I'm looking at two articles from The National Post, Thursday, Feb. 5th, 2009.
One title reads: 'Obama Caps Wall St. Pay'.
The other title offering an obviously Conservative-Republican perspective, reads: 'A Bad Time of Exodus of Talent'.
I had to laugh at the title of the second headline. The question that begged an answer was, and still is, 'Where's the talent -- in bankrupting a company?' Anybody can do that. It doesn't take much talent to bankrupt a company.
The first article by Janet Whitman starts off like this:
New York: The party may be finally over for Wall St. CEOs.
After years of increasingly bloated pay packages, top executives could soon see their lavish lifestyles crimped as Barack Obama, The U.S. President, unveiled plans yesterday to crack down on compensation.
No kidding, Sherlock!, says this writer here. Perhaps 800 billion dollars too late when most of the 'foxes have already fled the chicken coup'. But at least we have an American President who is willing to stand up to Wall Street -- verbally and on paper at least. At first take anyway. There still needs to be an 'execution of effective action', and that may be too little, and too late. Read on. Some of the important details are in the small print -- just like in those 'Trojan Horse/Virus Mortgage Contracts'.
At stake here also, is the full essence and all the concrete definition components and implications of Adam Smith's concept of a 'free market'.
The Republican-Conservatives go 'free market this' and 'free market that' -- 'free, free, free...'
Wouldn't we all like to be that free? Wouldn't we all like to be able to write our own paycheques -- particularly if there is millions or even billions of dollars in the bank account that we are writing our cheque from? Now that is free! Free gluttony!! Pigs at the feeding trough -- using the money of the American taxpayers, many of whom are losing, or have lost, both their jobs and their homes. Is this what Adam Smith had in mind by 'free market'. The freedom of Wall Street CEOs to write their own paycheques, bonuses, and golden parachutes -- on the backs of The American taxpayers, courtesy of The American Government subsidizing Wall Street failure, and at least borderline fraud. Oh, I forgot. The Trojan Horse/Virus was in the 'fine print' of a 'legal' contract. Always read the fine print in a legal contract. That's where Wall Street -- and many other narcissistic corporations with borderline to no ethics -- will pulverize and kill you. It's the Wall Street-interpretation of Adam Smith-'free market' American way. Freedom to kill you with a smile on their face. And a financial-torture-rack on your back. Squeezing the economic and emotional life right out of you. And no government 'restraints' to be found anywhere around. At least that was The George Bush-Republican way. We will get to Obama in a moment.
First, to back track a little further, one has to wonder whether all those 'front end cheap/back end will kill you' mortgage contracts were initiated at the Government or the Wall Street Banking level. I have a hunch they were initiated at the government level although I do not believe that has been fully ascertained. At first take, you might think that the American Government -- read the George Bush-led Republicans since they were running the American Government when this happened -- might have been actually trying to 'help more American people with lower credit ratings and/or less financial funding to have the opportunity to own their own home'. Or was it just another manipulation. Or a manipulation that was added by the banks. You get these people into houses that they can 'borderline afford to pay' and only become of the 'easy entry process' -- and then you start to tighten the screws with all these back end hidden interest charges that eventually squeeze the people right out of their homes. That hardly qualifies as an act of 'Government and/or Wall Street benevolence and altruism'. But then again, who ever said that Wall Street was about benevolence and altruim? That is when you would expect better leadership and ethical restraint, law and order from the American Government -- who are supposed to be protecting not only Wall St. interests but also Main St. interests as well.
However, that has much to do with the failure of the Bush-led American Republican Party -- a pampering of Wall Street, and a 'look the other way approach' to what Wall St. was doing to Main St. America.
Enter Obama.
Obama ran a brilliant campaign. He is a brilliant speaker. We have not heard such a motivating speaker since...Martin Luther King...
Obama said most of the right things in his campaign -- there were a few blunders along the way but nothing to seriously derail the 'Obama Express' -- all about restoring ethics in Washington and getting rid of the corporate/special interest lobbyist groups that were narcissisticly corrupting Washington -- White House and Senate alike. And saying it with a level of at least apparent depth and substance that most of Main Street -- young and old alike -- was re-ignited into thinking optimistically and enthusiastically about politics again. And that was pretty hard to do after 8 years of President Bush, the Republicans, and even the largely Democratic Senate that was full of its own ethical and functional problems too.
However, still, Obama won the American people over with the passion and content of his speeches. Visions of Thomas Jefferson and Tom Paine and Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy rising from the dead. A new, bright sun rising over America where before there was nothing but an eclipse and the bigger and bigger stench of more and more soldiers and civilians dying on Middle East foreign shores. Vietnam re-lived all over again. The American people were getting fed up with war -- and what it was doing to their economy as well as to many of their sons and/or daughters. The American economy was being drained by 2 different wars on two different battle fronts -- particularily Iraq. Indeed, it still is.
So Obama starts speaking. And the world starts listening. A rising political superstar -- an 'idol' in the making.
But idols are fine for campaign elections. Raise the expectations of the American people to the highest of heights -- during a campaign election.
Then start 'downsizing' all these 'idol expectations' -- as soon as you get elected.
Because Obama any way you want to spell it -- does not spell 'God'.
I was on Obama's campaign bandwagon. Trumpeting Obama to the max. And I still hold the highest of hopes for President Obama. But now we are down to the political 'grunt-work' -- transferring and downsizing 'political ideals' into 'negotiated pragmatic political settlements'. While still trying to keep up with all those those campaign promises as much as possible.
It is a whole different kettle of fish winning an American election -- admittedly a far from easy task in itself -- and effectively running a country as big as The United States of America. Bush won a campaign -- twice -- but he wouldn't win any campaign popularity contests now. Eight years of being in The President's office will do that to you. Especially if you leave the office some trillion dollars in debt. Campaign idols die easily in The President's Office.
You can please some of the people all of the time. And you can please all of the people some of the time. But you can't please all of the people all of the time. (That is a DGB modification of something someone famous once said -- Abraham Lincoln maybe?)
To be continued...
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