Swiss Bankers Evince Faint Signs of Shame; Meanwhile, Their American Counterparts Continue to Have None

by Teh Nutroots | George Packer writes at The New Yorker:

Swiss bankers are not known as paragons of transparency and moral accountability, so it’s a nice surprise to read that the top officials of UBS, the foundering financial institution recently bailed out by the Swiss government, will forgo twenty-seven million dollars in compensation and bonuses. It appears that these Swiss bankers have a faint pulse of shame.

It has not gone remarked upon enough that their American counterparts apparently have none.

That is true. Deb has remarked on this repeatedly; see the list of her postings below. 

Packer concisely summarizes the grounds for viewing our own white collared "malefactors"---le mot juste, I think---with disgust and loathing.

Having brought the American and global economy to its knees through their reckless, short-sighted, downright stupid investments, and then looked to the government for a very expensive lifeline, the leaders of Citigroup, A.I.G., Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Lehman, and other financial giants are maintaining a carefully nonchalant public posture. Andrew Cuomo, New York’s Attorney General, had to hold a threatening press conference on Wall Street in order to frighten A.I.G. into announcing that raises, bonuses, and lavish retreats will be suspended. But fear is not the same thing as shame. Morally speaking, it’s inferior...

Right. If there's no punishment, it's not wrong; if it's permitted, there is no cause for shame.  

[I]f you’re a financial executive with an exalted title, a big enough salary, a deep enough debt, and a vast enough handout, these same disasters entitle you to go on living and feeling about yourself much as you did before. You even have a right to think that the taxpayers owe it to you—that it’s for their own good, not yours. You don’t have to explain yourself; you certainly don’t have to apologize.  (New Yorker; emphasis added)

And he, like you and like I, thinks we should at least get an apology in return for the thousands of tax dollars wasted on these "nonchalant"---excuse my non-French---bastards.

Don't hold your breath. Jonathan Glater comments:

In the United States, lawmakers and regulators have expressed profound frustration over a perceived lack of remorse among executives who made millions while peddling investments in securities whose plummeting value has pushed the financial system to the brink of collapse. Executives have resisted cuts.Regulators in the United States have called on companies to slash bonuses this year and, in at least one case, to figure out ways to get back bonuses and severance payments already given to executives — a difficult and potentially embarrassing exercise...(New York Times; emphasis added)

Embarrassing for whom?  Not for me.  If shame doesn't make them cough up, I won't be a bit embarrassed if the government makes them cough up some of what they've pocketed.

Glater points out that threats seem to be the only thing that works on our morally bankrupt financial industry.

[S]hame has been much less effective on this side of the Atlantic, where companies have resisted cutting bonuses and salaries even as their businesses crater. Only in recent weeks have companies receiving taxpayer assistance, including Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, agreed to reduce or eliminate bonus payments to current executives.On Tuesday, under pressure from the New York attorney general, Andrew M. Cuomo, American International Group, the troubled insurance conglomerate now reliant on support from the federal government, said the company would not pay any bonuses to its top seven executives this year and that the top 60 executives would not receive any raises through 2009.

Shame, some might argue, is not enough. 

Each dollar earned by an American taxpayer stands for whatever amount of life that person had to expend making it.  Shouldn't we be more astonished to find that the law provided no protection, and offers us no remedy, against having so much of our limited time and effort poured into the pockets of people who have already accumulated enough money to pay our annual salaries for the rest of our lives?

At Working Life.org, Jonathan Tasini says:

I would note first that, personally, I think the whole coterie...should face jail time. We put people in jail for carrying some drugs or stealing groceries but these folks who are responsible for untold misery--from the retired people who now have to figure out how to make it by on less money to those kids who won't have a decent education because quavering politicians would rather cut school funding than tax the rich--are not only not going to do time but still have their friggin' jobs (unlike the hundreds of thousands of people who will lose their jobs in the financial sector because of the greed and stupidity of a few)....

[A]ll of these people who are giving back money or having their pay frozen are already multi-millionaires, having legally absconded with piles of cash in past years. So, their hardship, if you can call it that, is having to figure out how to cut down from five mansions to four mansions, or perhaps, more likely, fire some of their domestic staff. (emphasis added)

All this with the smug certainty that they are the elect and we are the little people whose pain they'll never have to feel.

The problem is, of course, that the guilt is collective rather than individual.  Individually, no one broke any laws or---it appears--- violated any industry standard.  Our government set the bar that low.  So now nobody feels individually responsible.  

I wonder if Paulson and every member of Congress who assured us we had to bail out the financial industry realize just how angry taxpayers who are barely scraping by, or are not scraping by, may eventually become about having these companies smugly absorbing our tax dollars as if it were all their due? 

I stand amazed that the American people have been so docile in the face of the repeated implication that our sacrifices to save the economy weigh nothing at all.

Not all our representatives have calmly accepted this outcome.   When the bailout was first being mooted, Matt Stoller published a letter from an anonymous Congressional hero whose boldly undeleted expletives got lost in the maelstrom. 

Paulsen and congressional Republicans...have said that there can't be any "add ons," or addition provisions. Fuck that. I don't really want to trigger a world wide depression (that's not hyperbole, that's a distinct possibility), but I'm not voting for a blank check for $700 billion for those mother fuckers....I don't want to trade a $700 billion dollar giveaway to the most unsympathetic human beings on the planet for a few fucking bridges. I want reforms of the industry, and I want it to be as punitive as possible...

...I am looking for volunteers who want to hold the sons of bitches so I can beat the crap out of them.  (Open Left)

Of course, no one really wants that.  We are a civilised people.  I'd settle for five minutes to hurl rotten vegetables at them.  I'd settle--as a civilized man--for an apology.  Is that so much to ask?

Ripley's piece the other day at Whiskey Fire sounded the right note for those raging impotently as we watch the authors of the crash skate away with millions, billions, trillions.

Is it too much to ask for a Thank You from the corporations that are receiving bailout money from us?  Seriously, they're stroking the Gov't. for a Trillion dollar-plus Happy Ending, and I haven't heard so much as a peep from the CEOs, explaining to We the People how they'll use this money to rectify the economic shit hole they've dug themselves, and us, into. 

Is it really so hard for these clowns to slap together a 30 second TV commercial to say, if nothing else, "We fucked up but we're going to fix things.  I made some poor decisions but we're dedicated to turning things around, through sound business practices.  We appreciate your help and we're going to make this work, America."

Frankly, these nozzles should have stepped down and left their parachutes behind, but I'd probably accept them standing before America with their fucking hats in hand.  A little fucking humility would go a long way toward easing the situation, if you know what I mean.  Seriously - $700 billion in bailouts and they're still expecting $70 billion in bonuses?  With no explanations and no remorse?  Fuck that noise!

But hey:  it's Thanksgiving!  If no gratitude (in the form of an apology) is forthcoming, I say we take a cue from our ancestors and bring back the stocks and the rotten vegetables.  Five minutes and some rotten tomatoes---that's all the harvest festival I need this year.

Memeorandum has more on the Packer piece.

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