The newspapers are full of Wall Street businesspeople and conservative economists and pundits worried that all this demand for an end to multi-million bonuses is going to destroy our economy by driving away the best talent frmo the firms taking government bailout money. A typical quote from the Washington Post:
"I honestly think TARP banks have a grave risk of losing just the people they need to keep to help get them out of trouble," said Pat Wieser, co-head of financial services at Rhodes Associates in Manhattan, a boutique executive recruiting firm.
So let me get this straight: in this horrendous economy, with companies in the financial sector shedding massive numbers of jobs, these firms can't retain or find people smart enough to manage their assets in a responsible way? With the fate of the entire global economy at stake? There aren't enough people who are both skilled at managing finances and patriotic and moral enough to step into the breach and save their coutnry and the world from even worse economic crisis?
I know I have beaten up on Wall Street bankers a fair amount, but I think whis way underestimates just how depraved and immoral they are. With the fate of our ecomony in the balance, I believe that these companies can find enough talented people who are willing to make that ultimate sacrifice and not receive a multi-million dollar bonus this year.
The enormous complexity of the economic mess that we are in makes an incredibly smart man like President Obama understandably irritated with people who want to simplify everything down to a quick either/or equation. I understand that, and am sympathetic to the overwhelming swirl of nuance, subtlety, ripple effects, and unintended consequences inherent in every Presidential decision when the stakes are this high.
Sometimes, though, you just have to make a basic "gut check" decision to go down one basic path or another. To his enormous credit, that's what Obama did on the economic recovery bill, his budget, and his framing of the health care, energy, and education issues: he decided to go big, bold, and progressive in all of those areas.
Now he has to do that on the issue of these big bank and insurance company bailouts.
