Washington's turned schizophrenic and it is exhausting. We are lurching from outrage, to anger, to outrage at the anger, and back again in microseconds. I'm tempted to throw my TV out the window because the mood of cable shows has become more toxic than those subprime assets we really should be focusing our brain power on.
Let me just state for the record that I'm sick to death of hearing about AIG. Yes, their $165 million in bonuses smacks of ham-handedness when it comes to the company's ability to read the political winds. Still, if we were to lose the canned outrage and take a good look around us, we just might WAKE UP AND SMELL THE KITTY LITTER in time to realize that AIG is NOT the problem here. Granted, they're sure as Hell not the solution, but AIG is not the reason why our economy is circling the proverbial drain. The problem is the system and the lack of oversight that has allowed AIG- and other companies in the financial world's version of Olympus- to party like it was 1929.
In 2000, we handed the keys to the castle to a cabal of hands-off, anti-regulatory, corrupt-until-the-day-they-die thugs who were quite happy to allow Big Business to act like Masters of the Universe. Poor, ineffective, and inept (or no) oversight, allowed the financial industry to continue chasing anything that showed the promise of making their balance sheets look better in the short term. It was all about stock price, not building a solid foundation for the future. While AIG may be the latest example of this malfeasance, they hardly bear sole responsibility for the collapse of the American (and world) economy.
I'm tired of the canned, manufactured outrage that's reduced the Obama Administration to chasing the tail of public opinion in order to keep from being completely derailed. The cheap "pitchforks and torches" response has succeeded really in only deflecting attention from what currently is most in need of focus- the question of where we go from here. Sure we could tar and feather AIG executives, but once we've done that, then what? How do we get from where we are to where we want/need to be? Impaling CEOs and other executives isn't going to do anything other than help us feel better in the short term. Anger and rage are particularly useless emotions when it comes to problem-solving...and this country is hardly lacking for problems in need of effective leadership to solve.
Perhaps an even bigger problem is what Paul Krugman has been referring to as "zombie idea"- half-measures, reforms that stop short of fixing problems, and weak "solutions" that in the end will solve exactly nothing. Sadly, these ideas are now winning the day in Washington. Instead of showing leadership and effectively telling Republicans to get on board or get the Hell out of the way, The Obama Administration has tried to make economic reform a bipartisan issue. This would be a fine and wonderful idea if Republicans were inclined to engage in bipartisanship, but they're clearly not. In becoming the party of "NO!", the GOP has proven that ideological fealty and their future political prospects trump the national interest. Every time.
So, how 'bout we turn off the cable news shows with their foaming-at-the-mouth pundits and we figure out how to get ourselves out of this mess? Together. Perhaps once the economy is back on a functional footing we can work on persecution and prosecution. Now is hardly the time for torches and pitchforks.
