Want to know what is wrong with US capitalism?  The losers no longer suffer the ill effects of their wrong headed actions.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31913399/ns/business-autos/

Why is Wagoner getting a dime?.  His company went bankrupt.  The people who in good faith invested capital in GM got nothing while Wagoner walks away with a pension.  Give me a break!  His pension should have been the first of GM’s debt to be struck down by the court.  In the article there is a comparison of other severance and retirement packages.  For example, the former CEO of Exxon got $400 million.  There is a difference.  The head of Exxon did not drive the company into bankruptcy.  Quite the contrary he helped build Exxon into one of the most successful companies in the world.  The CEO should share in the profits he made his investors rich.

There is something very wrong with this picture.  Well hell there is something very wrong with the entire GM mess.  One justification for Wagoner’s pension was the length of time he was at GM.  He spent 20 years killing the company.  If there is to be a stock holder’s revolt and a demand the US seeks its roots stripping Wagoner of all his wealth derived from GM would be a good start.  Oh but he has the stigma of a failed CEO.  Oh lets give him a moment of silence and then throw the bum out on the street.  In China they line failed CEOs up against the wall and shot their ugly butts.

If there is to be a renaissance in the US there has to be a shift in responsibility and consequences.  Nixon got to retire in comfort after committing crimes.  Kissinger, the war criminal, is a respected senior statesman.  McNamara and Rumsfeld retired in comfort – hell McNamara actually got a promotion to the World Bank where he continued his colossal string of failures.  At some level there are no consequences for failure.  Well getting only $10 million is maybe a failure at the country club level.  Yet when you or I start a business and fail we do not get to walk away with anything but the debt.  Until the US evolves back to a system of attacking responsibility for failure there will be no significant change at the top.  Politics and big business today is simply a matter of reshuffling the chairs on the Titanic.