Who Created the Mess? Time Wants Your Vote
To say that America is ticked off at everyone who played even a tiny role in the current economic mess doesn't even begin to tell the story. We are angry, hurt, scared, and feel powerless to do anything to punish a bunch of people we expect will ultimately take the money and run.
Bless Time Magazine which is giving on-line readers a chance to extract a small piece of the pound of flesh most of us crave. In its February 12 on-line edition the magazine is sponsoring a poll ("25 People to Blame for the Financial Crisis") to pin responsibility on a gallery of the most prominent corporate, banking, and government suspects.
Participating in the poll has some of the same "feel-good components as throwing a baseball while your boss sits in the dunking chair.
Each of the 25 candidates nominated by Time is assigned his or her spot in a make-believe police line-up with a description of recent deeds (or misdeeds) and a head-shot which appears photo shopped onto a random body. A few of the alleged perps (especially Marion Sandler who, along with husband Herb founded World Savings Bank and invented option mortgages, and former Merrill Lynch CEO Stan O'Neal) look like their heads were merely hurled in the general vicinity of their necks. There is something deliciously contemptuous about it.
The beauty of the magazine's approach is that you don't have to choose just one candidate; you can pick them all if you wish, giving each one a heap of the blame on a scale of one to ten.
The list contains both foreign and domestic offenders and while most are names familiar to us, a few are obscure or not among those pounced upon regularly by the media.
Former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, Ex-President George W. Bush, Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, accused Ponzi-schemer Bernie Madoff, disgraced Fannie Mae executive Franklin Raines, Royal Bank of Scotland's Fred Goodwin and ex Citi CEO Sandy Weill are all there, as are ex-Bear Stearns head Jimmy Cayne, CEO of Beazer Homes Ian McCarthy, and, in a surprise nomination, us, the American Consumer. Among the names we found most surprising were that of Scripps Network programming director Burton Jablin, responsible for such home- ownership-promoting television as "Designed to Sell" and House Hunters" and former National Association of Realtor's chief economist David Lereah. We've had a lot of fun with Lereah and his Pollyanna attitude, but we never thought he had the clout to single-handedly perpetuate the housing bubble.
As a visitor ranks each candidate they can see how their measure of blame compares to that levied by other voters. Readers are not cutting these guys any slack. While there were ten levels available, every candidate averaged between six and ten on the guilt scale with only one (Jablin) scoring six and two (former President Bill Clinton and Wen Jia Bao standing as a surrogate for the whole Chinese government, getting seven.) The remainder all received an average blame quotient of eight or nine. No one received a perfect ten; I guess everybody has a mother.
The most blameworthy individuals were selected based on both the average score and the number of people who voted for (against?) them. The number of votes ranged, when we checked on Sunday, between 49,000 and 98,660 so some who got high average scores escaped a top-tier ranking because their sins are not so widely known.
Leading the list on Sunday was Phil Graham. Remember him? In the 1990s, as chairman of the Senate Banking Committee he was instrumental in deregulating both banks and derivatives. More recently, as chief campaign advisor to John McCain he called Americans a nation of whiners. He averaged a nine and received 93,400 votes. Take that Phil - and no whining.
Ranked second was former Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox. His agency has caught a lot of press both for their poor oversight of Wall Street's behavior and for letting Bernie Madoff (who earned 9th place) run rampant for so many years. He got 85,200 votes averaging nine.
Third was Angelo Mozilo, founder and former president of Countrywide Mortgage. He brought that firm down and the fate of Bank of America which took it over is still in doubt.
Us, the American Consumer was running 15th with 98,659 "8" votes - the largest number cast.
Maybe you can't get your job back or restore the value of your 401(k), but visit the poll at www.time.com/time/specials and get just a little payback. Perhaps when the final votes are counted Time will arrange an appropriate ceremony. We trust that lots of rotten tomatoes and custard pies will be involved.