The Best and the Brightest

Hey, did you know that teachers don't get merit pay? That's right, teachers get paid the same whether they do a good job or a terrible job. And forget about getting a teacher fired! No matter how bad a job they do, it's next to impossible to get rid of them. That's because they work for the government, so they have no accountability. If they worked for private enterprises, you can bet that there would be consequences for doing a bad job. Like maybe getting a few million dollars in bonuses.

So why do the same people who get pissed off at what they see as sweetheart deals for the workers that we pretend we think are doing the most important job in our country defend the same for the people who brought about not only the destruction of their own company, but perhaps of the economy as a whole? I'm guessing it's this weird Randian view that people who make more money must be more important. But I just don't see the evidence. These guys fucked up, BAD, and not only aren't getting fired for it, but are getting a reward? And people like Jim Manzi maintain that if we need to keep them in their job at all costs, because nobody else could possibly do it? Look, these guys aren't brain surgeons or rocket scientists. They're not working on a cancer treatment or a new alternative energy source (I can't help but notice that I don't hear people in those fields threatening to "Go Galt"). They're not the best and the brightest, and by all evidence they're not even good at what they do do. And this at a time when financial institutions are folding, and the job market is flooded with laid off financial executives, so demand for such employees is lower. That's what we capitalists call "the market." So fuck 'em.