The Buck Stops Where?

The defensive--tone-deaf--manner in which Wall Street and Washington respond to revelations of their own wrongdoing speaks volumes about what is wrong and why it is so difficult to fix. When Tom Daschle’s problems became a news story, all his friends, and even some Capitol Hill rivals, seemed ready to confirm him. That “ordinary Americans” were outraged finally turned the tide. President Obama eventually got it. To his credit, he took responsibility and responded to the voices outside the halls of Washington power, and beyond the boardrooms of the island Manhattan. When bankers enriched by bailouts made themselves bonus babies despite their bottom lines bottoming out, they claimed that they, the best and the brightest, are different and deserve everything they get.

So the president goes to Elkhart, Indiana and then Fort Myers, Florida, grounds zero for the unemployment and foreclosure crises. He should continue to get out of Washington as often as possible. And he ought to use the bully pulpit to suggest a few field trips for the executives who favor costly commodes and gilded garbage cans. Most of the Wall Street royalty and the Washington ruling class can travel incognito; they are not recognizable outside of their own kingdoms. They should be required to take these trips in order to understand the pain and suffering they have wrought or failed to mitigate.

President Obama took responsibility for the Daschle debacle. “I screwed up”, he said. Until leaders acknowledge their own mistakes, fixing problems remains somebody else’s job. Haven’t we had enough of that?

The latest “we didn’t do anything wrong” response comes from bailout recipient Wells Fargo, forced to cancel an expensive employee recognition get away after news of the trip to Las Vegas became public. The bank’s response was to take out ads in the NY Times, and Washington Post, defending the practice, and blaming the media for creating problems. This, of course, created even more outrage. Until the most powerful start to take responsibility and stop pointing fingers the recovery will continue to stagger. The “buck” has to stop somewhere, but these so-called leaders seem to think it is always someplace else.