By Dave Lindorff
The people who pose as journalists in today’s corporate media are
in awe and in love with the rich. How else to explain their fatuous
praise for the likes of Warren Buffett, who on one hand bets $5 billion
on Goldman Sachs shares, and on the other, posing as a disinterested
wise man and patriot, publicly advises Congress to go along with
Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson’s and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke’s
$700-$1-trillion bailout of Goldman and the rest of Wall Street?
Buffett, whatever else he is, is no fool. He looks at Goldman
Sachs, its shares knocked for a loop by the current crisis, but about
to become a merged entity—bank and investment bank combined—with
government backing to unload its bad credit risks—and he buys $5
billion worth of it, and then turns around and tells Congress to step
up and vote for a bailout which would double his money almost instantly.
What a guy! A true hero.
And then the corporate media praises the man for his “courage” and his “faith in the markets.”
But that’s only one guy. We also have the panic among Wall Street
industry lobbyists, working overtime to make sure that nobody in
Congress seriously tries to limit executive compensation in the
financial sector. As one lobbyist put it today, “If you limit the
amount a bank or investment bank can pay for talented people, they
won’t be able to hire them.”
Wait a minute. Wasn’t America famous for the “work ethic” of its
people? We’re always told that Americans want the “dignity” of a job,
and that we Americans have this wonderful “work ethic.” Give us a
job—any job—and, whatever the pay, we’ll buckle down and do it to the
best of our ability.
That apparently doesn’t apply to the upper ranks of the banking
elite, though. If they can “only” earn $400,000, instead of $40 million
a year, they’re not going to lift a goddam finger.
Smart guys like John Thain, chief of Merrill Lynch, and Kenneth
Lewis, head of Bank America, or Dick Fuld, head of now bankrupt Lehman
Brothers, would never do a lick of work in the Wall Street mines if
they could only earn a few hundred grand for their efforts. If that was
all they could earn, they’d rather stay home and clip coupons.
There’s your “work ethic” for you.
I’m not so bothered by the sloth and greed of the Wall Street
crowd. What bothers me is the respect they are treated with by the
journalists covering them.
I mean, come on. These are just greedy people who got where they
got because they went to the right schools, made the right connections,
and checked their principles and morals at the door when they entered
the building. Their sole motivation in life is making money—as much as
they can possibly hoard.
The truth is it’s pretty easy to get rich if you’re willing to
screw the public to do it, and it’s a pretty safe bet that that’s
what’s been going on with Wall Street, especially over the last two
decades of deregulated boom times.
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DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based journalist and columnist. His
latest book is “The Case for Impeachment” (St. Martin’s Press, 2006 and
now available in paperback edition). His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net
