Millions of Americans are sacrificing every day. Some are cutting back on luxury items like movies, entertainment, good food, and heating. Some Americans are starving. Others are serving our nation in a foreign land--being shot at by those who would do our country harm. But Wall Street executives and traders live on as if nothing happened--they live care free lives of ridiculous excess, and they refuse to play by the rules that so many Americans fought to establish.
As working Americans fight and die in Iraq and Afghanistan, Wall Street executives enjoy golf tournaments, spas, and private concerts with rock stars. When the President of the United States dares to ask a little more of these fortunate individuals by proposing a measly 3% tax hike on this nation's wealthiest individuals, he is met with outright scorn.
They tell us to "Obamaize our portfolio." They claim that the President is a socialist, the mother of all insults on Wall Street. (Of course, these are the very same people who penned "we are all socialists now," columns in the immediate aftermath of the financial collapse). It seems as if Wall Street is for socialism, as long as they're the only ones who benefit from it.
The prospect of subsidizing rides on luxury jets and $800 brunches rightly enrages hard-working American taxpayers. But, outside of an excel sheet, the concept of risk, cutbacks, and sacrifices mean nothing to Wall Street executives.
Today, the New York Times reported that bailed-out firm Goldman Sachs is offering six figure "quality of life" loans to its employees:
"Goldman, which accepted billions of taxpayer dollars last fall and, as learned Sunday, was also a big beneficiary of the rescue of the American International Group, is offering to lend money to more than 1,000 employees who have been squeezed by the financial crisis. The loans, offered via e-mail last week, could range from a few thousand dollars to hundreds of thousands...
Goldman’s employees are losing money on their personal investments — particularly in Goldman’s own elite investment funds, which have been considered one of the perks of working at the bank.
Now these funds have stumbled, and some Goldman employees who financed their gilded lifestyles by borrowing in good times are suddenly short on cash needed to meet commitments to their personal investments in the funds. "It’s a problem with the culture of spending," said Gustavo Dolfino, the president of Whiterock Group, a Wall Street recruitment firm. "No matter how much you have, you spend like you have a lot more."
Somewhere along the line, the concept of risk was corrupted. Any money which is invested is money which could be lost, or could be doubled. But somewhere along the line, Wall Street executives and traders forgot that fundamental lesson. Their lavish lifestyles became an entitlement; in their minds, they are better than everyone else, so they deserve it.
And so they see nothing wrong with using government money to subsidize their ridiculous lifestyles. They see nothing wrong with forcing regular Americans, who lost their job because small businesses can't get credit, to bear the burden of this rotten economy. They see nothing wrong with teachers being laid off, with students being crammed into classrooms like sardines, with parks turning into tent cities of despair, with life saving medical care being awarded via lottery, after all these people are "losers" in the eyes of Wall Street executives.
Only on the insulated island of Manhattan can people who did nothing wrong be blamed for this nation's woes while those who caused this mess receive seven figure bonuses. Only on a Wall Street which has forgotten the basic lessons of capitalism can risk be confused with entitlement. And only in that alternate universe can using the government to subsidize the high life be considered a good idea.
I am encouraged that the Senate may act on taxing bonuses to employees of companies which are receiving bailout funds. I hope that any legislation Congress passes is loophole free and addresses loans made to employees and other ways of subsidizing the high life. If Congress passes such legislation, and if the President signs it, then maybe Wall Street executives will finally get that sacrifice means going without things you'd like.