Reason Not The Need

I was listening to the World Service's early morning progamme on matters financial the other morning and there was a fascinating bit in which a banker chappie defended the right of those at the top who'd screwed up everything to earn salaries in excess of the half a million limit the Obama administration is trying to put on those working in banks which take government money to keep them afloat. Much of the fascination lay in the guy's obvious sincerity.

The argument went something like this: These super bankers have super lifestyles which demand gazillions to maintain. They cannot give up these lifestyles so it is only right to hand over said gazillions to them. If they can't get the dosh from their current banks they will simply go bankrupt (happily wrecking the various small worlds of their employees and those who've trusted them with their money) and move into careers in which the necessary funds will be forthcoming. I know this sounds like a caricature but I was listening carefully and the above is, I believe, an accurate summary of his case. As I said, it was delivered with distinct sincerity.

It's so easy to pick up on the obvious flaws in the banker chappie's case that I won't bother, but I would like to dwell for a moment on the extraordinary neediness that underlies the argument. No one can possibly need the amounts considered here yet somehow these guys do. Did something go deeply wrong in their childhoods? Are they entirely detached from any sense of the real world around them? Do they realise how deeply, deeply, spectacularly crazy they really are?

Don't they ever watch Oprah?