Muncie Times, Muncie, Delaware County, 4 March 2010 — Page 15

The Muncie Times • March 4, 2010 • Page 15

The Judge’s Chambers

WALL STREET OUTRAGE

Americans are outraged at Wall Street and the country's big banks for several reasons, the least of which is the latest report that bonuses for financial execs increased 25 percent in 2009. Millions of Americans are out of work, unemployment is at the highest it's been in a decade and the country continues to suffer economically. Yet, an industry that had to be bailed out by taxpayers can afford to reward its top officials. Americans have a right to be outraged. It wasn't that long ago - just over a year - that the United States government offered up $700 billion of taxpayer money to prevent the financial industry from collapsing. Years of unregulated financial dealings and the purchase of faulty credit assets by the banks led to that moment and, without the bailout, our economy would have suffered tremendously. Now, it seems the financial industry has not only “recovered”, it is benefiting from the loan. The dollars use to save the industry were utilized to generate historic profits for the big banks.. .they in turn gave themselves both cash and non-cash bonuses. To be fair, when a company does well it should reward it's staff. But when a company is just coming off of one of the biggest

financial disasters in history, profits should be reinvested to ensure future financial stability. They should be used to reward leaders for short-term success. Reinvesting in the business and industry includes hiring more staff. Most economists think the huge profits are a result of the banks laying off staff or terminating jobs and giving more work to the employees that remained.

Less staff and overhead costs equal bigger profits. We should all write legislators and advocate that the government tie financial sector pay to the longterm financial success of the firms. These shortterm gains are great, but are not indicative of the overall health of the industry. Critics argue that government should not intervene and has no place mandating how banks pay

Judge Greg Mathis Chairman of the Rainbow PUSH- Excel Board and a national member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference

staff. I disagree. When the government, as our repretaxpayers are' responsible sentative, does and should from saving the sector have a say. from collapse then the

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