There's been a lot of talk about "fat cats" and "robber barons" being bandied about of late
/EIN Presswire/ There's been a lot of talk about "fat cats" and "robber barons" being bandied about of late; mostly with regard to corporate honchos and financial market CEO's. So let me see if I've got this straight. "Robber-barons" are loosely defined as businesspeople who allegedly engage in unethical business tactics and questionable stock market transactions to build large personal fortunes. Sounds familiar. "Fat-cats" are defined as those executives who earn what many believe to be unreasonably high salaries and bonuses. I'm sure I've read that somewhere. These top executives also receive generous pensions and retirement packages, consisting of extra compensation not available to other company employees. Yup. We've all heard about that.
All this talk about "robber-barons" and "fat cats" reminds me of the drawings of George Grosz. For those of you financial types unfamiliar with Grosz and his art, George Grosz (1893-1959), born in Berlin, was an outstanding, artist, caricaturist and political satirist of the post-World War I Weimar period. A veteran of WWI, like Adolf Hitler, Grosz represents an opposing response to the gross (no pun intended) excesses of the era, portraying in his art, and especially his ink drawings, the collapse of capitalist society and its values.
Since we're all online nowadays, let me suggest for your reference Toads of Property (1921). In the foreground we see three fleshy businessmen playing cards at a table, chips, coins and stacks of bills piled high. In the background, the unemployed, the poor, the homeless and the maimed mill about before an industrial backdrop.
By now you either know where I'm going, or you think I'm off on a useless tangent. Here it is: This was then and this is now. This is our America of outsize bonuses to the MIT mathematicians-come-big time banking robber barons who masterminded our current financial predicament. Yes, the very über-brains who conceived of all those infinitely abstract financial instruments that, with the blessing of deregulation, nearly brought the entire world economy crashing down to the ground, their sacred-cow, fat cat bonuses intact.
Whether you see the core issue as one of deregulation/regulation or a return in-part to the protections of Glass-Steagall, or a degree of both, Obama's decision to take the good counsel of ex-fed Chairman Paul Volcker is a step in the right direction; belated, but good, nonetheless, regardless of what political motivations underlie.
It may, however, be a case of too little, in view of the carnage still working its way through the world economy, and too late, in view of the Citizens United decision. Legislation can be done, undone, done and yet, undone again. Prior to Glass-Steagall, the fat cats and robber barons played craps with the financial lives of ordinary people, just as they have in the years following its repeal. A Congress, bought in part by big Wall Street corporate money can just as easily undo any constraints that may be enacted by the current administration.
So, my advice is to take a good, hard, long look at Grosz's little pen and ink drawing. Only I'd re-title it. Let's just call it "Your Money at Work" (2010).
Link to Georg Grosz drawings:
http://www.austinkleon.com/2007/12/09/the-drawings-of-george-grosz/
Go the www.finvidea.com for more articles and broadcasts on the financial markets
All this talk about "robber-barons" and "fat cats" reminds me of the drawings of George Grosz. For those of you financial types unfamiliar with Grosz and his art, George Grosz (1893-1959), born in Berlin, was an outstanding, artist, caricaturist and political satirist of the post-World War I Weimar period. A veteran of WWI, like Adolf Hitler, Grosz represents an opposing response to the gross (no pun intended) excesses of the era, portraying in his art, and especially his ink drawings, the collapse of capitalist society and its values.
Since we're all online nowadays, let me suggest for your reference Toads of Property (1921). In the foreground we see three fleshy businessmen playing cards at a table, chips, coins and stacks of bills piled high. In the background, the unemployed, the poor, the homeless and the maimed mill about before an industrial backdrop.
By now you either know where I'm going, or you think I'm off on a useless tangent. Here it is: This was then and this is now. This is our America of outsize bonuses to the MIT mathematicians-come-big time banking robber barons who masterminded our current financial predicament. Yes, the very über-brains who conceived of all those infinitely abstract financial instruments that, with the blessing of deregulation, nearly brought the entire world economy crashing down to the ground, their sacred-cow, fat cat bonuses intact.
Whether you see the core issue as one of deregulation/regulation or a return in-part to the protections of Glass-Steagall, or a degree of both, Obama's decision to take the good counsel of ex-fed Chairman Paul Volcker is a step in the right direction; belated, but good, nonetheless, regardless of what political motivations underlie.
It may, however, be a case of too little, in view of the carnage still working its way through the world economy, and too late, in view of the Citizens United decision. Legislation can be done, undone, done and yet, undone again. Prior to Glass-Steagall, the fat cats and robber barons played craps with the financial lives of ordinary people, just as they have in the years following its repeal. A Congress, bought in part by big Wall Street corporate money can just as easily undo any constraints that may be enacted by the current administration.
So, my advice is to take a good, hard, long look at Grosz's little pen and ink drawing. Only I'd re-title it. Let's just call it "Your Money at Work" (2010).
Link to Georg Grosz drawings:
http://www.austinkleon.com/2007/12/09/the-drawings-of-george-grosz/
Go the www.finvidea.com for more articles and broadcasts on the financial markets
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