Renegotiating Contracts as Asymmetrical Class Warfare

I guess that AIG, Citigroup, et. al. have decided that contracts are only as sovereign when they are made with wealthy people, as confirmed by 3 recent reactions to the financial crisis that have become common currency lately. I think it’s eminently obvious by now that the same guys who are making this claim about honoring contracts:

AIG says it can’t withhold bonuses
Bailed out insurance firm claims it’s bound by contract to pay $165 million.

are also responsible for this:

How to Blow Your Credit Limit — Without Spending

If you haven’t had the credit limit cut on your credit card recently, count yourself lucky. Risk-averse card issuers are getting slash happy. And while many cardholders gripe that such cuts slice razor-close to their balance amounts, for an unfortunate few the cuts go far deeper: below what they currently owe.

and at the same time, big corporations are telling us this is necesary for the economic health of the nation:

Ford-UAW deal cuts wages to $55 an hour
…Ford’s cross-town rivals General Motors Corp and Chrysler LLC are required to make wages and benefits paid to U.S. factory workers competitive with Toyota and other Japanese automakers under the terms of their government bailouts…

Seems to me that there’s something inconsistent here. If a deal is a deal is a deal for the executives at bankrupt-in-all-but-the-name big business, but people who actually make tangible things for a living have to take a pay cut or see their company also go bankrupt, something is out of whack. Especially since those same people are now supposed to accept their credit card limits being unilaterally and retroactively lowered — to below their current balances — at the same time that they are paying the taxes that finance those “unbreakable” contracts to big business execs.

Oh, and don’t tell me that those big corporations need to pay in order to keep that talent — even though I’m sure that they’re not all incompetent and responsible for the crisis. As a former dot-com bubbler I can tell you that when there’s a huge pool of “talent” on the street at once, the people who have jobs are happy to keep them, even without huge bonuses, because “talent” supply quickly outstrips demand for it. I think it’s about time that our new taxpayer-funded federal employees started sharing the pain with the rest of us.