CORPORATE SUPER BOWL

As the Super Bowl approaches, the single game that determines the best football team in the country, corporate America seems to be vying for its own title: dumbest friggin’ company on the planet.

After a rigorous pre-game warm-up of financial recklessness followed by total collapse, opening moves include: flying to Washington in corporate jets to ask for federal aid; making $350 billion in bailouts disappear with zero accountability; spending $1.2 million to redo the CEO’s office; buying a new jet for $51 million; and finally, handing out $18 billion in year-end bonuses to executives while taking federal aid money and laying off tens of thousands of employees. You have to admit, they have dazzle.

The one good thing that may have come out of this whole disaster is President Obama’s reaction (That’s a nice sound, isn’t it. “President Obama.”) He called it irresponsible. He said in no uncertain terms that he was offended, and the American people are offended, by the notion of giving extra money to executives who are already the highest paid in the country and ran their companies into the ground. Their bonuses are being paid for by our bailout money.

Maybe this will have some effect, maybe it won’t. But it feels good to know that for the first time in a long time, Washington’s official reaction is connected to reality.