Risky Business

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Over the last week we have watched as the US stock market has gone on a very scary roller coaster ride. In the last few months, we've watched as some of the largest financial corporations in the world have failed, gone into bankruptcy, and in some cases have been "saved" by the US government with our very own tax dollars. Just this morning, Treasury Secretary Paulson announced a major "bailout" plan for these huge companies in crisis. He said, and I quote:

"We're talking hundreds of billions of dollars - this needs to be big enough to make a real difference and get at the heart of the problem," he said. "This is the way we stabilize the system."

Where's this money coming from? US tax dollars. Your money and my money. Right now they're just digging a deeper hole into the national debt, but in the end it's our hard-earned money that's paying for this. I understand that it's a necessarily evil right now - if some of these companies were allowed to fail - and I do think that many of them should be allowed to fail in most cases - after all, they are risk-based businesses and where's the risk if you know the government is going to bail you out when you fuck up? - it would cause a global economic crisis even bigger than the one we're seeing now.

But one thing that's not being discussed and I think really should be is the CEO's and executive officers of these large corporations who really are at the foundation of why these things are happening. While we've seen that the regulators for Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac have denied their CEO's their so-called "golden parachute" severance packages, the fact remains that these people are still ungodly rich and are going to move on to be on the board of directors and executive arm of other large companies. It's just how the business works.

I think these men and women at the very top of these institutions should not only be denied their severance packages, but they should also be held accountable in other ways. If you're on the board of Countrywide or Lehman Brothers, you shouldn't be allowed to take another job on the board of another large company for, say, ten years. It's not like these people are poor, either. They're rich, white men and women, and what they don't get out of their golden parachutes they easily have in some kind of investments - and probably have been smart enough to invest in things that most of us can't afford or don't understand - things that aren't doing poorly in this crisis like precious metals and oil.

So I ask you, my friends and readers, to write your Senators and Representatives and ask them to make sure that these sleazebag executives get held accountable and pay a price for what they've done. This isn't a democrat issue or a republican issue - it's an everyone issue.

Technorati Tags: SEC, Stock Market, Taxes, Accountability, Golden Parachute, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Bailout, Financial Crisis.

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