Supahstahs !

by digby
from Hullabaloo

I have been hearing people all over the TV today saying that it's just wrong for the government to require that the failing banks not give out bonuses until they pay back the taxpayers for their hundreds of billions in bailout money. Apparently, there is some idea that it's now immoral for someone who is paying another to require certain behaviors from them. (I've heard quite a few people argue that these people are the best at what they do and if the taxpayers don't pay their bonuses, these failing banks will lose their expertise and the economy will suffer. )

All over the country, workers are being told that they can't have bonuses or raises, that they have to cut back their hours, that they are being laid off. The waiters at my favorite brewpub, who have been there for a decade or more, are all being reduced to part time (so that none of them have to be completely laid off) and their tips are off by 60%. The idea that the people who caused all this should get bonuses at the taxpayers expense because they are such valuable employees is ludicrous. That these people who work forsuch massively failed enterprises should be rewarded by the taxpayers for their failure is beyond reason. I can't fathom why they haven't all been fired.

Here's David Brooks explaining once again that his elite friends shouldn't subject to laws because public shame is far more difficult for them than it is for the little people and so they learn their lessons and suffer enough just by being humiliated. Laws aren't necessary for such paragons. They will be regulated with social pressure. (As the British House of Lords used to punish their own by banishing them to their lavish estates and depriving them of access to the court for a time, perhaps.)

(More here.)