Our financial institutions are lions and we're being eaten alive. Recently, we learned that the largest banks paid out more than $18 billion in bonuses to their top employees. That's the sixth largest total ever given out. Ever. Even though Congress just gave them $250 billion to bail them out after doing a lousy job!

When the news got out, Vice President Biden and President Obama rightly and righteously expressed their disgust and outrage Obama called such practices "shameful" and "the height of irresponsibility."

This morning on "Meet The Press," Erin Burnett expressed a concern regarding such displays of "populism." Burnett explained away the conflict by saying that this is the way that banks compensate their successful employees. She also indicated that the money used to pay the bonuses or "compensation" came from a different "pot" than the one holding the bailout money.

Frankly, I don't care if there are different "pots." It's condescending to intimate that the American people don't understand. The naive ones must include McCaskill, Biden and Obama, I guess. They're clearly not educated enough to understand the intricacies of the problem.

Call it "populism" if you wish, but I believe we have a bonus problem. The banks were about to go under and the taxpayers agreed to give them $350 billion to bail them out. It's arrogant to believe, then, that you can simply operate as you always have.

So, let's deal with this arrogance - now! And the Senator from Missouri is doing just that. McCaskill is not saying get rid of bonuses, but stop the large ones. Her bill, "The Chief Executive Officer Pay Act of 2009," would limit top pay to what the President makes.

Putting the focus of her comments on the financial institutions, she said, "Going forward, you want tax payers to help you survive, you want the people at your financial institution to have a job tomorrow, then you're going to have to limit everyone's pay at your company to the same salary that the President of the United States makes. Is that so unreasonable? It's eight times the median household income in the United States of America. $400,000 a year. I don't think that sounds like a bad deal."

Indeed, she's right. So far, we the taxpayers have been squeezed and our money's been wasted. Who's the chump? Up to now, the government and taxpayers.

Here is my overall take on the situation:

When will these huge financial and insurance institutions understand on their own?

Never. Money talks.

Why do they exist? To make money. (It's not out of the goodness of their hearts!)

Unless there is governmental regulation, they will not change. And we've had almost 30 years of deregulation. That is a large part of the reason why we're in this mess right now.

I found it simply incredible when former Fed chief Alan Greenspan testified before Congress last fall. He really felt there was a self-regulating quality involved. He sound like a distraught parent when he referred to the collapse of the financial system, "I never thought it would behave this way."

Give me a break! Money and profit drive capitalism, and similarly stimulate greed. If capitalism, i.e., our financial system, goes unchecked greed will rule the game.

Sound familiar?

I like McCaskill's proposal because it simply asks for control to become a part of the compensation picture when tax money is involved. Erin Burnett reacts as if the Senator is asking the carnivore banks to suddenly take on vegetarian ways.

Senator McCaskill is asking no such thing. She understands the eating habits of financial institutions and is only asking that they cut back - to modify their diet so to speak. And in so doing they could become omnivores, a more balanced animal than is currently the case.

Such an animal would then tend to respect the hand that feeds it, instead of biting it off.

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Cross posted from:  Reflecting Obama