IS THE ONLY REMOTE CHANCE AMERICA HAS TO GET THE ELECTED MOVIE STARS, I MEAN ELECTED OFFICIALS, TO CALL FOR JUSTICE AND TO LOOK BACK TO FIND THE CRIMES THAT HAVE BEEN COMMITTED!

THE MOVIE STARS WANT TO BE REELECTED, AND IF THERE IS ENOUGH PRESSURE (SUSTAINED OUTRAGE) BY THE VOTING PUBLIC, THE MIGHT JUST TURN THIER BACK ON THEIR BANKSTER FRIENDS…AND THE APPOINTED MOVIE STARS WHO GAVE US THIS FRAUD.

Yes feeling outrage is a moral response but clamoring or outright pushing outrage, if it is not done in a just way and sincere way, is an immoral response.

Also, some of you, perhaps even all of you, have little moral right to throw the first stone.
Does this for a second mean that I condone the bonuses? Of course not! You know it! But I am sure some will say I do… just because it is convenient.

And as for the outrage at the AIG executives, I remember J.Kwak’s colleague S.Johnson criticising banks for putting a gun to the head of the US Govt., effectively blackmailing it with the threat of provoking a financial collapse unless their demands were met. This situation seems still to be real, and the AIG behaviour is just another part of it. So “bonusgate” isn’t irrelevent, it is totally relevant to exposing and attacking the power of an entrenched special interest intent on holding the US to ransom.

As stated, whether your Op-Ed piece did more harm than good is not as relevant to me personally as that you seek to pursue and present a position that touches on issues that are near and dear to my (and a multitude of American’s) heart. While I agree that there may be a certain danger, or certainly, lack of focus, in not seeing the forest for the trees, I also believe that you don’t know what you don’t know. And I’m glad for people like you who bring me into the know….to offer intrigue so that I am motivated to search for facts so I can feel like I’m forming an educated opinion.

What is really going on? I believe this is a huge smoke screen.

Keep the public focused on something that creates a lot of emotion and lets see what we can slide under the radar.

The next 6 months are going to prove very interesting.

My understanding is that the outrage was over madeira wine and import duties. We colonists liked our booze more than our tea. :-)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madeira_wine#Early_American_history

On a more serious note – about all the outrage, moral hazard, pay for performance, competitive advantage, and all the associated “Fill in the blank” philosophies I can only say that all this flurry of activity over the current crisis doesn’t mean a lot because we, as a species, aren’t ready to learn any lessons from this current global three ring circus of financial craziness. Not yet, anyway.

What do I mean by the above?

In a nutshell…

1.From numerous studies performed in the pursuit of understanding human cognition – status is a zero sum game – in human behavior, humans can never get enough status, power and wealth and no number of Sunday school sermons is going to change that.

2.In study after study, the conclusion is that homo sapiens spend money like drunken sailors – many, and I mean most of us don’t behave responsibly, with an eye to the future, or with long term planning. No amount of personal responsibility lectures, 12 step programs or Suzy Orrman books are gonna change that.

Human behavior, based on millions of years of evolution, developed a short term benefit weighted, Hard Wired brain algorithm – in other words, we tend to take the short term solution rather than the long term. It made perfect sense when in a completely natural environment, a human was old and decrepit at age 30 and tomorrow was not at all a given.

But, this short term weighted brain does not fit in the world of today at all, and this is becoming more painfully obvious, first during the last few centuries, and now, decade by decade.

We act surprised that so many folks took mortgage loans they could not afford, charged out credit cards they can’t pay, have not saved a dime in 60 years on this earth, (and the list of behavior is a lot longer than this!) and then we act more surprised that the banks, prodded by profit mad investors, handed over the money in a greed induced frenzy to all these giddy recipients. Eh heh, eh heh.

My two cents – modern humanity will continue to go from boom to bust until we address fundamental human behavioral issues and destroy the myth of a completely unflawed rational human mind that can control our daily behavior – it does not exist.

We, as a species, need to be regulated but only after we understand what the heck needs regulating, and we are getting there through critical research in evolutionary psychology and cognitive science.

We are a product of evolution, and we have to deal with this issue some day to reign in our stone age minds.

Simon, Paul Krugman, et al, may know a process to fix our broken banks based on the many previous times they’ve seen broken banks and economies all over the world and during the last century,(yes, we should ask why does this keeps happening).

Maybe Geithner will get lucky, who knows, and we might even get our economy moving again on some level of consumerism in the next 5 years, (very sustainable model, eh?), though along the way, this is going to hurt many, many people who have not a clue what got them in such straits.

IMO, the real fix won’t come until we try to understand evolved human nature and integrate it into our human existence. If we don’t, we’ll be doing this all over again in the not to distant future.

If we can afford it.

With those fines we might be able to compensate the taxpayer for the bonuses that should not have been promised by AIG but were.

I mean while we’re at it why do we not also invent some retroactive fine mechanisms?

I believe this is really extortion. If the bonuses aren’t paid, AIGFP people will take their inside knowledge elsewhere to trade against AIG’s book. Which ought to be criminal.

“The handful of souls who championed the firm’s now-infamous credit-default swaps are, by nearly every account, long since departed. Those left behind to clean up the mess, the majority of whom never lost a dime for AIG, now feel they have been sold out by their Congress and their president…”

But who cares about them, and I agree. Let’s give ‘em plenty of abuse just because it makes us feel better! But bare in mind that AIG has just had billions. You don’t want all the staff to be walking out of the door, as any sane person would, if it was made abudantly clear to them that the public thinks they’re evil money grabbing tools.

“Nobody is going to give it back and then stay,” said one of the firm’s employees. “If they give back the money, then they will walk. And they will walk into the arms of AIG’s counterparties.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/18/AR2009031804104.html?sid=ST2009031801503

Punishing bankers should come behind raising employment in your list of priorities. If it doesn’t, why bail-out the financial system in the first place?

This is akin to offering immunity to a murderer to “catch the bigger fish.” It’s the sign of a corrupt methodology and players who just can’t see beyond the current set up. A set up, which, BTW, they brought into being in the 90s.

Please do some reading.

That alone tells us how corrupt and rotten the system really is.