A case of adding CEO insult to injury

While reading an article concerning the ongoing federal bailout of Wall Street in the Sept. 19th edition of the Daily Herald, rage to the point of talking out loud to myself at the kitchen table overtook me.

Why the sudden overwhelming barrage of emotion? I became enraged as I read how Treasury Secretary Paulson "agreed to demands from critics in both parties to limit the pay packages of Wall Street executives whose companies would benefit from the proposed bailout."

What? The words "limit pay packages" were the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back. Limit the packages? With all due respect, the last thing these entities, should a bail out become reality, entertain, is their CEOs' pay packages.

Hello? There are no pay packages. Ladies and gentleman, your companies' demise was due largely to your own greed and foolishness. How dare you want to negotiate pay packages from those who would bail your back sides out, adding insult to injury?

A helping hand has been extended. Accept it graciously, humbly. Do not insult it with greedy propositions. At the end of the day, your financial butts have been given a second chance. A chance which the average American is not so lucky to be offered to get him out of his economic woes.

Instead of looking to line the pockets of your executives, which is how you got into this mess in the first place, put your tail between your corporate legs, take your medicine and try as hard as that may be, to learn from your gigantic greed motivated mistakes. The taxpayers of this great country are fed up.

Helen Loutos

Des Plaines