July
23It's Time to hit the 'Outrage' Button
It was the Wall St. Journal, of all places, that has now asked the big question “Why No Outrage?” blazed the headline.
The article’s thesis was simply this: “Through history, outrageous financial behavior has been met with outrage, but today Wall Street’s damaging recklessness has been met with near-silence from a too-tolerant populace.”
In other words, no one seems bent on punishing the bankers and mortgage-loan miscreants who’ve up-ended our economy.
In years gone by, the Michael Milkens of the world were sent to the slammer. Movies of outrage like “Wall Street” gained wide audiences and writers like John Kenneth Galbraith published angry books describing the scandals.
Why the tolerance? Is it that the billionaire bankers have become cult heroes?
It’s no accident, perhaps, that Milken (a fearsome-looking guy who still has his jailhouse pallor) is among the many applying for a presidential pardon in the final days of the Bush Administration. The billionaire junk-bond trader was convicted for securities fraud in 1990, but now he seems like an angel of mercy compared with Angelo Mozilo and fellow creeps at Countrywide.
So if someone out there can find the “outrage” button, please press it. All of us are looking a little too passive these days.
The article’s thesis was simply this: “Through history, outrageous financial behavior has been met with outrage, but today Wall Street’s damaging recklessness has been met with near-silence from a too-tolerant populace.”
In other words, no one seems bent on punishing the bankers and mortgage-loan miscreants who’ve up-ended our economy.
In years gone by, the Michael Milkens of the world were sent to the slammer. Movies of outrage like “Wall Street” gained wide audiences and writers like John Kenneth Galbraith published angry books describing the scandals.
Why the tolerance? Is it that the billionaire bankers have become cult heroes?
It’s no accident, perhaps, that Milken (a fearsome-looking guy who still has his jailhouse pallor) is among the many applying for a presidential pardon in the final days of the Bush Administration. The billionaire junk-bond trader was convicted for securities fraud in 1990, but now he seems like an angel of mercy compared with Angelo Mozilo and fellow creeps at Countrywide.
So if someone out there can find the “outrage” button, please press it. All of us are looking a little too passive these days.
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Quadruple P.S.
re: "So if someone out there can find the ''outrage'' button, please press it. All of us are looking a little too passive these days."
i think that things are going to have to change when ALL the margins finally get called in and people feel the pain beyond $5.00 gasoline and upside mortgages.
like how the draft is what motivated all the students to protest in the sixties, it''s all still a little surreal when you start to figure your entitlement isn''t necessary manifest destiny.
i know. i was born into a middle class life. over-education mixed with poverty level income just makes you more aware of the horror of your situation. it took me awhile to find the humor in my rabid sense of entitlement, but once i did, i felt truly equal to everyone everywhere.
Posted by: ERIKA LOPEZ (VAR) | 7/27/2008 2:52:11 PM
P.P.S.
your postings always get me thinking. i imply we're living in a country of pansies.
so what i know the red hot shame of screwing up and facing the consequences?
at forty, i may be considered a wincingly honest writer, but i don't have a house.
in another twenty years i could be living under a bridge spouting off like an old man how the world's gone to hell.
but it's all survival.
perhaps i am the pansy.
koo koo cachoo.
Posted by: ERIKA LOPEZ | 7/27/2008 1:28:50 PM
P.S.
I''d wanted to finish but had to run:
I think that we''ve trained ourselves to want it all while claiming victim status once we can''t have it all.
I''m surprised that i agree with bush the younger for once, on NOT signing the new bailout bill for freddie and fannie.
so i think the lack of outrage is because we can all be implicated in the mindset that got us here.
at forty, i''m not THAT old, and i can remember the days when i had to return something i''d stolen to a store and had to sit through the red hot shame of admitting i messed up. i can remember taking responsibility for my own decisions, as well as the consequences.
sure, life may not be fair, but just because we''re in america doesn''t mean instant add-water sense of entitlement.
there IS a sense of outrage, but it''s more like speechless disbelief at the upcoming horror. it''s not just a few thousand mortgage brokers. it''s the country. i live in the midst of san francisco and have seen everyone cash out and feel brilliant for being in a certain place at a certain time.
