Photo credit: Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP

“Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s need,
but not every man’s greed.”

~ Mahatma Gandhi

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Wednesday – January 13, 2010

You gotta be kidding me!

Four Wall Street bankers went to Congress today to apologize for risky behavior?

Risky behavior?

Is risky behavior the way intelligent, reasonable human beings would define rapacious greed compounded by unmitigated arrogance and incompetence that cost $100 billion or more?

While the four bankers supposedly appeared before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission to apologize for the profound damage they caused the nation’s economy, it sounded more like they were attempting to convince us that their actions, actions that led to the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression were justifiable because they seemed appropriate at the time.

How stupid do they think we are?

We know the answer to that question, so I’ll move on with, how much damage did these four men cause?

These four men ultimately cost this nation more than $100 billion . . . taken from taxpayers to prevent the complete collapse of their companies.

What kind of men would dare say that it seemed appropriate at the time to very nearly ruin our entire economy?

Are these uneducated men?

Are these young, inexperienced men?

Or are these poor and desperate men?

Who are these men?

They are:

1.    Lloyd Blankfein, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Goldman Sachs; 55 years old, graduate of Harvard Law School, 2007 compensation: $27 million.

2.

    James ‘Jamie’ Dimon, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, JP Morgan Chase & Company; 53 years old, graduate of Tufts University and Harvard Business School, 2007 compensation: $19.6 million.

3.    John Mack, Chief Executive Officer, Bank of America; 65 years old, graduate of Duke University, 2008 compensation: $1.2 million.

4.    Brian Moynihan, President, Bank of America; 50 years old, graduate of Brown University and Notre Dame Law School, 2007 compensation: $10.1 million.

Phil Angelides, Chairman of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, spoke for millions of frustrated Americans when he said, “People are angry about record profits and bonuses in the wake of receiving trillions of dollars in government assistance while so many families are struggling to stay afloat.”

Chairman Angelides confronted Blankfein by saying, “I’m just going to be blunt with you. It sounds to me a little bit like selling a car with faulty brakes and then buying an insurance policy on the buyer of those cars.”

Anyone who’s ever spoken with a banker wouldn’t be surprised to know that Mr. Blankfein’s response was more than a little convoluted. He first uttered what almost sounded like an admission of guilt when he said, “I do think the behavior is improper”, but then shifted to justifying what he and the other three bankers did by minimizing their actions as nothing more than “exercises in risk management.”

JP Morgan’s Jamie Dimon revealed a sliver of his character when he understated his company’s responsibility by saying, “We did make mistakes and there were things we could have done better.”

None of the slippery responses and understatements made during the course of this hearing came closer to revealing the true character of these men as Bank of America’s Moynihan when he diffused responsibility by saying, “Over the course of the crisis, we as an industry caused a lot of damage.”

Gee whiz, Brian . . . doyathink?

So, who are these men . . . are they the best and the brightest?

If you ignore their resumes and compensation and look at how they judged markets and future trends and how those judgments affected their decisions, you’d have to say, absolutely not!

So, why are they there . . . still?

Perhaps it’s as simple as something George Carlin said: “We get from our leaders what we deserve . . . because, as bad as they are, they’re the best we have.”

I always loved George but I sure hope he’s wrong . . . ‘cause if Blankfein, Dimon, Mack and Moynihan are the best we have . . . we’re in for more, perhaps even worse trouble.

Aren’t we?

Thanks for listening,

Davy Jones

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