An Almanack

Politico reports:

Arrayed around a long mahogany table in the White House state dining room last week, the CEOs of the most powerful financial institutions in the world offered several explanations for paying high salaries to their employees — and, by extension, to themselves.

We have all heard these explanations.

These are complicated companies.

We’re competing for talent on an international market.

The President was having none of it.

Be careful how you make those statements, gentlemen. The public isn’t buying that. My administration is the only thing between you and the pitchforks.”

The pitchforks are out. And not just on Wall Street.

Typically, people like their own boss. But ask anyone and you will hear complaints about extravagant benefits and salaries that others in their company are receiving. Unlike other People, Americans are not resentful of the wealthy. Those who become wealthy by talent and effort are admired. People do not mind their bosses being paid well as long as they feel they are doing a good job.

But there is a lot of anxiety out there. There is a suspicion that too many people are in administrative positions and too few in productive roles. I posted a (whose author is still unknown to me) on this blog about layoffs. It has been an instant hit. Everyone feels they are Andre’.

Obama understands the public mood. He made sure that the bankers understood as well.

The titans of finance — men used to being the most powerful man in almost any room — sized up a new president who made clear in ways big and small that he expected them to change their ways.
….
“The anger gentlemen, is real,” Obama said

It had been a landmark day in the history of American capitalism. Unbeknownst to the financial executives, General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner was also on Pennsylvania Avenue that day, meeting with Obama’s auto bailout task force. Although the finance CEOs got a meeting with the president, Wagoner saw only Obama’s senior advisor Steven Rattner at the Treasury Department. During the meeting, Rattner demanded Wagoner’s resignation.

Let us hope others heed the warning too.

What Went Wrong? is the title of a book by the Orientalist scholar Bernard Lewis about the Decline and Fall of the Islamic Civilization. There was a time when the Islamic Empires ruled from Spain to India and beyond. They had the best scientists, the most sophisticated literature. The basic degrees given out in Western Universitites today (Bachelors, Masters, Doctorate) are translations of Arabic terms used at Madrassas from Morocco to Egypt. The idea of tax exempt foundations to support research and charitable work is Islamic. The Shariah Law gave women the right to property, unheard of in the West till the eighteenth Century. And then it all fell apart. The Ottoman Caliphate lingered on as the sickman of Europe until it was finally abolished in the 1920s by the British.

Something like this is happening with the American Car industry. Obama just fired the Chairman of GM, the closest thing to a Caliph in America. (more…)