Post by dgriffin on Jul 18, 2009 15:04:00 GMT -5
Windfalls for Bankers, Resentments for the Rest
Published: July 18, 2009
There was a time in this country when a company reporting a few billion in earnings could count its money while basking in polite, reverent applause.
That time ended Tuesday.
It was the morning that Goldman Sachs reported net income of $3.44 billion, a number that surprised even analysts who follow investment banking. JPMorgan Chase came two days later with news that it had earned $2.7 billion in the second quarter, even more than it earned in the same period last year, before the economy had a cardiac infarction.
Then on Friday, Citigroup and Bank of America — two of the great basket cases of the meltdown — reported outstanding numbers, too.
All of these companies were beneficiaries of gargantuan government bailouts, in assorted forms and varied sums, but if they assumed they’d hear bravos for prompt paybacks and quick turnarounds, they were in for a shock. At a time when so many people are struggling with foreclosures and are either unemployed or worried about losing a job, these earnings were bound to stir up some basic questions of fairness.
And along with those questions, a rebirth, perhaps, of a type of anger that hasn’t been widespread for a while: good old class resentment.
It’s making a comeback. As recently as April, President Obama could say at a news conference at a Group of 20 summit meeting, that Americans “don’t resent the rich; they want to be rich,” without raising eyebrows. Today, the first half of that comment is starting to sound like a stretch. And when it comes to people who earned their fortunes through the financial industry, it seems wrong.
Neither Representative Barney Frank nor Senator Chris Dodd — respectively, the Democrats who lead the House and Senate committees that handle banks — issued press releases about those earnings last week, according members of their staffs. Neither returned a call for this article.
www.nytimes.com/2009/07/19/weekinreview/19segal.html
