I have a pretty good pulse on the financial sector. Professionally and personally the economy to me is life imitating art imitating life with a sharper punchline. And we’re screwed. We don’t know it yet because the powers that be are trying really hard to un-fuck things, but in the long run we’re screwed. Not because the stimulus can’t work (though I have my serious doubts) and not because the government is trying to socialize corporate America (though it is), but because the private sector has the same leaders it did before the crash.

The original problem was restricted to Corporate America. It’s not enough to bail AIG or any other company out. Their reigning corporate officers MUST be replaced. If the men and women running major American corporations were not swine to begin with most of these issues would have been averted.

Take for example the Bally’s and Caesar’s issue in Atlantic City. For readers not familiar, this sums it up nicely. What’s not in the article is how much the CEO of that company makes, which according to this article (and everything else I’ve heard/seen/read) is over 92 million dollars. Conversely, the dealers are striking for what could be considered a living wage.

If that company was in trouble I doubt he’d take a pay cut. Just like the leaders of AIG needed to be reminded what seems reasonable to them — a plus or minus half-million-dollar corporate retreat might not seem reasonable to the taxpayer. And that bailout money belongs to taxpayers.

Now the problem is evolving. The top brass is trying to defuse issues rather than solve them.

In the CNN article on unemployment I read there was a quote, which I feel I should relay here: “I’m less concerned with the unemployment rate increase because the summer tends to play a lot of havoc with these numbers,” Baumohl said. Bernard Baumohl is the Chief Global Economist for the Economic Outlook Group. It’s not the economy slowly sinking like the Titanic. It’s just summer time.

Thank goodness he’s not concerned, because I’m crapping my pants, and I don’t think I’m alone. I’m not taking on debt. I’m not using my credit card. I’m not buying pretty shiny thing that I want in case things get worse. And things can always get worse.

A few paragraphs later there was a statistic, which we’ll assume to be correct. “Despite automakers ramping up production to meet demand for fuel-efficient vehicles sparked by the Cash for Clunkers program, auto plants and auto parts makers lost nearly 15,000 jobs in August.” If that fact had come first I probably would have flipped out. But it’ll be fine.

Look, I get it. This economic crisis has been hard fought and it’s nowhere near over. But when you get to the point where a jump in unemployment, such as the 26-year high reported by the CNN article, doesn’t phase you, maybe it’s time to retire. But most of these people are greedy.

So, my proposed answer is as follows: public spankings. Just march their butts out in front of City Hall at Broad and Market, bend them over a knee (I’m sure we won’t be short of volunteers) and commence martial punishment. Additional verbal reprimand is acceptable, but no profanity or name calling. I ask that spankers keep verbal comments to things like: “That’s a bad CEO” and “Are you sorry you didn’t respect other people’s feelings?”

Corporate greed has eroded ethics to the point of absurdism. Until we fire, not control, not limit, but fire the private leadership that got America into this mess we’ll never get out if it.

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