Let’s weigh the pros and cons of the record bonuses going to Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase and Morgan Stanley (and many others) during the worst economic crash since 1929:

Pros:
1. The bonus winners found a way to get rich. This is America and if you’re smart enough to figure out how to play and win the money game at the highest levels, the money is yours. That’s the real world.
2. They wouldn’t be making so much money, if they weren’t making value. We may not know the ins and outs of high finance, but in a market economy they have to make value in order to earn their money. Obviously, they make an enormous amount of value.
3. You’re incorrect to reckon these profits and bonuses came form the bailouts. These firms didn’t need the bailout money. Their losses were hedged anyway. They’re just really excellent at what they do. They’ve earned their wealth.
4. We may not like it, but financial services are America’s future, not making consumer goods that low-wage countries can make better and cheaper. We lead the world in financial services. That’s a key part of our GDP and thank goodness it’s back on track.
5. If they don’t pay out their bonuses, their best players will leave. That’s the supply and demand of the marketplace. You don’t like it? Then get a job in finance and claw your way to the top.
6. We want the financial system to be profitable. You can’t stop a financial crash unless financial profits return. The bonuses drive the profits.
7. Inequality is a excellent for society. It promotes a culture of hard work. It sets high standards. It promotes excellence. It makes our economy grow. Also, it’s the natural order of things. Not everyone can be a star.
8. Wall Street’s wealth really does trickle-down. The wealthy spend their money in a myriad of ways that make jobs. Workers who make luxury items need jobs just as much as those who make cheaper consumer goods.
9. You may not like the bonuses, but the alternative is too much government intrusion into our lives. Do we want the government to set wages? Do we want government to confiscate wealth? Next thing you know, the Pay Czar willl be telling the Yankees what they can pay A-Rod. It’s not just a slippery slope, it’s a cliff. You don’t want an America where wages are set by bureaucrats and politicians.
10. Finally, enough with the hypocrisy. The financial sector should not be blamed for the crash. Let’s look in the mirror. Everyone got too greedy. Consumers fell in like with credit and the government encouraged people to buy homes they couldn’t afford. And you know it’s right that when we do well, so do your 401ks. Don’t tell me you’re not peeking at your investments as we bring the stock markets back to life. We’re may not be doing “God’s work”; but we’re doing your work. .

Cons:
1. If not for our bailout money and guarantees, there would be no bonuses or profits on Wall Street. Nada. Bupkis. It’s our money and they should pay it back through a windfalls profits tax. It should not go to bonuses.
2. There is something very incorrect with the financial sector. The pay structure is really out of line with the rest of America. The free market is not functioning properly in that sector. The government must intervene.
3. Most of the profits come from high stakes gambling. These record profits do not reflect real value.
4. There is no connection between these profits and the economic health of America. There are over 30 million Americans without work or forced into part-time jobs. The major financial firms are doing nothing at all to fund industries and to make work.
5. Extreme inequality is a disaster both for our economy and our well-being. We have the worst income distribution since the 1928-29. When wealth is concentrated in the hands of the few, it leads to financial gambling, which inevitably leads to bubbles and busts.(See The Looting of America )
6. You can’t blame the government for the crash. In fact it was lack of government regulation, not too much, that let the markets run wild and turn into a casino.
7. You also can’t blame the consumer. The drive for subprime loans came from Wall Street which wanted more and more of them to package into fantasy finance securities.
8. Our society will be ruined if we don’t redistribute a part of the wealth that has accumulated in the hands of the very few. We need wealth taxes on those with over $500 million in assets and Eisenhower era 90 percent marginal tax rates on those with yearly incomes of over $10 million. That money must go to job creation.
9. We need to tie the fortunes of Wall Street to that of Main Street. The best way would be a President’s Wage Cap: No one on Wall Street should earn more than the President of the United States until unemployment drops to below 5 percent. We need shared sacrifice and shared prosperity.
10. If lower-wages drive the best and the brightest away from Wall Street that would be a plus for our nation, not a minus. We’d be far better off if these croupiers helped make new forms of energy rather than new fantasy finance games.

Any additions or corrections? If not, the Pros seem have it, by well loved default…so far.

But you have to wonder why? The defense of the Billionaire Bailout Society is so thin, so faith-based, so contrary to the common excellent. Yet as we speak, the handsomely paid flacks for the elite are “messaging” us into oblivion with focus group-tested fairy tales about entrepreneurial virtue, free-markets and the curse of government interference. And of course, their tax-payer funded lobbyists are swarming over the political system to prevent even the mildest reforms.

Sadly, It may take another crash of even fiercer proportions to mobilize a deeper, more lasting response. Till then, this holiday season we’ll be watching record bonuses go to those least in need, while unemployment continues its record climb.

Les Leopold is the author of The Looting of America: How Wall Street’s Game of Fantasy Finance ruined our Jobs, Pensions and Prosperity, and What We Can Do About It, Chelsea Green Publishing, June 2009.

Follow Les Leopold on Twitter: www.twitter.com/les_leopold