Impoverishment at the highest levels

It seems that one of the sticking points in our bailout of Wall Street is how much should we pay the bankers who come asking for help. John McCain is on record that bankers who ask for our tax money to get themselves out of their pickle should not expect to earn more than the highest paid person in the federal government. That being the President, who takes in $400,000 per year.

Secretary Paulson has responded that we can't make this work if we include "punitive" provisions like this. Punitive? There are no government employees in America, outside of college athletic coaches, earning that much. Are the banks pretending they couldn't get the talent they need? That you can't make ends meet, after years of 7 and 8-figure salaries, if you're reduced for one year to $400,000? Punitive?!

It should be clear now that the people running the financial world are not amazing geniuses. They just had really large sums of other people's money to gamble and, although they often did well, they once too often have done badly. They are probably reasonably bright and some of them may be good technicians, but they are not irreplaceable.

The free market advocates are all keen on Darwinian selection in the corporate world. Let's see it work. Let's see which banks are willing to throw some of their bloated executive salaries out in order to survive. Those that aren't, won't. Sounds good to me.