Peter Morici puts banker bonuses in perspective:
How much is $140 billion?
The U.S. economy grew at a $89 billion annualized rate in the third quarter. That was the first growth since the second quarter of 2008 and came to $22 billion in actual growth in the third quarter.
The bankers, after causing the greatest economic calamity since the Great Depression, are rewarded with six times the growth accomplished so far in the much heralded “economic recovery.”
Meanwhile, seven million families face foreclosure and 25 million Americans can’t find full time work.
I believe I will laugh, so I don’t cry. America is so very, very broken, that this could ever happen.
Hahahahahahahaha.
b.
40% of all 401(k) – one trillion. 40% of all pensions – call it another trillion-and-a-half. 30 years of flat wages. The pending “special needs” default on the diverted trust fund – up to another trillion. Fed treasury and GSE guarantee of liar securities – up to another trillion or two?
People have been dying, tens of thousands a year, because of a dysfunctional health tax extortion system. But then, the same people have a tradition of supporting killing hundreds of thousands of “others” in remote places. There has no been any real change, 9/11 just offered an excuse to drop the pretenses. Public sentiment is surging!
BDBlue
Don’t worry, Ian, just this morning Obama said some very mean things about the bankers so I’m sure he’s going to fix everything!
jo6pac
This isn’t a big problem because it will get worse and not better any time soon. Sad
marcopolo
This is stunning. Again: the facts (like this) are out, but the public is at the mercy of a beholden mainstream media. In so many ways, that is the bottleneck in the system. There are other impediments to change, but I feel intuitively that is the most critical or susceptible to change. And I could have that wrong.
link please
do you have a link to the piece that the quote is pulled from ?
the link provided takes us to the professor’s bio.
thanks
ballgame
Agreed.
ballgame
link please: I suspect that this article by Morici is the one Ian was referring to. In addition to the figures Ian cites, the article also contains this priceless quote:
Ian Welsh
It’s not from that article. Morici sends out emails and I’m on his email list. As far as I’m aware it’s not an article published anywhere on the web (I’ve suggested to Morici that he should publish them, he chooses not to.) So, the link to Morici’s bio.
Harold Slatore
Try this one.
Harold Slatore
http://www.rhsmith.umd.edu/opinion/morici/2009/121409a.aspx
Here is the link again. Didn’t realize it would hyperlink to my name the way I first sent it.
lambert strether
Hilariously, the bankster CEOs couldn’t be bothered to show up physically today so Obama could try to embarass them into lending more. Why, after reading this story, do I think there are going to be problems with that strategy? (Unless you’re part of the Dem leadership, and laughing all the way to the bank.)
Mandos
Relatively speaking, this is hardly very broken. America from time to time has been broken-er. There’s still a long way to fall.
I say this as encouragement, not discouragement. If I can detect as many outrage-generated memes as I have so far at this early point, then improvement in the situation might actually be ahead of schedule.
Mandos
For example, I thought it would take at least another year for the Kos Kidz to turn on Obama, but they’re turning on him already. So we may soon have the opportunity to test out the operant conditioning technique in November.
Whee!
Lex
There is definitely still a long way to fall. The question is whether America is still close enough to the edge to grab hold and yank itself back up.
I hope i’m wrong, but i’m seeing a WB cartoon character way out over the edge, legs moving fast enough to blur and oblivious to our position…as if we’re suspended by ignorance alone. It’ll all be fine until we look down.
Mandos
Eh. Every large-scale crisis has that characteristic.
Ian Welsh
How very tiresome. This should not even be possible, and it is unlikely to change in 2010 or 2012. Yes, the US is broken. This is open looting.
Mandos
Your view of history is way rosier than mine. I thought the American people were being looted in Clinton’s time.
Ian Welsh
So did I. Stop being presumptuous and putting words in my mouth I haven’t spoken.
Mandos
Oh. I thought you were responding to my response to Lex’s response to my response to your OP, so I made a deduction that was mistaken.
