Let us put aside the verifiable fact that bankers were the sole cause of the 2008 economic meltdown. Let us forget that not a single banker has been put behind bars by the Department of Justice for knowingly issuing inflated home mortgages. Let us forgive Wall Street for their past misdeeds and look at how things are today.
Oh dear. I’m afraid things are not much better.
Remember the trillions of dollars Obama gave the banks to bail them out? Well, not a single cent has been paid back to, you know, the people who bailed them out: we, the taxpayers. Just the other day, Attorney General Eric Holder testified before Congress that there are no people or institutions “too big to jail.”
Well, the facts seem suggest otherwise. Here, let’s have some fun with numbers:
Total CEO Compensation for 2012
– James Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase & Co.
$23,105,415 (includes salary, bonuses, stock options, etc.)
– John Stumpf, CEO of Wells Fargo & Co.
$19,843,021
And the lowest?
– Brian Moynihan, CEO of Bank of America
A paltry $8,087,181
Now, I’m not saying these individuals don’t put in a good, hard day’s work. I’m sure they oftentimes have to cut their afternoon rounds of golf to nine holes instead of eighteen. But these are the men (mostly older, white males) who drove this country into the worst economic recession since the Great Depression and not only were they not punished, they were rewarded by the U.S. Government. While Main Street struggled to keep the lights on, Wall Street threw themselves a nice big party.
And that’s just something, I think, that doesn’t sit well with any right-thinking person.
