Roger Cohen of the IHT tells the story of a disillusioned bank executive in the United States:
Anecdote 1
He said the final straw came in 2002. Top executives at the bank where he worked gathered to discuss their bonuses. The issue before them was whether to maintain those bonuses in a time of economic contraction, which would require firing 5 percent of the workforce, or take a 25 percent bonus cut, which would allow those jobs to be kept.
“The guy running the meeting asked for a show of hands on who would accept a reduced bonus,” he said. “There were 30 of us in the room. Three raised their hands. I was one of them.”
The job losses went through, this executive left, and the bank today is still trying to claw out from its uncontrolled excess.
Cohen comments as follows:
America is a land of associations. Solidarity has not vanished from the land. But it’s in retreat. None of those guys who wanted all their yummy money was anything but rich.
And then to drive home his point, he gives the following statistic...
Statistic
The share of national income held by the top 1 percent of American families has doubled in recent decades to 20 percent. That’s a huge shift.
... followed by another anecdote:
Anecdote 2
I spoke to Doug Severance, a Vietnam vet who’s a hotel employee in Aspen, Colorado. “When I moved here in 1984 we were all family,” he said. “Now either you arrive in a Lear Jet or you’re a servant.”
Anyone who has done me the honour of reading this blog over the months and years will know that I can hardly be accused of anti-Americanism - quite the contrary - but I just think that a society that allows these sorts of disparities to go unchecked is a society in danger of coming apart at the seams.
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