03-26-2009, 05:58 PM | #1 | |
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To: Liddy, Congress FROM: AIG exec RE: suck my dick
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/25/op...ntis.html?_r=1
Quote:
But I posted this not because of the hilarious amount of butthurt it prompted in the NYT mailbag ("I DRIVE GARBAGE TRUCKS FOR A LIVING WHY DON'T I GET PAID TEN MILLION") but because it pokes at something that's been bugging me over the past several months of this economic crisis: most of our elected officials don't seem interested in finding actual solutions to the problems at hand. I first started feeling this way during the initial auto industry bailouts, where Congressmen seemed less interested in how these companies might possibly stop bleeding cash out of their pores and more interested in haranguing witless US auto execs over flying on private jets on the dime of corporations hemorrhaging money. This is in contrast to US representatives who travel on the dime of a government hemorrhaging money, but I digress. And then came the whole $165 million bonus scandal. Weeks of airtime has been dedicated to the controversy, with the obligatory populist nerd rage and Washington proposing harmful kneejerk legislation in response. And through it all I couldn't help but think: we're bitching about $165 million when we're on the hook for $170 billion for AIG? A number that will almost certainly increase by billions? Not only is $165 million--while certainly not an insignificant amount of cash--utterly trivial in the face of a company bailout that will probably cross $250 billion when it's all said and done, it's a puddle of piss in the ocean of the entire bailout's total economic cost: I find the above graph humorous and depressing in equal measure. But anyway...why? Not that I really need to ask. Republicans have decided to do their best impression of the Democrats post-November 2004: piss and bitch as loud as possible, and when things inevitably go south be positioned so that they can claim they were hating it before it was cool. What baffles me is that we're starting to see this from Democrats: do they really want to put the White House's (and by extension, the Democratic party's mandate) stimulus/bailout/makes Julian fries package up as a sacrifice for some cheap political points? I guess so. I can't really fault Obama on this one: the general vibe I get out of the White House is that they present a nominal front of being outraged while really thinking this entire song and dance is a fucking retarded rodeo of stupid. The White House also seems interested in solving the actual problems at hand: about the only thing I get out of Congressional committees these days is that they're staging mock executions of whatever witless Treasury department official/business executive walks in to sate the masses who blame CDOs for their economic woes and not the fact that they took out equity on their home to buy rims for their escalade. But then, I'm not a politician. I'm obviously not smart enough to realize that pissing off the people you need to fix the problem is a suitable substitute for actually doing something. Thoughts?
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03-26-2009, 06:59 PM | #2 |
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The best part is the Republicans are trying to get their own bill passed, filled with tax cuts to the rich, more deregulation, and lots of other crap that got us into this mess.. to get us out of this mess. Awesome. 10/10
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03-26-2009, 07:18 PM | #3 | |
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We're totally fucked at this point, the only difference is figuring out who might give us the best reacharound.
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03-26-2009, 07:21 PM | #4 |
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Well it's not like the Dems are a becon of hope, ponies and rainbows atm. Everyone's a douchebag, welcome to politics etc etc.
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03-26-2009, 08:34 PM | #5 |
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This wasn't the Change(tm) I was promised.
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03-28-2009, 12:48 AM | #6 |
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I actually debated this very bill in a practice debate earlier this morning as government. The $165M really is a drop in the bucket compared to the huge (lol) surplus package but even if the executives are being scapegoated, it's more important for Congress to remain on the populist platform...since doing so puts them on the same side as Obama, and crossing Obama while he is still popular is a good way to arm your opponents during mid-term's.
Was this an open letter or leaked memo?
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04-28-2009, 05:36 PM | #7 |
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What proof do any of us really have, though, that this isn't just 1984 coming to life? I mean, the media and Capitol Hill have both spent the last year screaming at the people about Chinese melamine, China taking over the world, home mortgage crises, automotive industry collapse, "the bailout," and much more. The latest in the scare list is swine flu, which is the same as bird flu, which is the same as flu flu: because influenza's life cycle has always been about birds-to-swine-to-man.
Oh, and let's not forget the peanut butter salmonella outbreak. How many people died from that? Less than died all year from West Nile. How many died from West Nile? Less than died all year from the common cold. And yet the people in this country behaved like sheep and I reaped the benefits, purchasing three jars of Peter Pan for the price of one. And as a long-time peanut butter eater, I knew the store wasn't just yanking my chain: this was really 3-for-1 clearance! Why? Because 50 people got sick. 50 people out of over 300,000,000. If you're going to ask Grandma to avoid eating peanut butter lest she die from salmonella poisoning, you may as well ask her to shut herself away from the outside world -- it's a heck of a lot more infected than the inside of a contaminated peanut butter jar. I think the government in our country, and maybe the entire world, is trying to scare people into a mentality that the sky is always falling but Big Brother will be there to make things right -- when in reality, you don't see Americans driving any less, eating any less, gaming any less, drinking any less, smoking any less, ... do you? I don't. Life today seems identical to life last April. And that seems identical to life the April before that. The only thing that's changed is the song the media's been singing. If it's not Israel and Palestine then it's African warlords. If it's not global warming then it's solar flares. If it's not Martha Stewart then its Bernie Maddox. Really, what has changed, people? Have you ACTUALLY SEEN the effects of this so-called "economic meltdown"? I honestly haven't, but if you have, then by all means put me in my place.
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The passwords are "Afro" and "Sergeant." Last edited by Vran; 04-28-2009 at 05:39 PM. |
04-28-2009, 06:05 PM | #8 | |
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Quote:
EDIT PS: Namedropping 1984 makes you a unique and beautiful snowflake
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04-28-2009, 07:00 PM | #9 |
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I don't get it. Is 1984 the new Godwin's Law?
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