Pig Power Triumphant

The federal government via the Treasury and Federal Reserve have shoveled literally trillions of dollars into bank and other Wall Street coffers using various direct and indirect techniques. And in response to public outrage over the compensation being received by executives at these institutions, Congress passed laws to limit excess executive compensation at companies getting government bailout funds.

Now, however, according to a report in the Washington Post, the Treasury and Fed are actively working to circumvent these congressional-mandated limitations. The reason is that banks, hedge funds and other Wall Street entities have made it clear they won’t accept federal money they could pass along to consumers and businesses in the form of loans, or use to buy more of the toxic assets now cluttering bank balance sheets, if compensation limitations are part of the deal.

Viewed from a purely common sense perspective, this stance seems incomprehensible. While helping get the overall economy out of its deep funk, these Wall Street entities themselves would benefit greatly from accepting federal money. But common sense, and indeed common decency and simple patriotism, aren’t at work here. What’s driving this refusal and the Obama Administration’s bending before this refusal is pig power.

Top Wall Street executives don’t manage their own money, they manage the money of other people, other investors, you and me, and are now holding this money hostage to their own piggy demands for continued huge compensation packages. They are saying, in essence, we won’t allow our institution to do what’s best for the people of this country in a time of crisis, and what’s best for our own investors, unless we continue to feed royally in the present and future as we have fed in years past.

Sharing even a fraction of their fellow American’s pain in a time of crisis is not a pig virtue. These worthies are not about to pull back from the trough any time soon. Certainly not while Summers, Geithner and Bernanke are setting government policy. Its pig power triumphant.