Yes, the United States Congress has been hijacked. That’s right – emotionally hijacked. In the midst of the AIG executive bonus pay for incompetence, the House and Senate passed bills to tax the bonus pay at 90 percent. Keep in mind Congress was aware of these legally binding bonuses for incompetence in fall of 2008. Congress or Treasury (there’s a lot of finger pointing at each other) placed a grandfather clause for inclusion of bonuses in the recently passed budget. It’s not surprising that the press and the public read the legislation with OUTRAGE! Congress has now responded like a five alarm fire, because they passed the budget without reading it and slipped in the bonus exemption. This sounds more like a Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy escapade.
Emotional hijacking, in this case, occurred due to lack of critical thinking and deliberation of the issues that would impact the American economy. The American people are now faced with a gargantuan leadership void in the midst of this financial debacle. It has been one knee jerk reaction after another between the White House, Treasury, and Congress. To be emotionally intelligent one needs to be aware and knowledgeable rather than acting with political expediency. Hasty and uninformed decision making renders political leadership and moral leadership as oxymoron.
One of the hallmarks of sound leadership is being emotionally and socially aware. Psychologist Daniel Goleman says that emotional intelligence is more important than having a lot of smarts. Emotional intelligence provides a steadiness on a well-planned course of action in the face of crisis. Steady at the helm of American leadership on the rough sea of this financial fiasco is not what we are experiencing. From my Navy days, you turn the ship into the raging stormy waves in order to avoid being capsized. So far, the sea change of waves overwhelms Congress.
The famous theorem of the great philosopher Forrest Gump, “Stupid is as stupid does,” has been proven by Congress. The bills to tax the bonus pay are most likely unconstitutional. If the bonus pay tax becomes law, then a serious threat to American democracy exist. That means that Congress would have set the precedent to change law with penalties being retroactive and overriding any previous law at the whim of an emotional hijacking. Greed is the cause of the financial crisis.
However, it is a lack of moral leadership that is at the root.
I have suggested to my graduate students that perhaps Congress should enroll in our Graduate Certificate in Leadership and Ethics. What do you think? What about a grassroots campaign to get rid of all senators and congressmen/women who served more then ten years? Where will we find moral leadership?
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I think more turnover in congress is an excellent idea. It's the same when you are in any position too long. It's easy to lose focus of what is important and lose touch with the outside world/reality. There is no openness to change or new ideas in congress. This country can not make the necessary changes until our government makes some changes.
ReplyDeleteCheryl Hodges
Congress wants to demonize the upper management of AIG because they were paid bonuses that were contractually agreed upon. For AIG the bonuses are a publicity nightmare, yet under law they are obligated to abide by the contracts. From the news stories I have read most of these bonuses are retention bonuses, not performance bonuses. The large sums were agreed upon to prevent “brain drain” from the huge insurance conglomerate, since the best and brightest would be required to assist in pulling the company out of the death spiral. The wealth envy crowd threatened AIG employees in blogs and protests around the country, and Rep. Barney Frank fueled their emotions with his tirades from the halls of Congress.
ReplyDeleteYour blog mentions the lack of critical thinking and deliberation of issues affecting the American economy, and I completely agree. Congress is involved more in finger pointing and concerned about photo opportunities than they are in serious discussion of real issues. The founding fathers of this country debated issues of the day much more than the politicians of today. The Federalist Papers are a written record of the seriousness of discussions from the early days of this nation. Where is that level of seriousness today? Congress today is investigating whether we should have a collegiate football playoff system. President Obama is off to appear on the tonight show, and appearing on ESPN to select his Final Four in the NCAA basketball tournament. Sort of like Nero fiddling while Rome burns.
We are in this mess in a large part because the legislative and executive branches of previous administrations felt out of a sense of fairness that all Americans should be homeowners. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pledged billions in public funds, backing mortgages for individuals that should have never owned a home in the first place. Where was oversight of Fannie Mae? Rahm Emmanuel, now Obama’s Chief of Staff, was paid $320,000 as a member of the board of Fannie Mae from 2000 to 2001. By the way, that is not bad pay for attending six meetings! The vicious cycle continues of career politicians – look at who is running the show now. We have a Treasury Secretary that purposely avoided paying taxes. We need a new American revolution, and we could start by tossing all of the politicians in the freezing Potomac River!
We now have the President pledging that the government will back the warranties on cars from American car companies. Excuse me – where does the Constitution guarantee this? We somehow have to get back to a smaller and more responsive government in this country. Sadly, most Americans are more likely to name the finalists for American Idol, Dancing With the Stars, or the Final Four than name their two Senators and one Representative. We must move back to a more Constitutional government, and there is no place better to start than the Tenth Amendment. The more localized the government the more responsive it will be. I agree with you that somehow we must remove career politicians from office. The best place to start is the ballot box in 2010.
The defense that AIG needed to pay the bonuses to retain the "best and the brightest" is a farce. Obviously, if my children's future is being mortgaged to keep your company afloat, "best and brightest" is not in the vocabulary in describing your workforce.
ReplyDeleteI agree that Congress should have done it right the first time and disallowed the bonuses at the onset of the $700 billion handout. The breadth of incompetence is stunning: to pass legislation with such an astronomical price tag and not even read the bill you are signing? It's a complete disgrace. I say pay them their stinking bonuses...then let Eric Holder grow a pair, haul in Joe Cassano and his cohorts, and sentence them to life in prison for fraud. This should have been done months ago.
Brian said...
ReplyDelete"We are in this mess in a large part because the legislative and executive branches of previous administrations felt out of a sense of fairness that all Americans should be homeowners. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pledged billions in public funds, backing mortgages for individuals that should have never owned a home in the first place."
This certainly played a role, but the true cause of this was the proliferation of the shadow banking system of complex derivatives and credit default swaps without oversight. The subprime market makes a convenient scapegoat, but look at the numbers. The derivatives market is something like $800 TRILLION dollars. The worthless paper that the banks are hiding in their vaults are the reason why our economy is in the tank. The 'fairness' of home ownership quickly became perverted by the banks when they realized they could overleverage themselves 300:1 on actual assets and essentially play the derivatives market on an artifical housing bubble....a bubble they desperately, desperately sought to keep going and going. The concept that the banks were 'forced' by government at gunpoint to do all this to give subprime homeowners a house is suspect. Rational behavior on the part of the banks flew out the window with the passing of the Leachy-Gramm act of 1999 which allowed the financial mega-mergers to occur.
Moral and ethical bankruptcy
ReplyDeleteAmericans are finding a grotesque echo in the moral – ethical bankruptcy and worse of a substantial sector of American society.
The “moral depravity” of “the Arabs” who kill innocent civilians. It is more than moral depravity. It is a culture that teaches, educates and breeds hate toward other societies that are not like them as they say “infidels”.
There is no way this situation should be handled with kid gloves – when a poison strikes your body, you remove it and destroy it completely, leaving no trace of such poison.
History has shown that these types of atrocities and acts of barbarism have increased in the past half a century and getting worse by the day.
With today’s advancement in technology and telecommunications, the world has shrunk, events on the other side of the world affect everybody (like the Japanese Nuclear reactor fallout etc.) it affects our health our economy brings fear and uncertainty to our lives.
The financial crisis we are facing today is the price we pay for years of neglect and government abuse of power.
Is today’s society heading toward annihilation, you be the judge?
YJ Draiman