BIO

Cliff Mason is the author of Millennial Money. He is the Senior Writer of CNBC's Mad Money with Jim Cramer, and has been that program's primary writer, in cooperation with and under the supervision of Jim Cramer, since he began at CNBC as an intern during the summer of 2005. Mason was the author of a column at TheStreet.com during 2007, which he describes as "hilarious, if short-lived." He graduated from Harvard College in 2007. It was at Harvard that Mason learned to multi-task, mastering the art of seeming to pay attention to professors while writing scripts for Mad Money. Mason has co-written two books with Jim Cramer: Jim Cramer's Mad Money: Watch TV, Get Rich and Stay Mad For Life: Get Rich, Stay Rich (Make Your Kids Even Richer). He is 100% responsible for any parts of either book that you did not like. Mason has also had a fruitful relationship with Jim Cramer as his nephew for the last 23 years and will hopefully continue to hold that position for many more as long as he doesn't do anything to get himself kicked out of the family.

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Mar.24

8:36 AM ET

Tuesday, 24 Mar 2009

Class Warfare, Better Late Than Never? I Think Not

Posted By:Cliff Mason

Topics:Executive Compensation | Bonuses | Stock Market

Companies:Citigroup Inc | American International Group Inc | Bank of America Corp

After about a decade where real wages for most American stagnated and the rich got richer, the public waited until now, with the Western financial system in ruins, to break out the torches and the pitchforks.

We have a center-left President, a Congress dominated by the Democratic party, a budget that looks like a liberal's wish-list, and all of a sudden it feels like full on class war is about to break out. Bonus recipients at AIG [AIG Loading... () ] are afraid for their lives. I wouldn't be surprised if some enterprising citizen who's mad as hell and not willing to take it anymore tosses a molotov cocktail at any number of targets on Wall Street. Something is very wrong with this picture.

We just spent eight years under radical (or is the word reactionary) laissez-faire Republican government, and there was nary a peep from the American public about skyrocketing executive pay packages. Now the good guys, at least from the perspective of your average class warrior, have taken control and I'm worried people might start throwing up barricades a la 1848 all across America.

I'm sorry America, you can't have been complacent for decades while the masters of the universe padded their paychecks and only get furious when the whole edifice comes crashing down and we have to bail out the bankers. If the people running Citigroup [C Loading... () ] or Bank of America [BAC Loading... () ] are really so terrible, then maybe it would've been a good idea to get up in arms about their activities a little sooner. That's the kind of class warfare I can understand (and incidentally, the kind of thing we practiced on Mad Money, where my boss, Jim Cramer, was literally screaming about the collapse of the Western financial world thanks partially to the mistakes and dishonesty of the bankers at least as early as August of 2007).

What we're seeing now isn't legitimate proletarian outrage. This is pure petulance, justifiable petulance, but petulance all the same. We, the people, handed over our collective fate to the financiers, and now we're really upset because, golly gee, they screwed everything up, enriched themselves, and left the taxpayer holding the bag. Who could've seen that coming?