As I said on another thread...I would be a lot more open to believing his sanctimonious blather today if he had refused some/all of those bonusses over the years; i.e., "it is morally and ethically wrong for me to accept million dollar plus bonusses when the company is losing $100s of millions of dollars each quarter."
This article shows that even in the financial community there are those who are concerned about the track America is taking and how it is destabilizing a society that has long been viewed as the strongest economic miracle in the history of mankind. The insights are particularly interesting given that they are coming from a country where equality has long been more of a goal than reality.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/american-privilege-rots-an-empire-from-within-2011-12-11?pagenumber=1
American privilege rots an empire from within
Well-paid professionals are contributing to U.S. economy’s demise
Key quotes:
"The gap between the rich and the rest, which has roughly doubled over the past two decades in the United States, is an inevitable result of competition. Of course, competition motivates people, and inequality is often a price worth paying if it motivates people to make the pie bigger. All could be better off with a bigger pie, even if inequality worsened. Limiting competition improves equality but decreases incentives for people to work. A society needs to make a trade-off between the two.
Inequality worsens in an environment of limited competition, as inefficiency and social friction rise
Some 45% of federal expenditures go toward health and social security programs. This slice of the spending pie is expected to rise to 51% of total expenditures by 2016. Unless something happens that suddenly disrupts this upward spiral, these two parts of the fiscal budget will bankrupt the country.
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Meanwhile, the federal government spends a mere 3% on education. Local governments fund most education services through property taxes, yet it’s shocking to see how little the federal government supports youths as opposed to retired people.
Historians have all sorts of theories on why the Roman Empire fell, blaming everything from religion to barbarians. My take is that every empire in history eventually rots from within when privilege, not contribution, becomes the basis for compensation.
