Stacy Summary: I agree with @Adam C that the bonuses are tiny compared to the size of the crimes that have led us to this point; on the other hand, I think the greater significance of Goldman’s bonuses is in the symbolic ‘let them eat cake’ nature of how demonstrably divorced the banking/political class is from the hungry population.
When sober-minded individuals begin to regard an enterprise within a nation as “an enemy of the people” you can bet that some serious blood is going to flow. This is now essentially the situation for the Goldman Sachs company, which last week announced third-quarter earnings of over $3 billion largely derived from converting zero percent loans from taxpayers into zero risk profits off of anything paying more than zero percent in interest, revenue, or dividends.
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this blog about OTE is flawed
http://mindbodypolitic.com/2009/10/19/max-keiser-on-wall-street-suicide-bombers/
can you see why?
@s.herbert
mornin y’all.
@Supergeek – mornin’ . . . or is it late at night where you are?
If i were a GS employee, I would be aprehensive! If I were A Intl Banker i would more worried!
@s.herbert
early…got up at five… I’m still here in trashy… sexually ambigous UK!!!
Anyone know if fraud needs to be proven in order to claw back bonus $ ? (Yes, I know that they’re ALL fraudsters, but I don’t think the gov’t has any interest in alleging that.)
Homebuyers face questions on alcohol and smoking under new mortgage rules
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/banking_and_finance/article6880612.ece
“It said lenders should delve deeper into homebuyers’ personal spending including the amount they spend on alcohol and tobacco.”
Can we delve deeper into how the banks are spending their money?
“Both admitted, however, that there was little that the Government could do to stop them.” BS! As long as the gov’t is a stakeholder and is still backstopping these crooks, we should be able to stop them. It makes no sense to say that the gov’t is i100% impotent. If they’re making that claim, then they are basically saying that Wall Street runs the US, and our Congress can’t do a thing about it.
@ Steven – WTF? If they were deadbeat drunks, wouldn’t they be living on the street or in some kind of shelter already? That’s nuts. If people have to provide that kind of info., then politicians and corporatists should do the same. We could turn the security state apparatus against them and create a database that lists all of their purchases and phone calls. Could also make them punch in and out of work everyday just to keep tabs on them. The people of the world aren’t the ones who need to prove their legitimacy and credibility! The politicians, government agencies, banksters, and corporations do! They are the ones who failed and ought to be shunned by decent society!
@JT
same old problem… maybe a temporary fix more than solution???
the thing about “growing resentment” is that when its bottled up hard enough, all itll take is a single passionate voice to ignite the formation of a lynch mob. as cilente says (repeatedly. and i mean…repeatedly) “when youve lost everything, and you have nothing left to lose…you lose it”
help me stacy..i cant post
and no I dont need viagra…haha
@dan valley – well . . . i see you . . . are you trapped somewhere in the matrix? are feeling any déjà vu?
Given the “character,” if that’s what you can call it, of the American people, it’s difficult to know whether Kunstler’s prediction of blood in the streets has any substance or whether it’s just more vicarious wishful thinking and dramatic catharsis of the type that we so often take as “remedies” or outlets for our rage against the machine. If Americans ever abandoned their muling, petitioning passivity and broke through their conditioned helplessness to take any action beyond mere symbolic acts of magical thinking like voting or waving signs in the street at picnics on the Washington Mall, well that would be, um, completely unprecedented and a real Black Swan.
On the other hand, explosions don’t always announce themselves with a long rumbling buildup. If literature can shed any illumination on our predicament, here’s an interesting analysis of the nature of the ruling class and the supine peasantry in the days shortly before the French Revolution, as portrayed by Charles Dickens, called, “You Dogs! — Charles Dickens on the Coming Revolution.” http://lewrockwell.com/snyder/snyder20.1.html
\ Charles Dickens
Remember when reckless lending was controlled by the potential of going bankrupt. I’m fascinated by the dual credit rating of the average american, as individual consumers we have the credit rating of a drunken bum, yet, as collective tax-payers we apparently have unlimited credit, so long as it is given back to our masters. In other news Bloomberg is saying that the exhorted excecutive kick-backs aka bonuses, will help spur the high-end real estate and luxury item markets. More fuel for the class war. War On!… Poverty.
**sharpening pitchfork**
More tough talk. But what are people gonna actually do about it? Nothing. They’ll bitch and whine from their keyboards. The bankers laugh and wave our own money in our face and all we can do is kvetch and wring our hands in feeble appeals to our overlords.
I would go to K street and shoot every lobbyist on sight, but it would make no difference. Money is speech and corporations are people. The Scalitoberthomas Court will see that it remains that way. And that, ladies and gents, is that. For every cockroach you step on, ten more will be hiding until the lights go out. The only solution left is to burn the house to the ground.