Sense and Sensibility

Audacity, Audacity, Audacity

The brokers are not like you and me.

The folks on Wall Street are miserable.

No, no, it’s not that the $700 billion bailout was too meager.

It’s their bonuses.

They’re so, well…puny.

A full 46 percent of 900 financial industry employees surveyed griped that their bonuses were too small last year.

Yes, last year, 2008, the year your 401K lost all those commas.

Some 80 percent of Wall Street bulls took home bonuses last year, to the tune of $18.4 billion, the New York State comptroller reported last week. A full 46 percent of them took home the same or more than their haul the previous year, a fact that failed to squelch the bawling.

Still unknown is whether, or how much of those bonuses came out of the federal bailout package. With apologies to Tennessee Williams, “Audacity, Audacity, Audacity.”

A rising tide of gall seems is sweeping the nation, fueled by a rush of cluelessness startling in its depth. How, for instance, did Hartford Mayor Eddie A. Perez think he could get away with $40,000 worth of free home renovations at the hands of a city contractor? (And not even a good city contractor, but one whose slipshod work is under state investigation.) Had Perez canceled his newspaper subscription the year former Gov. John Rowland was ousted over a hot tub? Did he figure the best way to avoid scrutiny was

And just how bad is the carbon monoxide in Detroit that auto executives there figured they could rush to Washington, D.C. on private jets to weep to Congress about their shrinking profit margins? Don’t they know it doesn’t do to beg in Armani?

And speaking of nervy jaunts, how about Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich self-immolating on every talk-show in America? If I have to see this guy talking about his health care plans while his expletive-laced transcript hovers above him, I’m going to scalp him myself. I cannot figure out if the man has unmitigated cheek or if he’s completely delusional. Fortunately, for the rational among us, the Illinois State Senate sent him and his Elvis statue packing [Dash] but failing to alleviate the rest of us from the televised sideshow of his distinctive implosion.

Bernie Madoff

And finally, there is Bernie Madoff. After he made off with an estimated $50 billion in what is considered the world’s largest Ponzi scheme, the 70-year-old got lucky. He eluded an attempt by federal prosecutors to revoke his bail. The prosecutors alleged that Madoff had scrambled to mail $1 million worth of jewelry to his wife and sons before he was arrested. But judge didn’t budge and dispatched busted Bernie to his $7 million Park Avenue pad, where he remains under house arrest. . “I’m a prisoner in my own house!” Madoff wailed, according to the New York Post. “I can’t go anywhere! I’m stuck here all day.”

Poor Bernie. Reduced to take-out.

When people are losing their homes, their jobs, their health care and their sense of possibility, it might seem unconscionable that the well-heeled complain about the thickness of their socks. In one week last month, the country hemorrhaged 65,000 jobs. It might seem inconceivable that the wealthy would be so bereft of scruples [Dash] to say nothing of empathy [Dash] that they would lard their vaults with greenbacks at a time when others have lost everything.

But the worm of entitlement slithers into the minds of the fortunate with insidious tenacity. Last year, the income of the 400 wealthiest Americans soared 23 percent from last year, to an average of $263 million, according to the Internal Revenue Service. Wealth and privilege like that subvert perspective. As F. Scott Fitzgerald reminds us, “The rich are not like you and me.”

No, indeed. But while there is nothing new about the princes of politics and power losing their grasp on reality, it is a novel, and indeed odious turn of the screw when those very same princes of industry mewl for a handout from folks like you and me.