People are incredibly angry these days. The governing class in America fears a "populist backlash," as the New York Times dubbed it. They are worried that if ordinary Americans get mad enough, they will derail recovery plans. But this isn't only a Joe Six-Pack phenomenon. Anyone with a decent sense of morality knows that the bad guys are being rewarded. Fat cats earning bonuses for demolishing the economy seem like thieves being paid to rob banks. Only in this case the bankers were the ones who robbed the bank.
Morality is founded upon taking responsibility. In the normal course of things, wrongdoers don't get to celebrate over champagne for ruining other people's lives. Much less does the ruined party have to pay taxes toward buying the champagne. But the financial elite shows no sign of contrition. Top executives at some companies like General Motors and AIG have renounced or greatly reduced their bonuses. Still, countless bonuses are being paid out at lower levels of these companies. Rationally, for AIG to hand out $165 million in bonuses is less than a thousandth of the bailout money they received from the government. But it's still an outrage. Anger isn't rational, and neither is morality.
Morality is intuitive. You know in your bones what's right and what's wrong. Yet morality is also learned, and it has a huge social component. No two people and no two cultures agree all the time on touchy moral issues. Relativism has to stop somewhere, however. Bernie Madoff's last-minute contrition doesn't remotely ease his massive immorality. Wall Street types sneaking their bonuses in under the wire are part of a general moral collapse. The social element counts for a lot in this case, because the ethos of Wall Street gleefully permitted runaway greed, reckless disregard of other people's risks, and general anarchy in the pursuit of profits. In the crude lingo of trading, customers were mooks who existed for one purpose only: to be promoted out of their hard-earned money.
This is a roundabout way of saying that populist anger is moral and right. It's not simply a glitch that needs to be smoothed out. A system of morality cannot exist without accountability. In this case, Wall Street needs to be pulled back into the social contract. Traders pride themselves on being gunslingers, but when there are too many gunslingers, they outnumber the law. That is still the prevalent situation. (The fired-up CNBC reporter who ranted against Obama's plan to rescue distressed homeowners turned to traders on the floor and screamed, "Any of you guys want to bail out your neighbors?" The frightening part wasn't the arrant selfishness on display. The frightening part was that he and his kind feel righteous.) The financial elite don't want to change their ways. After grudgingly accepting a slap on the wrist, they fully intend to go back to business as usual.
What would it take to change a whole subculture that has escaped all ethical boundaries?
The Obama administration needs to face this question head on. Sad to say, the brilliant minds that were recruited to make up the president's economic team all come from the same financial elite that wants to escape responsibility. No reckless CEOs have been fired. No ill-gotten gains have been confiscated (except for Madoff's). No financial "truth commissions" are in the offing. It's a blessed turn of events that adults are now in charge of the government. Officials from Obama on down offer one sensible, confident policy after another. The change from the feckless Bushies is like night and day.
But being an adult has its limits, and we are in danger that technocrats will solve the meltdown with bland expertise. The human element needs to count for more, much more. I'm not talking about anger run amok and show trials to destroy scapegoats. But people need to have their anger addressed straight on, not sideways, and issues of healing, justice, and truth-telling must be given high priority. Being irrational, anger doesn't compute for techies. It's not a variable they can punch into an algorithm. No matter. The claims of morality hold a society together. There will be no trust until we have somebody to trust in, and whoever that may be, they must rise to moral leadership on the order of a Lincoln or FDR. The main problem isn't economic collapse, it's a warping of values -- not just on Wall Street but among right wingers, militarists, rigid Christian fundamentalists, and the apathetic majority. Obama gives every appearance of being immune to this warping. Now he needs to straighten out millions of other people who feel betrayed and abandoned.
Published in the Washington Post
It has not worked thus far.
WHY?
REPUBLICANS ARE NEVER INTERESTED IN "UNITING THE COUNTRY".
And that's the truth. They crapped all over themselves and America for at least 8 YEARS.
Republicans PROVED they can't govern and don't want to.
Nobody should be catering to Republicans any more. FORGEDDABOUTIT.
How can we demonstrate real moral leadership to people who stand behind a podium and don't admit their role in creating the problem, regardless of the fact that the American People see through them RIGHT THROUGH THE CAMERA?
