Sure during great times, there should be some reward for Upper Management and Executives that were part of the increased success of their company. However, the key word is increased success, so it can not always be reward and no concession. What ever happened to no pain, no gain. The Bank Executives took this to an all out extreme; they gave themselves bonuses even when the roof was caving in. Especially considering they earned it with Bogus gains on paper that could never have been actually realized. The fact is most of the people in this industry could care less about the common worker or investor. They still don't understand, if we don't have people making decent salaries at the Mid and Lower end, we can not have an even decent economy and create wealth. Those of you that understand the industry, know that they are basically making money off the ruins of companies and destroying the Retirement funds of regular Americans because they don't have the ability to protect themselves. It is really sad our Government and Media can not figure out it is problematic so called "good" Business people, who usually don't and in many cases couldn't have a conscience, are allowed to make money whether the Stock Market Goes up or down or whether a Home Owner keeps or loses their house.
I believe a lot of these obvious problems have not been solved because they have to do with Class and Politics. The government doesn't want to look like it is affecting the Business sector negatively, by regulating the Free Market, because the Republicans, or should I say fake Conservatives will go crazy. The only problem I have with that is, what happened to those Free Market Conservatives earning their money and not stealing the money from the Innocent Retirement Funds & 401K's that people actually work hard for. The Democrats who are supposed to represent the Middle Class, which should be described as the Working Class, or should we say the Truth the Working Poor. Correct me if I am wrong but the 2 biggest employers in the United States is Wal-Mart and Temp Agencies, most of those are NOT Middle Class people, they are the Working Poor. If they truly represented the Working Class wouldn't things be different for them by now. Example Minority Groups have in some cases blindly supported the Democrats over the last 30 years, and what have they gotten for that. You would think they would all be living like Kings and Queens by now. I personally believe the Democrats don't have the BackBone to fight the Republicans to deliver anything. They may really care, but you must fight if you care. At least I can say the Republicans deliver the goods, K Street being the best example which is also a great example of Hypocrisy. How can you have a group of Politicians that call themselves Conservatives, which like myself are supposed to stand for smaller government and then have a K-Street that represents the exact opposite?
Here are some solutions to these problems: I think if the Media and Politicians really care about these issues, they would see part of the solution to our problems by becoming Americans again. Stop all of this Class & Political Warfare. The Upper Management and Executives are pushing down this country, by overpaying and over bonusing themselves. I heard during the election over and over, Obama is trying to re-distribute the wealth, by so-called Conservatives. The fact is the so-called Conservatives already did that within Wall-Street which is primarily made up of pretend Free Market Conservatives or should I say Free Market Crooks. If you consider the fact that Wall Street and their buddies cleaned our clocks right in front of their eyes, and Business Executives lie and enrich themselves on average 300 times to 400 times their base employees. I would say there are a lot of Hypocrits that are playing games with the Media and the People while they are re-distributing the Wealth.
In my opinion this is a HUGE opportunity for the Government to Create Jobs in this industry, by getting rid of most of the Executives and Upper Management in these companies requiring Tax Payer money. We can hire smart, honest people that make $50,000 to $150,000 each and replace all Upper Management and Executives with 2 competent Executive people, remember 2 minds are better than one. Even if you did this, these companies' Salaries would be a small fraction of what it currently is, and you could easily find replacements. The Governement could setup a Realistic Bonus Program that will pay for ONLY success that can be realized. This will solve the Bogus excuse that is currently being used to explain the current Bonuses being paid. Somehow we are supposed to believe these are retention Bonuses, which is either ignorant or negligent in my opinion. Why in the world would we want to keep the people that got us into this situation? Would we pay anyone else that screws up this bad, retention Bonuses? If that were the case maybe we should start paying Doctors that KILL most of their patients retention Bonuses. I believe the real reason these people are being paid is so that they can get more of our money before they abandon ship, like many of them already have. What also gets under my skin, is people saying they are dealing with complicated issues above their Pay Grade, so we need these people because they understand. WOW, in my opinion the only thing most of these people understand is how to steal our money. The only reason why many people don't understand including the Media, is because these so called complicated financial products are BOGUS! Get rid of all these complex financial products, and end STOCK SHORTING right NOW, it is so ridiculous people are making money off Stocks going down, and in many cases actually destroying decent companies.
It is a total shame at a time where people are in need of Food, Housing, and Jobs to get themselves on better footing, the Executives in the Banking Industry need Bonuses to just do there Job. This reminds me of a saying I created in my early twenties; "Nowadays people think they get paid to go to work, so they want extra pay to actually do some work!"
