Wall Street fat cat= Washington Mutual's CEO Alan H. Fishman, who has been on the job for 17 days, is bailing out with parachute worth close to $20 million, according to an executive compensation analysis conducted for the New York Times by James F. Reda Associates.
You heard right. That's $20 million for 17 days on the job ... and his company failed
If Fishman represents 60% of the population I feel like a real loser.
I am not about to defend moronic golden parachutes that companies pay loser CEO's. No excuse for stuff like that Fishman deal.
What I am saying is:
most ALL retirement programs are directly or indirectly INVESTED in the stock market (Wall Street). If we (congress?) decide to bankrupt Wall Street, we are basically bankrupting 60%+ of our populations investments - retirement accounts of teachers, businesses, police, fire, hells bells - damn near everyone with an IRA or a 401k.
Media & certain pols have done a fantastic job demagoguing this issue to the point that many folks do not realize their own futures are going down with the market. Plus with less money to borrow, we get huge unemployment rate increases to further deepen this problem.
As far as the other 40% are concerned - if they are on govt. assistance, tax revenues will fall sharply so govt. programs will be even more difficult to maintain. If they are not on govt. assistance & they have no retirement - well they are pretty well screwed already. In other words, everybody gets screwed.
A Treasury loan is a better solution than the turdish bill today that failed, with mortgage loan guarantees at market interest. That is preferable to some stupid equity stake position that nationalizes mortgages and rewards idiocies at many levels.