Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

This escape from reality, aided by Congress placing no restrictions on bonuses they could grant themselves or an end to the luxury jet travel to costly luxury resorts, enabled these executives to continue enjoying the perks of great success, not recognizing they were fantastic failures.  

Their fantasy-driven lifestyles continue thanks to a Congress that had failed to put these miserable failures in touch with the reality they themselves had created.

The Wall Street Journal June 19 exposed some of these CEO's of bailed out banks who flew to resorts on firm's jets in an article by Jesse Drucker and Mark Maremont, revealing how some of the taxpayer bailout billions are being spent.  For example:

"Regions Financial Corporation of Birmingham, Alabama received $3.5 billion from the Treasury Department's troubled asset relief program, on TARP, on November 14.  Twelve days later, the day before Thanksgiving, two Regions jets left Birmingham within minutes of each other, bound for a small airport in West Virginia.

"The destination:  the historic Greenbrier Resort, where the bank's chief executive, C. Dowd Ritter, and family members spent four nights over the holiday, according to a person familiar with his accommodations.  

"The round-trip flights cost Regions roughly $17,700, according to a calculation by Conklin & deDecker Aviation Information, a consulting firm.  A Regions spokesman declined to comment on the trip or the cost estimate but said all travel on company jets `either for personal or business was within our policy.'"  

That policy may have worked at one time.  But such a policy doesn't fit snugly with the current corporate welfare status of the taxpayer bailed out banking system.

That reminds me of a cliché that does fit, "When the cats are away, the rats will play."  To update this cliché that fits perfectly, "When no bank regulations are in the way the corporate rats are bound to play while the U.S. taxpayer is forced to pay."

But Regions wasn't alone in this disregard of who is now footing the bill for these failed characters to go on fantasizing they deserve such posh perks as air travel everywhere.

The Journal article continued:

"At Citigroup, two days after the bank cancelled the jet order Mr. Obama criticized, former Chief Executive Sanford Weill boarded a Citigroup-owned plane for a flight to a small airport at Saranac Lake in New York State's woodsy Adirondack region.  Flight records show it was the seventh trip a Citigroup plane had made to Saranac Lake, near where Mr. Weill had a vacation home, since the bank first received federal aid last fall."

Just because these CEO's with their fancy titles can get by with such outrageous blatant fraud as luxuriating in hard-earned taxpayer funding doesn't mean their conduct is not in reality shameful.

The betrayal in both the Republican and Democratic Congresses in rushing these federal aid bailout billions through so fast that regulations and restrictions were not included is unforgivable.

With the collapse of both the banking system and big business establishments, why haven't we had thorough investigations?  Certainly lots of cheating and fraud contributed to this truly tragic economic system meltdown, but we seldom read or hear of any of these failed business or bank tycoons going to jail, sad to say.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, California's movie star governor, has overseen the collapse of what is becoming a bankrupt, desperate state.  Things have become so bad that Arnold went so far as to suggest that California might sell the Coliseum or Alcatraz, the famous prison on an island off the coast of San Francisco.

Alcatraz could become a tourist attraction prison again if we could put those responsible for the destruction of the U.S. economic system in this landmark facility.  

Tour guides could tell how many millions or billions these inmates lost when they ravaged the U.S. banking system!