Today was a good day to be on Wall Street. The Dow nosed above 10,000. Big banks are enjoying resurgent profits and assembling pay packages that could be bigger than the boom year of 2007, The Wall Street Journal reports.It would seem then, all the outrage last spring was just a show for the "regular folk". Once the beast was quelled with rising balances the injustices and inequities no longer matter.
Did something bad happen last year?
Is it time for another storm of populist outrage in Washington? Maybe, but not today.
After indulging in a round of populist outrage last spring, Congress and the Obama administration have turned down the volume. Technocrats at the Federal Reserve and the Treasury’s pay czar, Kenneth Feinberg, have taken over the task of devising ways to make it harder for banks to reward risky behavior without killing competitiveness. Institutions that receive bailout funds are still subject to certain limits on executive pay. Feinberg is wrangling with American International Group, one of the biggest bailout recipients, over bonuses the company says it’s obligated to pay to certain executives.
Hmmmm, fickle fools and Wall Street-a match made in heaven.
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