Links gone wild!
Three days ago, the New York Times published the full text of a resignation letter from a top executive in the AIG financial products division — aka the crisis-causing bunch of greed-heads who should be whipped with broken-off car antennas (to summarize popular sentiment). If you’re interested in hearing the other side of the AIG bonus scandal, this resignation letter is the best summary you’ll find. Its author is articulate, forthright and angry. One politician after another has demanded to know the names of the AIG employees who were paid bonuses. Well, now they’ve got a start on that list, thanks to a fellow who worked for $1 a year to fix the mess under the explicit promise that there would be a payday later — which the government now wants to confiscate.
Two days ago, I couldn’t have told you what “plasma balls” were (although my guess would have been they involve unprotected frolicking and subsequent visits to the clinic). Turns out that just one well-aimed plasma ball could trigger the collapse of civilization, as this report on solar storms explains. Great. Just freakin’ great. As if it’s not enough that I have to worry about nuke-wielding terrorists, wayward asteroids, financial meltdown, serial killers, being caught in a Blood-Crips crossfire, drunken drivers, identity theft, anthrax-filled letters from strangers, home invaders, planes falling out of the sky onto my house, raging chimpanzees, tornadoes, hurricanes, global warming, and the possibility that Rahm Emanuel will personally order my permanent, double-secret detention at Guantanamo for illegal dissent. Now I also get to fret about plasma balls. Thanks a million, scientists.
I was unsure about posting this video of a duo singing “The Breakfast Song” on the morning show of a Mississippi TV station — mostly because somebody has inserted subtitles written in a mildly condescending dialect. But when I found the same video linked from blackamericaweb.com, I figured everyone was responding to it in the same spirit — which is to say, with delight at the utter weirdness and sincerity of the performance. Minister Cleo is in heaven now, and I hope he knows his song has been viewed on YouTube almost 700,000 times. I also hope he’s eating his fill of pancakes, bacon, strawberry jam, etc.
March 27th, 2009 at 8:47 am
I guess it’s easy to be noble when you don’t need the money. But good for Mr DeSantis anyway. His “Dear Mr. Liddy” letter was a big deal ealier in the week on CNN - hey, aren’t they part of the mainstream media?
I can sympathize with DeSantis’ situation, but how different is it from anybody else who’s unwittingly involved in an unholy alliance?
If I’m doin’ the drywall on a new house, and the electrician fouls up the wiring and the house burns down and the builder who hired both of us has got no insurance, then I don’t get paid.
As we’ve all heard ad nauseum, AIG was fulfilling their bonus obligations to these folks with taxpayer money. Something just ain’t Kosher about that.
Sometimes “popular sentiment” just makes too much sense for you elitists.
March 27th, 2009 at 9:58 am
John: Elitist? (Snicker) Well, I suppose the fact that I operate a Web site that 99.99999 percent of the world’s population manages, without breaking a sweat, to avoid reading gives me a certain elite status.
You, too, since you visit here often. Welcome to the club.
And to extend your analogy — not only did you, the drywaller, not get paid even though you had nothing to do with the disastrous fire, you were also publicly vilified and the government sought to impose a punitive tax on you.
Yet this “just makes too much sense” to you.
Boy. How can two elitists like you and me see things so differently?
March 27th, 2009 at 10:57 am
You’re an accomplished dude, Gearino. I expect a lot of your regular readers and posters are as well. To be honest, I know some of them are.
In my humble opinion, your perspective on life (as shared in WAW) tends to fall toward the favored few in society. Nothing wrong with that - that’s a sincere evaluation on my part too - not like when I told you there was nothing wrong with wearing Speedos at the beach - Dan, come on. Act your age man. I still feel bad for not levelling with you about that.
Maybe you’re an elitist in spirit if not in a material sense.
I consider myself lucky to have found WAW. CAn’t take credit for the discovery though. Most of my internet safaris started with webistes that began with a search string that included the words “hot” or “nude”.
Either way I can tell you that it’s definitely off my normal, beaten path.
Maybe if you had like, Hooter’s ads on your main page, you’d attract more jamokes just like me.
March 27th, 2009 at 11:06 am
DeSantis breathes rarified air. Who in the hell works for a buck a year? Who in the hell can afford to work for a buck a year? That’s not the real world. It’s not world the drywaller lives in, that’s for sure.
It’s the wretched excess of Wall Street that chaps the collective butt of a big part of Main Street. Compensate as you please, but do it on your own dime, not mine.
March 27th, 2009 at 11:27 am
I feel for Mr. DeSantis, but he was scewed by his company, not the government (yes, the naming of these people is over ther top. I’m not defending that). AIG should have told him that they had no money to give him, rather than taking taxpayer money to pay him and others. People all over this country are being screwed by their employers over compensation, severance, and retirement benefits. Should taxpayers give money to all the failing companies so that the companies can then give money that isn’t theirs to those employees?
March 27th, 2009 at 11:38 am
John: What you see as my perspective in life — an appreciation of the “favored few” — is actually something quite different. Just last week, for instance, I wondered why everyone was focused on the millions of AIG bonuses when it had been revealed that billions of AIG bailout money had been funneled to banks, many of them overseas. I don’t think taxpayer money should be used to make banks whole. We need to stabilize the financial system, not pay off in full the bad bets made by banks. That stance hardly qualifies as favoring the elite.
More than anything, I’m a reflexive contrarian. My mother’s people were hill folk from the Georgia mountains. There’s a healthy strain of their Appalachian cantankerousness in me. If you’re fer it, I’m agin it.
March 27th, 2009 at 1:02 pm
Dan, John’s right. so’s Sheila, imho.
and don’t worry about that Rahm Emanuel thing. he’s with the guy who wants to shut down the gitmo detentions. he’s probably among the 99.99999 of the world who avoids reading WAW without breaking a sweat. hell, he probably don’t even know who you are.
it’s nice that us elitists can disagree.
March 27th, 2009 at 2:42 pm
Despite what some of you would want to believe, I’ll bet the vast majority of people working at AIG were conscientious and honest. In my opinion, it should have been allowed to go bankrupt and the place shut down without any further investment from anyone. The employees could then have moved on to another job. And no matter what the environment, the best people will get jobs.
However, since the govt, in its finite wisdom, decided to bail the place out, they told the employees that if they would stay and help try to fix things, and perhaps salvage their future with the company, they could (imagine this!) get an actual paycheck at the end of it.
Then, of course, the selfsame govt decided to bring the remaining employees up for a public flogging. After that kind of treatment, I’m surprised all of them don’t quit and, by doing so, take down AIG (and your tax money).