Judging by his testimony today, AIG’s CEO Edward Liddy seems like a nice enough guy, and sincere. More so than most of his Capitol Hill inquisitors, actually.
I'm finding it hard to be mad at him. I’m finding it hard to be mad at any of the bogeymen.
I notice that just about one hundred percent of this outrage about AIG executives’ bonuses—or Madoff or Citigroup or that CNBC—is coming from people whose eyes glazed over and rolled at the first cocktail-party killing mention of the growing disparity between the salaries of top executives and the wages of the rank and file. And people who fiercely and mindlessly defended the right of the super-rich to be super-rich and multiply, no matter how poor the poor fucks were.
In order for you to question the social sensibility of this economic structure, it needs to be your actual tax dollars paid in bonuses to the very executives who made the bailout necessary?
Does it take a sledgehammer to wake you up in the morning?
Carlin was right: We've traded a lot for our comforts and our gadgets—we've traded our common sense about social justice and we've traded much of our own freedom and dignity.
Now the gadgets and comfort is being taken away and we're suddenly mad as hell. I think I'm more mad at us than I am at Edward Liddy.
Who are you mad at?