22.10.09

Good News..?

At first it would seem like a hoax: an exorbitant movement of great symbolic power that swells with a righteous sense of justice in the name of the people. Then it is deemed as sinister: yet another intrusion on the part of the government into matters that are technically considered private. Either way, it sparks controversy and debate, and a slight feeling of discomfort that leaves the mind to wonder what has really happened after all.

It was an assertion today made by the Obama administration that will call for pay cuts from 25 of the top-earning employees of recently bailed-out industries. These 25 individuals have been singled out for their paychecks, and for the extravagance that they have gained through the exploitation of loan borrowers, home owners, and other Americans just trying to get by.

The financial institutions have been making record profits, and posting record salaries and bonuses less than a year after our tax dollars bailed them out for the economy's sake. But putting billions into a localized, private pocket did not benefit us all, no matter how they might have tried to convince us that the trickle would fall.

And though a few tiffs have been launched about the government over-stepping its role in cutting executive pay, this is not an issue of technicality. It goes beyond large scale theorems of laissez-faire liberties and big government intrusions, to progress to a paradigm that is concerned with moral responsibility, social justice, and retribution for those whose wounds have not yet healed from predatory loans and mortgages, rising credit card rates, and continued obligatory debt.

There is an intuitive issue of fairness here. These executives whose pay is being cut have earned far more than they've needed to earn, and they have done it in part by breaking the backs of the working classes. There is such a thing as too much wealth, and these bullies have it. Perhaps it's about time that big brother steps in and defends his battered brothers and sisters. And although the move is largely allegorical and hardly resolves any of our immediate plights, it is something which resembles a victory of principle, and for that I'm glad.

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