over and out,
el
Posted by: ERIKA LOPEZ (VAR) | 7/27/2008 11:33:07 AM
Oh, i agree with you so much. but we've all been in training for thirty-some odd years to think that we could all be among the rich elite. that there were no limitations.
when even mcdonald's managers were putting down six-figure incomes to get jumbo mortgages, greed was in fact good.
it's interesting to me, a half-puerto rican 40-year-old, the product of a couple of new york sixties civil rights activists, that you were around in hollywood during a revolutionary time for film.
stories are so important. they feed the rest of us and tell us where to go. many have been seeming kind of bleak and empty lately. not all. but a surprising amount.
i need to go back to older movies for a sense of hope again.
i'll be interested to see if hollywood story writers are in touch with where the country will end up having to go. we need guidance. inspiration. no more bleak stories from folks who cashed out for 4,000 square feet and now feel the ennui of existential angst and having kids blah blah blah.
i'll go watch hal ashby stories again and try and forget how well he ultimately dealt with reality.
la la la...
Posted by: ERIKA LOPEZ | 7/27/2008 11:11:00 AM
Well, the FBI did arrest 406 mortgage brokers last July 9th.
But I think this kind of situation happens every time OPM (Other People''s Money) is involved.
20 years ago, when it was the bankers'' money, you had to fill out forms, prove your income, provide your tax forms for the last three years, and wait 4-6 weeks for approval.
With OPM, mortgage brokers asked few questions, you could give them any income figures you wanted to, and you could get a mortgage in as little as three days. No one cared, because it was OPM.
The reason the top executives won''t be prosecuted is that the entire mortgage industry was doing this, and you can''t lock up everyone. But the government can put in place some regulations to keep this from happening again.
Posted by: Dan Petitpas | 7/24/2008 9:04:01 PM
You want to feel outraged? Look no further than former Clinton budget director Franklin Raines who pocketed over $90 million for his six years of "service" at Fannie Mae. Disgusting. This isn't about politics. There are crooks on both sides of the aisles. Throw 'em all in jail.
Posted by: b.watkins | 7/24/2008 7:32:44 PM
I''m sure we''ll be seeing the outrage pour into the streets with in a year if the economy does not bounce back.. which is not looking to be hopeful at the moment.
Posted by: Brit | 7/24/2008 2:49:07 PM
The recent Bear Stearns prosecutions and today's UBS indictments are the tip of outrage iceberg. There will be more to come. And the Masters of the Universe will be doing time along with the lesser thugs among us.
Posted by: Niles | 7/24/2008 12:31:20 PM
". . . [let's all blame] the people that took out loans they knew they could not pay, complete with totally bogus applications."
No Sir. Most of those people were led to their fates by crooked lenders. Most of those people had dreams of owning a home and thus went to a mortgage broker and asked, "Can I finance a house?" to which they were told, "Why yes-sir-ee let's fix you right up! Just sign here and you've got yourself a new home!" The lending market was rigged, if you will. Honest, working-class people were duped by dishonest mortgage brokers, suckered into deals they were told were good and that were structured in their best interest. Predatory lending is evil; whether it's a paycheck loan or a bad mortgage. I say, let the wrong doing lenders go out of business and may their shareholders feel the pain of the American middleclass in their pocketbooks for a change.
Posted by: MES | 7/24/2008 12:29:48 PM
Yes there are plenty of culprits in the Wall Street crowd for the mortgage mess, but above even those are the people that took out loans they knew they could not pay, complete with totally bogus applications, the quasi-Federal mortgage backing companies Freddie and Fannie, that backed horrible loans that we'll all as taxpayers now have to bail out...and the biggest villain of all, the Fed, who created artificially cheap credit. If anyone deserves our outrage, it's Mr. Alan Greenspan. Peter, Wall Street creeps are easy to make into cartoon bad guys, but look deeper and you'll find the worst of the mess was created by the simple greed of people wanting what they could not afford, and horrible government policy (as usual).
Posted by: Alex X | 7/24/2008 11:43:53 AM
All the more reason to line these crooks against a wall.
Posted by: V | 7/24/2008 11:39:14 AM