Bonus Bubble! Thanks to our Government's Intervention

You have no doubt seen the news. Goldman Sachs and AIG are paying out bonuses bigger than even at the height of the boom. There is too much competition out there to pay any less, they say. This may be true or it may not, but what is certain is that just about every big Wall Street investment house should be busted right now, which would have thrown thousands of well-paid financial wizards out into the street. If things had gone the way things should have gone without government intervention, there would be so much competition for Wall Street jobs that the remaining few employers could get away with paying one-tenth, maybe, of what they're paying today thanks to us taxpayers.

So I can't resist expressing my frustration.

[Click on the image for a larger version.]



And don't bother commenting that without government intervention we'd all be out in the street. I don't buy that argument, although I admit no one can prove what Might Have Been. (We didn't die after Lehman, did we? We could have declared a bank holiday for a week, gotten the crap off the balance sheets, and moved forward with a healthy but skinnier bottom line--maybe.)

PS: Apology to Messrs. Blankfein and Liddy: I do not incriminate you in this sad story. You, Messieurs, are only doing what comes naturally, i.e. what wolves do. They devour. I do, however, accuse the people who run around in the red-white-and-blue costumes calling themselves "Uncle Sam" and "Auntie Samantha." They are the sneaky wolves in sheep's clothing, the ones who say to us, "Let us fix all that ails you. Everything's going to be okay." And we're so dumb we fall for it.

Not funny.