Our National Character

I normally ignore all the horseshit reported in the newspapers, on TV, etc., regarding executive compensation. However, I know why America has an insatiable lust for it; we want to focus on things we don't have, on things most of us are unwilling to work hard enough to get. It's an extension of our desire for unearned riches. Because someone else has it instead of us, we deem it to be unearned.

We waste a stupendous quantity of energy thinking about the way in which an auto executive travels from Detroit to Washington, or how much any given Lehman's executive is bringing in. I think we focus on such trivial shit in the same way thirty year old men buy Car & Driver and compare the acceleration times between two high end vehicles that cost more than they'll make in two lifetimes.

The thing that leads a guy to dream about a Ferrari he'll never get is the same thing that leads us to concern ourselves with what the top people make. It's pointless and useless; it gets us nowhere. Tell me, what changes will you make to your own life now that you know the details of a suspicious stock option transaction by Lloyd Blankfein on April 14, 2005? How has this news affected you?

So having said that I normally ignore all this, I just discovered that a few bankrupt auto parts supplier companies are petitioning in bankruptcy court to allow key executives to retain their 2009 bonuses. The argument goes something like "we have to retain the best and the brightest to allow our company to emerge from bankruptcy and to lead us in a more prosperous direction." That is, the bonuses are needed to grow the company beyond bankruptcy...needed to ensure the most important employees don't just jump ship to some other company.

Apparently, having previously run the company into the ground means nothing going forward. It also assumes that any given executive has the option of finding a job anywhere else he wants at the snap of his fingers -- real fucking likely in our current economy.

I think our bankruptcy laws are complete bullshit, ever since having lost money to a niece who stiffed me and filed bankruptcy to prevent having to pay it back. It's the same damn thing as unearned riches -- I don't want to pay you back and now I don't have to pay you back. Why sisters and cousins and nieces and friends and nephews borrow from me but refuse to pay me back is beyond me, but apparently not beyond them. It's an indictment of our national lack of character. Or perhaps I should say it is our national character. This is our national character: inflate our debts to China away; walk away from our underwater houses; let's see the repo man mess with my pit bulls to get my unpaid truck; the Bank of Mom & Pop charges no interest and (wa-hey!) no principal either!; file for bankruptcy but keep the house and the 401(k); accept it when houses go up 20% per year but demand bailouts when they drop; wait for government clunker bailouts to drive new cars.

Unearned.