bailout dead

Those financial houses who decided to invest heavily in MBS?

You're correct, in that I only know two facts about the situation:

1st, that most if not all the financial 'big boys' were into these shaky securities;

2nd, that most if not all of their execs will get their severance packages.

Logic tells us that someone made the affirmative decision to become heavily involved in these leveraged MBS deals at each of these financial houses; I don't have access to internal deliberations, but are we to assume that those at the top had nothing to do with it? Or that they were all simply mistaken about the risks they were taken? Neither of those is compelling to me.

As Lehman is in bankruptcy, will he get his parachute? I don't know enough about bankruptcy to say.

Bill, that makes sense, if we are talking about mortgage brokering businesses; but, we're really not. We're talking about financial investment houses. These guys weren't writing mortgages, they were choosing what to invest in, and that most definitely was directed at the top.

Those financial houses who decided to invest heavily in MBS? They can't blame the phucking mortgage brokers for their decision! And that is what is causing our problems today. The defaults on mortgages are bad, but the spread of the problem to all areas of our financial system is worse, by a lot; because while the houses will eventually regain value, the system which used those shitty securities to make obscene profits will have to be bailed out, by us, or face collapse. Frustrating

OB wrote: "As for wages; a CEO's ability to negotiate high wages and golden parachutes, etc. are commiserate with his ability, whether you can fathom that or not."

Perhaps I can "sympathize" with your position that a person ought to be paid what they are worth. But, these days, CEO pay is commensurate with CEO ability to fire tens of thousands of Americans and ship their jobs overseas to take advantage of cheap labor pools, their ability to park billions of dollars of corporate profits in foreign accounts in order to avoid U.S. income taxes, and their ability to hire lobbyists who are able to convince Congress that these things are in the best interest of our nation.

DrewDad: "CEOs are paid their salaries precisely because they're called upon to make those tough, high-level decisions."

You don't see any downside to outsourcing millions of jobs that used to belong to middle class workers and promoting loopholes that allow corporations to evade income taxes on billions in profits? I see you're in the "corporation first" rather than the "country first" league.

I love when America outsources jobs! It usually means someone needed it more elsewhere and was offering to do it at more competitive rates than an American.

If you find the gap between CEOs and employees obscene how could you not find the gap between the US and third world countries obscene?

I'm world first, and if Americans are losing jobs to workers who are willing to do it for less than they charge that's a good thing for the world. It's growing the middle classes of developing nations.

We push free market capitalism on them because we believe in it as a country, and this is part and parcel of it. I'm happy for the developing nations world wide when I see them becoming more and more competitive with first world nations. If they can do it more competitively, they deserve it and I'm happy that this is only going to grow and grow.

Being born an American used to be considered to be born with a winning lottery ticket. And a country that prides itself in its meritocracy shouldn't put up barriers to the growth of other nations in areas where it's not competitive while bludgeoning developing nations into opening their markets where we are competitive.

This is the capitalism we preach, and I for one am very happy when it works out well for more than just the rich nations.

DrewDad: "CEOs are paid their salaries precisely because they're called upon to make those tough, high-level decisions."

You don't see any downside to outsourcing millions of jobs that used to belong to middle class workers and promoting loopholes that allow corporations to evade income taxes on billions in profits? I see you're in the "corporation first" rather than the "country first" league.

A. Not seeing a downside to outsourcing millions of jobs that used to belong to middle class workers

B. Promoting loopholes that allow corporations to evade income taxes on billions in profits

C. I see you're in the "corporation first" rather than the "country first" league.

RG, You're being a bit harsh here. The economic development of any country is not because we don't want them to succeed. It depends on their government, educational system, infrastructure, and stage of economic development. It's not realistic to expect that many of those countries we now call "third world" to catch up in wages or anything else just because we wish it.

Huh? Hypocrisy reigns supreme.

At the same time people are deliriously screaming "go home wetbacks" because the Mexicans supposedly want to take our jobs for less money, you and your ilk are deliriously happy to send our jobs out of the country to people who want to take our jobs for less money.