Unemployment and foreclosures continue to rise and Wall Street reacts predictably to Obama's call for executive pay cuts. What planet are these guys from? Perhaps they should try living on a teacher's salary, or a nurse's salary and gain a sense of appreciation for the challenges faced by the rest of the American people, many of whom would be thankful to have a job at all.
While Americans are still facing financial hardships greater than any since the great depression, one might think that the executives on Wall Street would feel a sense of gratitude to the American people for rescuing them from the crisis that would have completely wiped out their employers and ended their careers.
According to Bloomberg News you won't find much gratitude on Wall Street. A spokesman for the Bank of America whined, "People want to work here, but they want to be paid fairly." But what is fair? What if they each were paid what a nurse is paid for changing bedpans and caring for the elderly? What if each was paid what a teacher is paid? What exactly do they do that makes them worth so much more, particularly in light of their disastrous performance?
When they and their industry are responsible for so much loss of the value of the retirement plans of millions of Americans, they feel no remorse and are anxious to get back to business as usual, which for them includes salaries up to 400 times that of their average employee.
Obviously, they suffer from an unlimited sense of entitlement that we need not tolerate.