Paul Krugman: Egos and Immorality

[babylonsister]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/25/opinion/krugman-egos-and-immorality.html?_r=1

Egos and Immorality
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: May 24, 2012


In the wake of a devastating financial crisis, President Obama has enacted some modest and obviously needed regulation; he has proposed closing a few outrageous tax loopholes; and he has suggested that Mitt Romney’s history of buying and selling companies, often firing workers and gutting their pensions along the way, doesn’t make him the right man to run America’s economy.

Wall Street has responded — predictably, I suppose — by whining and throwing temper tantrums. And it has, in a way, been funny to see how childish and thin-skinned the Masters of the Universe turn out to be. Remember when Stephen Schwarzman of the Blackstone Group compared a proposal to limit his tax breaks to Hitler’s invasion of Poland? Remember when Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase characterized any discussion of income inequality as an attack on the very notion of success?

But here’s the thing: If Wall Streeters are spoiled brats, they are spoiled brats with immense power and wealth at their disposal. And what they’re trying to do with that power and wealth right now is buy themselves not just policies that serve their interests, but immunity from criticism.

snip//

As I said at the beginning, in a way Wall Street’s self-centered, self-absorbed behavior has been kind of funny. But while this behavior may be funny, it is also deeply immoral.

Think about where we are right now, in the fifth year of a slump brought on by irresponsible bankers. The bankers themselves have been bailed out, but the rest of the nation continues to suffer terribly, with long-term unemployment still at levels not seen since the Great Depression, with a whole cohort of young Americans graduating into an abysmal job market.

And in the midst of this national nightmare, all too many members of the economic elite seem mainly concerned with the way the president apparently hurt their feelings. That isn’t funny. It’s shameful.

[DCKit]

1. Yes, they have immense wealth and political power.

They also want the SS trust fund. We can't afford to allow that. Ever.

[siligut]

2. Money is power and they want all they can steal

Some people just think they deserve more than others and make up all sorts of ways to get it. I agree with Krugman that some of the reason for their greed is because they have nothing else.

[radhika]

3. Remember an old crime known as lese-mageste

- we learned about it in history class. it was a crime to disparage or insult the absolute monarch. Our plutocrats would reinstate that crime, only using 'richesse' instead of monarch.

Just wondering: Was there ever a crime for a crime of lese-pauvrete (poverty)?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A8se_majest%C3%A9

[Waiting For Everyman]

4. They need to take a big financial loss and do some time for their actions, then they'd "get it".

It's absurd that the perpetrators have been untouched by this. It's insane.

I'm glad for Krugman's writing. It's always worthwhile.

[woo me with science]

5. It wouldn't be quite as serious

if they were JUST taking our money. People tend to rise up when they are no longer able to feed their children.

Our situation is graver than that, because they are simultaneously dismantling our civil rights and building a police/surveillance state capable of crushing the inevitable resistance. This isn't an "economic downturn." It is a deliberate restructuring by the one percent of where the money goes and how people can expect to live in America.

We had better hope people in this country wake up and demand change before the one percent succeeds in making change much, much more difficult to demand.

[lostnote12]

6. You have hit the nail on the head....it's about remaining first in line on the gravy train...always!

[woo me with science]

7. It is an outrage that what is happening is presented

by our news organizations as some sort of unfortunate accident. "The economy had a downturn," as though it were the result of a rainstorm or a change in the currents.

Policies are chosen. Billions for drone wars and empire are chosen. Tax cuts for billionaires and austerity for children and the poor are chosen. There is no excuse whatsoever that any person in this country goes to bed hungry, or worrying about shelter or basic medical care. No excuse. There is no excuse that 400 individuals in this country have more wealth than the bottom 150 million. It is unconscionable.

We have moral bankruptcy in our government, because we have ceded it to corporate greed. Corporations have no soul, no conscience, and no loyalty to anything except the bottom line. Profit is the reason they exist, the sole driving force in their very structure. The problem is systemic and getting worse the longer we ignore it, and the longer we keep pretending that it infects only the other party.

We are in serious, serious trouble in this country, and we had better do something about it soon, because the profit-makers have noticed that we are restless, and they are taking steps, bipartisanly, to make sure we do not interfere with what they are doing.

[Larry Ogg]

11. I’ve often said, that most people treat political and financial corruption

as if it were a monolithic act of nature.

It’s as if their minds are programmed to believe, that there is no other alternative to that which already exists, reality is what their favorite authority tells them to believe, even though their eyes and ears might tell them otherwise.

"What luck for rulers that men do not think." Adolf Hitler

[lostnote12]

15. Thank you for a passionate response....not knowing......

...who you are as an American is what gives me hope that our future, although challenging is still in the hands of intelligent human beings

[WillyT]

8. HUGE K & R !!!

[tblue37]

9. Another DUer posted this great image on another thread:

On edit: I wanted to credit Guy Whitey Corngood, who posted this image on this thread:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002726728

[Skittles]

12. aw how I loves me some Guy Whitey Corngood

yes INDEED

[dotymed]

10. IMO, the greatest impediment to Americans rising up against these immoral, illegal,!#$$% elitists,

is their lack of information.
I talk about these things to "average joe's" all of the time. I now live in the South(!!) and they think I am lying or stretching the truth.
Most, although un(der)employed, believe the propaganda put out by our MSM and politicians.
They have no concept of the sanctioned usury abundant in America.
Many are too busy trying to survive. Some believe that because they earn average salaries, that I am attacking their way of life. they have no concept of real wealth and most that fit into this category would do ANYTHING to become wealthy.
Our masses (especially in the South) are so uninformed and looking to be entertained, that they don't care as long as they can be comfortable.
It is a tragedy that the majority of Americans are so caught up in survival or attaining the "American dream" that they cannot see how the deck is stacked against them.
We need a real populist leader but that will not happen in a corptocracy.

[Douglas Carpenter]

13. knr

[L0oniX]

14. Ask why Democracy Now is not on most PBS tv stations....

look at the list of sponsors ...example:Koch is one of them. They threaten to withdraw contributions if Democracy Now gets air time.