Every once in awhile you think that maybe, just maybe, this Congress and this President actually have some political courage. But it’s a fast dissipating illusion. Beltway courage is like bottle courage. Blows hard, talks loud and tough, then passes out before actually following up.
Take this latest business with A.I.G. bonuses and fat cat Wall Street bonuses generally. They seem to embody perfectly for the average American the vast gulf between what’s good for denizens of The Street and what’s good for the rest of us. The public was outraged when the story came out. Congress and the President got scared. They blew hard and talked loud and tough. The House even passed a bill dramatically limiting these grotesque, obscene, disgusting, and utterly undeserved pay-outs.
But that was a panic reaction. Then reality set in. Reality in the form of one of the best organized media blitzes ever put together by the bonus babies of Wall Street. It sprouted in the financial press and big news media generally, backed by less than subtle hints to folks in Washington who periodically purport to be our own representatives that if they don’t back down and let the oinkers continue to feed happily at their troughs with OPM (other people’s money), dire economic consequences would result.
No such consequences would result, of course. But it would take courage and an honest regard for the wisdom of the people rather than the self-serving bubble-blather of a self-described best and brightest on The Street to finish what was started when it came to bonus limits. So the Senate is about to shelve the House bill and Obama is about to meet with Wall Street heavies to apologize for his own presumption in challenging their right to keep a chunk of our tax dollar bail outs.
Wall Street’s biggest players will wax fat from the latest experiments issuing forth from the Treasury and Fed. Will the rest of us? Could be. You never know. Maybe some of the goodies will actually trickle down eventually. Stranger things have happened.
The next time a pol tries to make us believe in something called “change,” however, put it down to small change. When Wall Streeters squeal, Obama and Congress kneel.