David Corn

I'm on the run today and will be on holiday for the rest of the week. Thus, postings will suffer. But this morning The Washington Post, reporting on the federal rescue of Citigroup, notes:

The government is not firing Citi's executives, but it is requiring that their compensation be approved by federal authorities under terms that are not yet finalized. And it is requiring that the bank help people at risk of losing their homes avoid foreclosure by using the same aggressive approach that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. has required of IndyMac, a California-based bank it took over in July.

Is it too much to expect that some of the folks responsible for the mess lose their jobs? As I watch friends, relatives, and strangers get slammed by the economic downturn, I am angered by the notion that many of the people who steered us into this disaster--yes, the Robert Rubins of the world--were able to make millions of dollars a year screwing up and now do not face the same consequences as those thousands of Americans who are being laid off or those who have lost their retirement security.

Let's have some heads roll. On the campaign trail, John McCain was right to show some anger about all this--but it was never clear if he really meant it. Meanwhile, there aren't too many corporate honchos being given the boot or having their mansions repossessed, while the Rubin gang rides back into town to save the system. (I revisited Larry Summers' culpability yesterday.) Is it too Grinch-ish to want to see the geniuses that failed suffer?