Master Chopra, thanks for this bit of reality, but I think you're going to have to go stand outside the Capitol and have the press conference to kindly point out the hypocrisy that is gripping our Nation's Capitol.
Namaste
Scott Foval
Now that government is in bed with corporations and banks
we the people are lost
3:16pm
Indianapolis Central Library
How about teaching ethics in every university business course?
I was an International Business major at San Francisco State University back in the early 80's when I was horrified to read in one of my textbooks that we Americans needed to learn how to bribe officials in other countries in order to make a deal. At first I thought it was a misprint but the whole class looked at me as if I were an idiot when I said that it was unethical.
I told the class about a company that bribed officials (in a foreign country) into allowing chemical dumping into a river that was used downstream by locals for bathing and cooking and whose plant was subsequently burned down by the locals.
Then I dropped the course and changed my major.
I said this to my friend in financial services in NYC just the other day when he said to me, admist the bank that he works for filing bankruptcy that day, that he was not inclined to take offers from other banks that have come up for him lately because they're not wiling to give him the numbers or type of package he's demanding. I was so disgusted with him for it. I love him dearly but I asked him why on earth he expects, after everything that his industry has caused, to have business run the same as usual? There needs to be a radical, systemic shift.
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
Down with the GREED FILLED CORPORATISTS!!!!!
Power to "WE THE PEOPLE" - NOW!!!!!!!!
I will be watching for your response.
How did women get the right to vote?
How did slavery end?
How did we get social security & medi-care?
How did we get the Civil Rights Movement & improvement in the life of African-Americans?
How did a black man with a funny name become President?
People fought & died & demanded change!!
President Obama has been in office for only TWO MONTHS!!!
This is a time that DEMANDS CHANGE - that CHANGE will come from the DEMANDS of "We the People"!!!!
Stay tuned - CHANGE "IS" COMING!!!!
The CORPORATISTS are the SUNSET, their decades long ideas have proven to be completely corrupt & bankrupt!!
We the People are the SUNRISE, a new day is dawning!!
Stay tuned.....
So why can't we use human greed against itself in the case of fraud or otherwise dangerous financial dealings? We need better regulators--ones who gain in power by limiting the power and excess of financial firms--and the courts can serve as a check if these regulators overstep their bounds.
It's a rough idea, obviously. But it's clear enough that the current system doesn't work. Are more regulators and more regulations--basically more of the same--going to fix anything, or will the next dangerous get-rich-quick scheme from the likes of AIG just going to be that much more complicated?
-Unknown
===
I share the common sense of moral outrage - but really, Deepak, when you ask this question the first thing that occurs to me is that you were born in what is arguably the most corrupt country on the planet. It has successfully resisted ALL attempts to do its civic business within "ethical boundaries".
So if you can't cure the excesses of human nature there, what in the world would make you think you can do it here?
Let's admit instead that there is no cure for such excesses. They're hardwired into the human psyche. That's why we need stringent oversight of the markets and stiff penalties for transgressors.
Same as it ever was.
Obama knows this is a generational issue. That is why he is must do more to protect our childrens intrest.
How many of us are willing to pitch our own tent, and stand up for our children to give them a future.
Not enough of us. not yet.
But the time is coming so LEAD or get out of the way.
And let's accompany it with the word, "HIGH," when "any civil officer" is involved.
A very fundamental part of any society is this: it recognizes the horrific potential for damage inherent in any sort of crime, and it especially is mindful of the ability of government-authority to magnify crime.
For instance, the current "man who would be scapegoat," Bernie Madoff, defrauded thousands of people with his misrepresentations. But the bankers, the credit-scoring agencies, the financiers, committed the same crimes to defraud hundreds of millions. And furthermore, there was a cadre of civil officers ... past and present members of the SEC, the Treasury Department, the Senate and the House of Representatives .. who enabled it to happen (and who, to this very day, continue to do so).
We need a dog.
A very well-known dog, last seen wearing a trench-coat.
"KA-RUNCH! Take a BITE out of (high) crime!"
Only this will work. Everything else must come after.