Wasteful and Disgusting

We have seen example after example of greed in corporate America, even as the standard of living in the country is going down for at least the next decade. Of course, there have always been greedy, egotistical politicians, but lately corporate pigs have been an easier target. Today, we got a reminder that lack of moral leadership is alive and well in Washington, providing the perfect example for corporate pigs to follow.
Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania apparently feels that it is his duty to take taxpayer funds and waste them on an airport named after him in his Congressional district. His defense of this monumental waste is that the aiport is a lure for companies to relocate there, thus increasing economic activity in his district. Never mind the fact that the airport is hundreds of miles from any major business center and handles an average of twenty people on any given day. The airport has three daily flights, all of which go to Washington, DC. I guess this is in case Rep. Murtha ever wants to make three round trips to DC and back in one day.
It's no wonder that Americans' faith in government continues to evaporate. I would love to ask Rep. Murtha, how much federal funding have you secured to improve the schools in your district? Do you feel that diverting taxpayer money to your namesake airport is more important than making sure that every person in your district has a decent shot at living the now nearly bankrupt American dream? If you made the average salary of the residents in your district, would you be upset at the amount of money being spent with no positive economic impact whatsoever?
Even when the arrogance of this man is exposed he displays no remorse. There is no better indicator of lack of character. And this man has served 19 terms in Congress. The people of his district are just as much to blame for the existence of this economic black hole. This is the main reason that wasteful bureaucracy has allowed to proliferate to such a degree. Shame on every one of us.

More Evidence of Nothing Changed

There were two very telling columns in yesterday's New York Times. Frank Rich, whom I have come to admire greatly since he stopped writing about trivial subjects like style, wrote a column about how he hoped the culture of greed would change now that we seem to coming out the other end of the worst economic crisis in 75 years. In the other column, Graham Bowley and Louise Story wrote about the exodus of so-called "top talent" from Wall St. firms that have received government funds and are now subject to compensation restrictions to new upstart firms and foreign instititions who are hoping to continue the culture of greed and reap extraordinary, unnecessary profits from the kind of market activity that precipitated the crisis in the first place.
I read the Bowley and Story column first because Mr. Rich's column is sometimes hard to find in the online version. I was thoroughly disgusted to see that the lessons Mr. Rich hopes have been
learned are being discarded for the continuation of the status quo.
One insinuation in the Bowley and Story column was that the "top talent" is irreplaceable and represents a very small percentage of the people who work in the financial industry today. This is completely ridiculous. Every day many smart people go to work in America in positions that require them to be extremely talented and saavy. To imply that there are very few people alive who can replicate or repair the incredible crisis created by these elite minds and continue to manufacture the unrealistic returns that contributed to the bubble that burst is absurd. An Ivy League education does not automatically anoint you as a Master of the Universe. We do not need these people to perpetuate the financial system.
What we do need is a discussion about the subjects that both Mr. Rich and I have raised before.
The culture of greed must be purged. Allowing people to make a billion dollars in one year leads to excess and not just excess income. It also leads to the type of mentality Mr. Rich talked about where the dollar becomes an end in itself. This is a relatively new phenomenon in America. We used to be a cohesive society with shared values. Now the unfettered capitalism brought about by thirty years of deregulation has brought us to ruin and the so-called "top minds" don't want to change a thing. I don't call that intelligence or innovation, I call that greed and blindness. They are playing the government for saps.
It is clear that to demonstrate the visionary leadership necessary to rid us of the culture of greed a socialistic approach needs to be adapted. There should be compensation limits imposed on every business operating in the country. Any pay in excess of a certain amount should be collected and placed in a fund to improve the infrastructure and school systems. That would also include the cost of a higher education. To place the advantages of a higher education out of the reach of those who make less income is social injustice in its highest form and does nothing to solve the world's problems. No wonder so many young people grow up feeling that they are powerless and their lives mean nothing. What's amazing to me is that the so-called "top minds" have so little understanding or concern for the long term implications of their insatiable greed.
Of course, these so called "top minds" would also be the ones leading the fight against the kind of societal change which is clearly needed in the aftermath of our current crisis. I fear that even President Obama does not have the courage to do what is necessary to combat this ingrained greed for fear it will be politically suicidal. But doing so would instantly rank him near the President he has already been compared to: Abraham Lincoln. Let's hope our new President can demonstrate the kind of leadership necessary to show those who are wrongly called "top minds" what vision really means.