. This is a drop in the bucket and i’m not just slightly parched, i’m fucking thirsty, bitches!
Chris
I know, I know. This move certainly doesn’t represent the bloodletting I would love to see happen all across the entire financial sector, but a quarter pound of flesh culled from 25 executives at each of the seven bailed out banks is a reasonable start. That’s 175 executives that just had their egos checked and their interests re-aligned, and that doesn’t include the other executives at AIG who now have their pay capped at 200 grand.
To your point, Ben, this is about the minimum required to get people to say, “Finally! Something!”, but it certainly doesn’t represent the regulations necessary to keep an economic collapse from happening again. It does feel political, and it doesn’t even touch firms that benefited big time from the bailout but didn’t take money directly from the government (ahem, Goldman Sachs). But my hopey, Obama-inspired optimism tells me this is just an appetizer. Financial reform may be the most politically tough part of legislation, and this administration is obviously going to have to be very methodical with its future maneuvers. I only hope that they are as thirsty as we are.
Ben
cause i’m fucking PARCHED!