Who are these idiots and why is the govt giving them my money?
February 8th, 2009So I read this NYTimes “article” trying to make us feel sorry for the jackals who’ve pillaged the country (and continue to do so) and it prompted a rant of sort.
I mean, at some point, we have to ask — who are these idiots? And why do they have all of our country’s money?
“As hard as it is to believe, bankers who are living on the Upper East Side making $2 or $3 million a year have set up a life for themselves in which they are also at zero at the end of the year with credit cards and mortgage bills that are inescapable,” said Holly Peterson, the author of an Upper East Side novel of manners, “The Manny,” and the daughter of Peter G. Peterson, a founder of the equity firm the Blackstone Group. “Five hundred thousand dollars means taking their kids out of private school and selling their home in a fire sale.”
Sure, the solution may seem simple: move to Brooklyn or Hoboken, put the children in public schools and buy a MetroCard. But more than a few of the New York-based financial executives who would have their pay limited are men (and they are almost invariably men) whose identities are entwined with living a certain way in a certain neighborhood west of Third Avenue: a life of private schools, summer houses and charity galas that only a seven-figure income can stretch to cover.
So the NYTimes is trying to drum up some symptathy for the bloodsucking leeches in Brooks Brothers suits who’ve bled our country dry. These people NEED their RangeRovers and nanny’s and summer homes and oh my, because their very IDENTITIES are intertwined with their massive greed, consumption, and power over other people.
Many top executives have cars and drivers. A chauffeur’s pay is between $75,000 and $125,000 a year, the higher end for former police officers who can double as bodyguards, said a limousine driver who spoke anonymously because he does not want to alienate his society customers.
“Some of them want their drivers to have guns,” the driver said. “You get a cop and you have a driver.” To garage that car is about $700 a month.
A personal trainer at $80 an hour three times a week comes to about $12,000 a year.
The funny thing is, these are the same idiots who preach about the “free market” and how they’ve “earned their way to the top” which if you didn’t realize was a big fat lie, now you do. Their companies are bankrupt and our representatives their employees in Congress are now busily bailing outstealing our money to continue their operations.
But ya see, THEY still deserve the top jobs and all their wealth and power. Because, because… that’s how their class lives. It’s that simple.
“People inherently understand that if they are going to get ahead in whatever corporate culture they are involved in, they need to take on the appurtenances of what defines that culture,” she said. “So if you are in a culture where spending a lot of money is a sign of success, it’s like the same thing that goes back to high school peer pressure. It’s about fitting in.”
I’ve seen people from this class “work”, up close. They come into a company as CEO or an SVP, destroy the company or the division and then drive off in their range rover to another top job somewhere else, pocking millions of dollars, all the while, laying off thousands of people but managing to keep everything they’ve got. Now the “smarter” of them are saying,
Of course, it’s galling when a chief executive fails and is still handsomely rewarded. But with the concept of “tax, not shame,” a shocking $20 million severance package would generate $10 million for the government. That’s a far better solution than what we have today, not least because it works with the market rather than against it.
Seriously, that was in an op-ed in the NYTimes. I have an idea: how about when you leave a company IN RUIN, you get nothing? How would that work out for ya? That’s how it works for all the laid-off “little people” who don’t count because they, y’know, don’t wear Brooks Brothers suits.
These people are a cancer on America and they don’t even know it. If they did, they might not be whining so loudly.
Luckily, Obama’s got a bunch of WallStreet’ers like Lawrence Summers who started this mess under indictment for his fraudulent deregulation schemes and collaboration with Enron in ripping off California in charge of “fixing” it. Oh and while I’m at it, why haven’t the war criminals Bush and Cheney been arrested yet? We all know they’re war criminals, yet Cheney’s still doing interviews on TV, telling people that we’re all gonna get blown up if they stop his beloved (illegal) torture program.
That’s not change, it’s just more of the same.