Real Hoax of the Year

Robert Scheer reacts much as I do to the Goldman Sachs bonuses:

Who are these people? I am not referring to the pathetic parents of
“Balloon Boy,” whose fake drama I have been unable to escape while on the
treadmill this week, thanks to my gym’s insistence on tuning its flat-screen TVs
to Wolf Blitzer’s nonstop self-parody.

The Colorado incident was significant only in the tawdriness of
those who perpetrated the made-for-TV scam and their allies in the mindless
media who covered this sham “reality” so relentlessly. But even so, it was
enough to push aside most consideration of the true hoax reported last week with
far less fervor: the obscene rewards that Wall Street bankers bestowed upon
themselves for ripping off our economy.

The people I want to know more about are the superrich who expect to be
rewarded for their failures, like the folks at Goldman Sachs who will receive
$16.71 billion in bonuses—an average of $530,000 per employee—this year after
their company did as much as any to bring the world economy to the brink of
disaster.

“The Guys from Government Sachs” is what The New York Times once called
them in recognition of their chokehold on the federal government. Their power is
marked by the two treasury secretaries who led the fight to legally enable and
then reward Wall Street for its obscene excesses. Why wasn’t there a CNN
stakeout at the homes of former Goldman-execs-turned-treasury-chiefs Robert
Rubin and Henry Paulson aimed at finding out how they feel about the almost $7
billion profit that Goldman Sachs made in the last two quarters in the wake of
the government’s bailout of the firm?