Ian Welsh
The difference between now and the Clinton era is that this is after the sort of massive crisis which made what is happening clear to everyone. They are still looting after they visibly and in the sight of the entire population, caused a massive crisis with huge real world effects.
A non broken response to that would be to not allow it. The US is, in this regard, even more broken than the UK, where they are putting a 50% tax on bonuses, and where the government has told the banks when they threatened to move high level employees out of Britain “you do that”. Britain’s still mostly broken, but not as broken as the US.
2010 and 2012 will not help, because the Republicans will not be any better, and may well be worse. If they engage in populism, and they may well, it will be right wing populism with deeply stupid ideas (a flat tax, say, is exactly the wrong thing to do.) This game will have to play out till at least 2017. And in between, I sincerely expect another war.
This was our last chance to turn back Bush’s Republic. Instead Obama has reaffirmed all major aspects of it, including its monetary basis and its legal basis.
There is no quick way out. There may be no way out at all. We may have one more kick at the can after the next period of Republican primacy. That will be the last chance. The US is not on a sustainable trajectory.
Ian Welsh
Thanks Harold, updating link.
Mandos
The future you envision has a more-than-nontrivial chance of coming to pass, no doubt, but 2010 and 2012 are not a done deal for the Republicans. A recent Gallup poll:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/124661/Race-2010-Remains-Close-Democrats-Recover-Slight-Lead.aspx
Of course, the base is demoralized, but still.
Ian Welsh
They may or may not take back Congress and the Presidency, but I guarantee the margins in the House will be much narrower, and I would be shocked if they aren’t in the Senate. They may even take the House in 2010. If they do, Obama’s going to wish he was never born. Congress WILL be more Republican.
Lex
Indeed, Mandos, i wasn’t trying to suggest that the situation is somehow special to America. I’m not an American exceptionalist in any sense of the word. But i do think that Americans are #1 in willful ignorance. Raise these issues with people unlikely to read/comment on blogs like Ian’s (even smart, liberal, well-intentioned people) and you can see it: it’s like they know that if they look down they’ll fall so they simply refuse to look down.
That’s a huge problem because if there’s any hope it will come from recognizing the situation, acting on it and preparing for what is likely to be required of us. It’s not the fall that kills you, it’s the landing.
“There is no quick way out. There may be no way out at all. We may have one more kick at the can after the next period of Republican primacy. That will be the last chance. The US is not on a sustainable trajectory.”
I was thinking on this a lot yesterday (mostly thinking how the best idea is probably to get the hell out and put an ocean between myself and the US), and i woke up this morning with 2020 stuck in my head as the date. I’m coming to the conclusion that if we don’t start really fixing all that’s broken by then, we probably won’t be able to fix it.
dougR
Am I the only one who’s thinking Canada is looking better and better? I’m getting up into the age bracket where you start having serious medical issues that impinge on your continuing to work, which in America you must, in order to (among other things) afford health insurance. This is a horrible country to get old in, and when I voted for Obama I thought even if you factor out 50% of his rhetoric, he’d still be our best hope for a society that truly promotes the general welfare (so to speak). Instead, it looks very clear that there’s no one (except a few outliers) in the corridors of power who are interested in anything but getting rich furthering the corporate agenda, nor will there ever be, now. Nowhere except in Obama’s rhetoric can you find the kind of country I’d like to live in. Haven’t packed my bags yet, still gathering info. And sure, Canada has its crazies too, but I think it’s possible to live there without the niggling daily terrors (of job loss, of bankruptcy, of medical catastrophe) that this country absolutely refuses to address (and increasingly seems institutionally incapable of doing so).
Mandos
Delong makes the case that disproportionately enriching the bankers is necessary and proper to bringing about a recovery.
Ian Welsh
Yes, well, there’s a reason I only read DeLong these days when I want to know what neo-libs think. (If you can call it that.)
Mandos
Since I always want to know what neolibs think, I read him all the time 🙂