The Meltdown Blog

In his Baltimore Sun column, Dan Rodricks explains why the rich just can't get enough bonuses:

As the world's population grows, as the recession expands and unemployment worsens, as the globe continues to warm and the oceans rise, as questions about the future of energy and natural resources become graver, as civil unrest becomes a greater concern, the masters of the universe grab all they can. It's an Idaho panhandle mentality on Wall Street - hoard money and assets, and enough golf balls to ride out the coming cataclysm. There's social Darwinism at play in this, to be sure - survival of the richest - but it's the most cynical and self-centered kind, based not on enterprise or capitalism, but on a dark view of the future. Their concept of the greater good is gone, and they certainly display nothing you might call civic-mindedness or patriotism.

Just for contrast, here's a report in the New York Times on less fortunate Americans:

Like a dozen or so other cities across the nation, Fresno is dealing with an unhappy déjà vu: the arrival of modern-day Hoovervilles, illegal encampments of homeless people that are reminiscent, on a far smaller scale, of Depression-era shantytowns.

[...]

“These are able-bodied folks that did day labor, at minimum wage or better, who were previously able to house themselves based on their income,” said Michael Stoops, the executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless, an advocacy group based in Washington.

Better start looking for a comfy tent.