“I have no confidence that they intend or desire to change,” [Carl] Levin told me. “These bankers got away with murder, and it’s obscene that close to nothing is being asked of financial institutions. I get incensed at the thought that a bank that’s getting billions of dollars in taxpayer money is out there buying fancy new airplanes.”

                                      New York Times, Jan. 28, 2009, Column by Maureen Dowd, Wall Street’s Socialist Jet-Setters

A couple months ago I wrote a Futures editorial that got a big response, largely because it took on the arrogance of companies and their corporate jets. At the time I was chiding the car makers, but apparently executive self entitlement has spiraled to the point that even when a company is taking public money, it’s willing to buy a corporate jet for $50 million and be shocked when the government, which loaned the company money, steps in and says no.

In Citigroup’s defense I know this thought process isn’t rampant in its rank and file. One of its executives told me once that while traveling with their children, he and his wife had to stay at a lesser star hotel because their hotel of choice was overbooked. His children were angry, and he and his wife were so appalled by their reaction, that for years afterward when they traveled they stayed at Motel 6’s until the kids quit complaining.

That’s what the government has to do with these Wall Street elite. (more…)