Some Days Are Better Than Others.

       Remember when Goldman Sacks was fined $5 billion for their part in the meltdown of our economy? Well, an article in the National Memo today, by Jim Hightower, titled "Who Says Crime Doesn't Pay?" he points out just how much $5 billion really is. "If you paid $100,000 per day, every day for 28 years, you'd have paid out $1 billion." (that's paraphrased). That's a hundred thousand. Every single day . For 28 years.
       Well, the thing is, Goldman Sacks got so many loopholes and discounts in the settlement, in the fine print, that the bank is responsible for only a fraction of that amount. Whoops, that's wrong. Actually Goldman Sacks doesn't have to pay anything. Because the Goldman Sacks stockholders have to pay it. And to boot, Goldman Sacks' CEO managed to get himself a $23 million paycheck for negotiating this settlement.
       Never let it be said that I'm down on anybody for getting paid a fair days pay for a fair days work, but isn't $23 million somewhat more than a fair days pay? Apparently not for folks like Lloyd Blankfein the CEO. And who knows better what Lloyd should be paid than, well than, Lloyd himself. Oh yes. The one who decides how much to pay the CEO is apparently ------the CEO.
       To be fair, the compensation is mostly for negotiating the deal that left the bank pretty much free and clear because, after all, banks don't break the laws and cause people to lose their jobs and homes and savings, its the bankers that do that sort of stuff. But I guess its not the Goldman bankers who broke those laws either. That's because none of those folks got jailed or fined. Well it looks like the real culprits have been fined, namely the stockholders, although I can't quite figure out how they managed to do it.
       But again, remember this point. No Banker was jailed and no banker was fined. If you or I had pulled off something that caused so much hardship to so many people, they'd figure out some way to send us to Gitmo, in other words, lock us up and throw the key away.