Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Cry Me a Toxic River   [Mark Steyn]

Re that AIG exec, Jules Crittenden says take this job-resignation letter and shove it:

Not to get all class warfare about it, but that guy lives on a different planet than I do. $742,006.40 after taxes sounds about like about what I made over about 15 years of 12 hour days plus getting shot at and yelled at a lot in the service of the Boston Herald, but the old man always told me I should be an accountant, and I didn’t pay any attention, so I’m not complaining...

Any financial brainiacs out there willing to work for something less than two million bucks? Never mind Mom, Apple Pie and the American way, how about $1 million? I bet we can fly in a planeload of financial brainiacs from Bangalore at a fraction of Jake’s price. Outsourcing Wall Street to India. That’d get their attention.

I'd be open to that. But, in reality, due to the "Buy American" provisions applied to bailed-out institutions, immigrant-visa employees from Bangalore working at TARP-ed corps are being laid off. You can certainly make the case that a lot of financial-sector execs are, like property and stocks, mostly mediocre assets that got used to being ludicrously overvalued as a permanent feature of life. But that doesn't change the reality that Barney Frank-style demagoguing is not just a distraction, but actively making things worse — not for the AIG guy, but for you.

Meanwhile, Sir Fred Goodwin, ex-head honcho of the Royal Bank of Scotland, has had his home attacked and vandalized. The political class's skilful misdirection ranks with those David Copperfield stunts where he makes the Empire State Building disappear. Except, in this case, it's your wealth that's disappearing.

03/25 11:18 PMShare