Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

Now Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain has stepped up to the plate.  Thain is now demanding a $10 million bonus for all his hard work that on the Papamoka Straight Talk site was referred to as "busting the brokerage house up."

According to an MSNBC December 8 story, "Thain has said he deserves a bonus because he helped over what could have been a much larger crisis at the firm, people familiar with his thinking told the Wall Street Journal."

So we have a few bricks and mortar that were not blown away by the excesses of Thain and his executive accomplices.  Accordingly, he deserves a juicy bonus.

Meanwhile a considerably smaller loan proposal to save 2 million jobs as well as the auto industry is drawing scrutiny and need for micro-management that the sudden purveyors of vigilance, beginning with the White House, did not display toward executives like John Thain of Merrill Lynch when a $700 billion proposal was being considered with an auto industry bailout bridge loan comprising a considerably smaller total of $15 billion.

Another important distinction exists between the two proposals along with the obvious size difference.  Assembly line workers have agreed to cuts to keep the big three automakers of General Motors, Ford and Chrysler in business.  Did we hear anything about comparable sacrifices from the banking community?

Actually certain banks were said to have put the money to very selfish use.  Instead of focusing on keeping their own houses in order they went shopping and used bailout money from taxpayers to pick up bargain acquisitions at depressed prices.

Talk about speaking out of both sides of your mouth!  Plead poverty to obtain taxpayer money, then deluge bank fire sales and buy up some of those institutions weakened by the weight of a massive meltdown.

Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama has taken a strong stand against the bridge loan to keep the auto industry functioning in America and save the loss of an estimated 2 million jobs.

Carl Hulse in the New York Times December 8 quotes Shelby as stating, "This is a bridge loan to nowhere.  This is a down payment on many billions to come."

Shelby, while acting out the role of Uncle Scrooge, dares use Christmas to at least delay a vote on loan legislation, saying nothing about the loss of jobs and perhaps an entire industry which has been a staple of the U.S. economy for years.

"I know people want to get home for Christmas," Shelby explained.  "They want to get out of here."

Shelby's Alabama colleague Jeff Sessions has taken a compatible position on the loan.  Should we be so cynical to believe that maybe the reason why Alabama's U.S. senators demonstrate so little interest in those companies in Michigan is that there are no big three auto plants in the southern state they represent.

On the other hand, there are auto plants there.  

It just so happens that they are owned by foreign companies and outside Detroit's financial interests.  

Could this have a bearing on their thinking?    

Why were foreign car companies bullish on locating factories in Alabama?  Not only were they wooed with lucrative financial considerations; the job market is much cheaper and unions are not a factor.