Josh Marshall says ...

8 Words of Wisdom for Week Ending 4/3/2009 #4

On the one hand, I can understand the argument of Jake DeSantis, the AIG executive who says he agreed to stay and work for a year in exchange for a big bonus, was repeatedly assured he'd get it, and then was muscled into giving it up after a big popular outcry. 'A deal's a deal' is always a strong argument.

On the other hand, when the public is funding the project, you're just inherently out on a limb when you say: "Okay, I put in my year of work. Where's my $1.5 million?"

When the companies have come to the taxpayer hat in hand, begging for money, at that point you're into the average citizen's moral space, in which it becomes her or his business whether you really deserve that much money -- something that people just don't think is their business as long as you're talking about private corporations making or not making money in whatever way they're able.

For what it's worth, that's the way I think too. As much as I think some exec paychecks are obscene and point to real imbalances in our economy, I'm really leery of limits on pay levels in private companies. To the extent that executives are paid too much, it seems like a broader issue of poor corporate governance, since shareholders shouldn't be willing to pay executives obscenely more than they're worth. But that's sort of the point: shareholders, in practice, exert little real control over this sort of thing. (And I suspect, though I don't know enough about this stuff to know, that that's the case because in the post-1980 stock market, investors are much less concerned about the functioning of the companies -- in a direct sense -- than their ability to drive stock valuations.) But, yeah, when a company would be out of business without taxpayer help? Then we're in your business. Do you really need $15 million as opposed to $2? Is your mortgage that high? Do you have that many kids in school.

Look at the AIG bonus situation as a symptom of everything that is wrong with the GOP and as a perfect example of why they are not only incapable of governing, but cannot even comprehend the idea of a well functioning government.

In the GOP of 2009, it is all ideology ... 100 percent of the time. This means that government has no business interfering in the affairs of a private enterprise ... even if that enterprise is receiving funds from the government. You can see it in their failure to investigate cost overruns, not to mention outright fraud, in Iraqi reconstruction projects. You can see it in their failure to demand accountability from the large arms manufacturers who receive billions in government dollars. Finally, you can see it in the financial firms who have been bailed out. No matter how much money a private enterprise takes from the federal government, they are not to be held accountable. They are not to be held to increased scrutiny. They are not to be regulated.

With today's GOP, there are no practical concerns. It's all about kneeling down to the power of conservatism. They are why we are in this mess, and they remain the largest impediment to getting out of it.

Source - Talking Points Memo