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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Morgan1878, post: 793475, member: 17869&quot;]Can&#039;t disagree about any of this, except that at least part of the crisis was created by &quot;citizens&quot; of all stripes, in high and not so high places. </p><p><br /></p><p>As for bonuses, the argument is that there is a small pool of talent that deserves extraordinary pay, otherwise they will migrate to competitors. While bankers receive the brunt of the villainizing (every good story needs a villain, eh?), the same sort of thing goes on in other professions. Coaches get paid big money to jump to other schools, elite athletes take advantage of the &quot;market&quot; to land big contracts. Somehow, the public is more accepting of this type of largesse, perhaps because sports at least offer entertainment, something a banker will never be accused or capable of doing.</p><p><br /></p><p>With respect to AIG, it was reported in the Financial Times this week that the Feds investment in AIG contracts has so far netted about a 15 billion dollar profit. So, at least in this case taxpayers will probably get more than they paid in.</p><p><br /></p><p>Speaking of waste, let&#039;s not forget the absurd wars we continue to wage in Iraq and Afghanistan. If were talking about return on investment, we&#039;ve dropped over a trillion without any meaningful return. Leaving the battlefield isn&#039;t necessarily a bad idea. We left Vietnam years ago and at the time it was thought by doing so, it would regress into a communist blackhole. To the contrary, it&#039;s becoming a vibrant economy. My favorite shirt is made in Vietnam. While Vietnam&#039;s not a democracy by any means, it&#039;s not North Korea either.</p><p><br /></p><p>The best analogy I&#039;ve heard regarding the initial &quot;stimulus&quot;, &quot;bailout&quot; &quot;crisis management&quot; or whatever you choose to call it involves a village. This village has a high dam above it that is ready to break. Action must be taken quickly. The villagers realize that when if the village is saved, not only will the law-abiding villagers be spared, but also the thieves, rapists and dregs of society. After the damn is secured, then other measures can be taken. Call it fine tuning. That&#039;s our next job.</p><p><br /></p><p>We&#039;re a democracy. We elect people to do a job. If they don&#039;t we vote them out. If their performance is sub-par and we continue to re-elect them, we only have ourselves to blame. The recent election in Massachusetts tells me this system is working. We are a large country of many racial, ethnic and economic groups. Of course it will be difficult to arrive at decisions that will please everyone. But that is our challenge and I am cautiously optimistic we will be able to find solutions. There will be missteps and I agree, there were plenty of them in the initial &quot;stimulus&quot; effort.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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