{"id":195,"date":"2003-09-10T14:47:10","date_gmt":"2003-09-10T14:47:10","guid":{"rendered":"0"},"modified":"2006-09-28T12:08:20","modified_gmt":"2006-09-28T12:08:20","slug":"greed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/?p=195","title":{"rendered":"Greed"},"content":{"rendered":"

Calpundit<\/a> has two good posts on greed up today.<\/p>\n

In the first one, he skewers the notion that overcompensated senior executives get their pay because they take commensurate risks<\/a>, by pointing out that Richard Grasso is the CEO of a regulated entity; one that exists both as a public and private sector organization. <\/p>\n

In the second, he hits on something I’d been meaning to blog for a while<\/a> (which is made more newsworthy by the recent, insane, court decision<\/a> that lets 9\/11 victims families…already richly compensated…sue) the wild disparities between what the Manhattan and Pentagon survivors get, and what the survivors of those killed in Afghanistan and Iraq get.<\/p>\n

I was forwarded a Limbaugh column on this subject, which was the first thing I saw on it; I detest the guy, but have to give credit where credit is due. And an issue where Easterbrook, Limbaugh, Kevin and I all agree…Easterbook nails it in the quote Kevin uses:<\/p>\n

“Families who have taken the federal compensation have, so far, received average awards of $1.6 million, tax-free. Families of the United States personnel murdered by Al Qaeda in the Kenya and Tanzania terror attacks of 1998 received, on average, nothing. Families of the several hundred United States military personnel killed in Afghanistan fighting to destroy al Qaeda, and killed in Iraq fighting at least in part against terrorism, received, on average, $9,000, taxable. <\/p>\n

Now some 9\/11 families are saying $1.6 million isn’t enough. Set aside whether they should be receiving anything from taxpayers, given the myriad other circumstances in which Americans die in various horrible events every bit as traumatic and devastating to their families, who receive nothing at all. Assume for the sake of argument that something about 9\/11 justifies offering victims’ estates a very large special payment. Yet some 9\/11 families are saying very large is not large enough. This is greed; it is employing the memory of lost loved ones for gold-digging.”<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Kevin is wrong to call this ‘a fitting tribute for the second anniversary’. It’s disgusting and infuriating, and shows little credit to the survivors pursuing more money, the lawyers serving them, or U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein, the judge who made this ludicrous decision.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some posts and commentary on greed. Plus, some thoughts on the wild disparities between what the Manhattan and Pentagon survivors get, and what the survivors of those killed in Afghanistan and Iraq get.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=195"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}