Obama and The Bankers
I’m beginning to wonder if Barack Obama is completely clueless about the desperation that is clutching at tens of millions Americans these days. There are six people looking for work for each job available. A quarter of all homes in America have more owed on them than they are worth. Health insurance companies are increasing premiums, in one case by 39%. And AIG is paying out a hundred mil in bonuses. Not salaries or benefits, but bonuses.
The president makes only $400,000 a year in salary, plus royalties from his books, and he has very few expenses. When he leaves the White House, he will draw speaking fees of six-figures a pop. But you’d think someone playing the populist would at least have a sense of the pain the country is in.
However, in an interview with Bloomberg BusinessWeek, our feckless leader said he doesn’t "begrudge" the tens of millions in bonuses awarded to bankers. President Obama noted that what the bankers got was a lot compared to Main Street, but "there are some baseball players who are making more than that and don’t get to the World Series either, so I’m shocked by that as well."
Shocked? Like Captain Renault was shocked when he was told that there was gambling at Rick’s American Café in Casablanca. That was as he was handed his winnings from the roulette wheel.
Obama said that he knew the heads of JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs, whom he described as "very savvy businessmen." Added the president, "I, like most of the American people, don’t begrudge people success or wealth. That is part of the free-market system."
His insistence that ours is a free-market system is utter nonsense. First of all, because it was taxpayer money that kept the markets afloat. And second, because the bankers own Congress which makes the rules that allow the bankers to bilk the American people.
They may bring down our nation.
NB: Read Paul Krugman on this matter.
©2010 SetonnoteS
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