My rage (especially the Fannie Mae bonuses) is not toward the business people who gave and requested them. In normal times it is a good way to create incentives that add value to your company and for your shareholders. The Fanni Mae and AIG bonuses were contracted and should be fulfilled. The business people in those two circumstances, I believe, are trying to legally rip off the tax payer, and if I was a shareholder I'd be screaming from my seat in the audience about bonuses being paid to people who drove the companies to near extinction and devestated shareholder equity. Crooked people doing legal things. An unfortunate condition of American business, I'm very sad to say.
And here is the biggest reason we need to honor the bonuses: What sane person would want to invest in America if we don't honor our contracts? We need global investment and global markets. If we don't honor our contracts, or if we create on-the-spot legislation to tax or punish people for their contracts, we will be nothing more than a "banana republic" as someone said.
No, my rage is at the people we elected to national office. The national legislature appears to be so corrupt and so entrenched in good ol' boy raping of America that we need to just clean them all out and start over. Clean them all out on both sides of the aisle and send in new people. They are an embarrasment and a danger to our country.
*****
You can borrow from the Devil
You can borrow from a friend
But the Devil will give you twenty
When your friend only got ten
- Ramblin Jack Elliot
