MB Civic

By Harold Meyerson | Wednesday, September 24, 2008 | The Washington Post

“…In recent years, Wall Street salaries and bonuses have soared as investment banks peddled ever more profitable schemes that enabled Americans to take on debt — an activity of no discernable social utility and, in fact, of some peril, but one that attracted a disproportionate share of our smartest college graduates, who clearly understood where the big money was. Reducing Wall Street’s outsized incomes is not only a moral necessity, now that it’s the public that will be putting up the funds but a national opportunity to redirect our best and brightest into actual productive enterprise.

There’s no indication that Hank Paulson understands that. He is less Washington’s man on Wall Street than he is Wall Street’s man in Washington. And having endorsed the Street’s version of socialism — the American public picks up the tab for the financial sector’s mistakes, no questions asked — Paulson and the administration and the Republicans remain opposed to the more democratically socialist, or democratically capitalist, proposition that the public should get something for its investment. China, Singapore and the oil emirates cut a deal for their people. Why won’t Hank Paulson cut one for his?…”…BS

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/23/AR2008092302700_pf.html