Is it an onus?

Pundits like to act outraged when they hear Wall Streeters complain that $500,000 isn't that much money. They're right that it's a lot of money...if you don't live an upper crust lifestyle in New York. 

When a basic apartment goes for more than a million, 500k can go pretty quick. Obama and his economic team are quite right that all firms should be cutting back in this " winter of hardship" (seriously?). But capping executive pay is a pretty blunt and inefficient method of forcing companies to do this. Companies receiving federal bailout funds should certainly be subject to strict scrutiny, but if an executive can successfully employ this "bridge" money to shore up balance sheets and lead a return to profitability, shouldn't they be rewarded accordingly? 

Wall Street's "bonus" culture has been entrenched for so long that we seem to forgot exactly what one normally earns a bonus for. We shouldn't embrace it in it's current form, nor should we pay regulators the exorbitant amounts previously earned by execs. As always in times of hardship, we swing from one extreme to the other and suggest heavy handed ways to counter problems we didn't see coming and are all occasionally guilty of hyperbole.

Let's let government service remain just that and reinstitute the true meaning of bonus.

(Photo via c-weiss)