House of Eratosthenes

The issue is the bonus paid to Wall Street executives. Bonuses. Bonuses for I-don’t-even-know-how-many “executives” or what exactly it is that they do.

Our current President has never allowed a dearth of information to get in the way of a frothy opinion, though. For a guy with such a rep for this “calm demeanor” I keep reading about, No-Drama-Obama can really go on a tear when He wants to:

Overpaid Wall Street executives and employees are a rather easy target these days.

So it didn’t take long for President Obama and Vice President Biden to respond today with outrage to the New York state comptroller’s report that despite the financial meltdown and the federal bailout, bonuses totaled more than $18 billion last year.

The New York Times front-page story this morning said that was the sixth largest total in history, though it also noted that it was the largest drop on record, from about $33 billion in 2007.

“Outrageous” was Obama’s reaction, according to spokesman Robert Gibbs.

Obama told reporters that the bonuses are not right when the firms were seeking help from taxpayers, who are tightening their own belts and were being warned that the financial system could not fail.

“That is the height of irresponsibility,” the president said.

“It is shameful,” Obama added.

“And part of what we’re going to need is for folks on Wall Street who are asking for help to show some restraint and show some discipline and show some sense of responsibility. The American people understand that we’ve got a big hole that we’ve got to dig ourselves out of — but they don’t like the idea that people are digging a bigger hole even as they’re being asked to fill it up.”

Biden agreed, and went further. “It offends the sensibilities,” Biden said in an interview on CNBC. “I’d like to throw these guys in the brig. I do know what they are thinking, and they are thinking of the same old thing that got us here: Greed. They are thinking: ‘Take care of me.'” [emphasis mine]

If there’s something to indicate “these guys” didn’t earn the money they were paid, it was left out of the story. I haven’t been elected to anything yet — but be that as it may, on my planet, that means they probably earned it.

And if they earned it, it’s not the “height of irresponsibility” to pay it to them.

Is this some alternative meaning of the word “bonus”? When I’ve received bonuses, by the first quarter of that year — that would be January, a year ago — there was some gleaning of how the bonuses were to be earned. Maybe that’s not always binding…in fact, it usually isn’t, it’s contingent on how well the company does…but the actual pay-out is just following through on these guidelines that were set up previously. I know Obama and Biden don’t want me to have a decent working memory, but I do gots me one, and I remember all this bailout-this and tumbling-Dow-that started up somewhere around the end of the third quarter of ’08. Not all private companies did okay before that point. But many did. Many did more than okay.

Frankly, I’m outraged by the President and Vice-President’s attempt to make this look like a December-25 itch-between-the-ears, when they damn well know that isn’t the case.

But here’s what really frosts me:

What the hell is an economy, anyway? It’s people paying people to do stuff. Right? Goods, services. That means, people and companies pay money to other people and companies, in order to acquire a claim on their time and treasure.

Sometimes, there’s no difference between a job being done adequately, and a job done excellently. None whatsoever.

Other times, there’s a huge difference. This is why you tip the waiter and hostess when it’s your first date with the lady and you really want to get into her pants. It’s also the reason why people earn bonuses in certain industries…like the financial industry. Obama & Biden are supposed to be pretty sharp guys. I would imagine they’re plenty bright enough to see how, when you acquire financial services from financial professionals, you’d care about getting excellent service rather than “eh” service. So there are probably going to be bonuses paid.

In fact, let’s take another look at this part —

The New York Times front-page story this morning said that was the sixth largest total in history, though it also noted that it was the largest drop on record, from about $33 billion in 2007. [emphasis mine]

Okay, then.

Financial people — who are going to be the very first to be paid bonuses, one could reasonably assume, out of pretty much the entire economy — are paid bonuses. Most of the time, out of a plan that has been in place throughout all of 2008, the first two-thirds of which were alright. The bonus payout was therefore mostly just follow-through. And it was a decline from last year’s figure of about half.

Which, as Neal Boortz points out, is going to cost New York City about a billion dollars in tax revenue this year. One city. A billion dollars.

The amount of money these folks did manage to scoop up, is offensive to Smug-n-Plugs — oh, dear. I guess they’d like NYC to be out another billion.

Just something to file away, I guess, when they say they want to stimulate and revive “the economy.” If these guys aren’t trying to fool people, then it comes down to this: They wouldn’t know what an “economy” is, if it ran up and bit ’em square in the nuts. They have a problem with people working, and as a result of getting the work done, being paid big money. When that happens, in fact, Joe Biden wants someone thrown “in the brig.” And by big money, I mean money outside what’s normal. What they consider to be normal. They won the election, and now they want to define what normal is…with some jail time to back it up, if Biden has his druthers.

Folks — that is socialism.

Update: One can’t help but wonder: Are those overpaid, evil Wall Street bonus recipient executives indulging in Wagyu steak?

Update: I wonder what cheeriogirl would think of the dichotomy? I’ve got a gut feeling you could spend an entire year showing it to her, and she’d never quite see it.

I cannot tell you how much better I feel with [Barack Obama] at our helm.

Nice clear rules to follow, set out ahead of time. There will be no counting to three for infractions from this President!

I also love how he warns that his newly administered rules INCLUDE the SPIRIT of the law, and how he holds himself accountable to all of these rules. Obama does not, and has not ever considered himself above the law.

How refreshing is that?

And you folks call yourselves the Reality Based Community. Hehehehe!

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Time to Panic: Obama’s Outrage Outrages MeThursday, January 29th, 2009

Time to Panic: Obama’s Outrage Outrages Me
Thursday, January 29th, 2009