Monday, March 16, 2009
The "outrageous" abrogation of contracts
Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers says that paying $165 million in "bonuses" to AIG employees is "outrageous," but that there's not much he can do, because:
"We're not a country where contracts just get abrogated willy-nilly. And if we were to start doing that, there would be potentially very, very destabilizing consequences."Funny how that objection to abrogating contracts and the "very, very destabilizing consequences" doesn't come up when the contracts being abrogated are those with GM and Ford workers, or San Francisco Chronicle workers, or anyplace else where it's the workers who are suffering. Au contraire, it's precisely those cases where members of Congress actively call for the abrogation of contracts.
Just like "freedom of speech" belongs to those who own the presses and the airwaves, the "law" belongs to those who own the country. For the rest of us, it's a thin layer of ice which can be shattered at any moment.
