Stop the Madness

I swear if I hear the line "we need to give this compensation or bonus in order to keep good people," one more time I am going to keel over laughing. Are these the same Lords of Wall Street who drove us into what is now being called The Great Recession? Wow. I really think we need to keep these people in the same jobs, because, who knows, we may dig ourselves into even deeper holes!

And keep them from what? Apparently banks, you know, the places where you deposit money, they lend it, making you some interest and giving themselves a little profit, well banks also invest their own money. These bonuses and fat compensation packages are going to the traders, the folks who are making trades on Wall Street, investing dollars in all sorts of exotic financial instruments. Frankly, if they leave the banks and the Glass-Stengal Act which prohibited banks from trading, is re-instituted, we could solve many many problems.

But we all know that isn't going to happen. The huge compensations are also not going to be trimmed. This Administration and Congress lost their window of opportunity to change and reform America's financial institutions. Now we're getting lame credit card regulation, which gave the credit card companies a year running start to up interest rates, change late fees, and reduce credit limits. A consumer credit agency that will, what, monitor how these credit card companies are doing, and no further regulation on banks or Wall Street.

We had a chance to stop the madness. Now we're just getting business as usual. Except for this one case, where a judge is actually questioning the cozy relationship between Bank of America and the Securities and Exchange Commission. Count to ten and wait for someone to label him the new judge slime word: activist. I'd call him a hero.