i'm mostly trying to avoid OMGOUTRAGE, but this is beyond the pale.

[rmd]

i realized a while back that as far as politics, i'm kind of burned out on OUTRAGE.

but my god. just after way too many of both the republicans and the democrats joined the ponytarian party, we get to find out some of how AIG spent money after their paltry $85Billion bail-out.

by PARTYING HARD, MAAAAN

DEAR PEOPLE WHO ARE PROFITING FROM FUCKING UP THE FINANCIAL SYSTEM: PLEASE STOP BEING DICKS.

Comments

[i-leonardo.livejournal.com]

i heard that on the radio yesterday and started waltzing down the same path. but then i stopped myself, packed a bowl, took a drag, and went back to trying to fix my terlet. give me soma, man - i just can't face the day sober anymore.

[flabosib.livejournal.com]

It does sort of p*ss one off, doesn't it? I mean, if you or I were to screw up our finances that badly and then go off and party when the government rescued us, I would guess that the government would want it's money back.

Hmmmm.

[cz_unit]

Cool!!! How can they walk with BALLS LIKE THAT!

CZ

[hammercock.livejournal.com]

Time to swoop in and take their stuff!

[judith-s.livejournal.com]

If you haven't had your daily bowl of arrrgh! yet this morning, add the threat of martial law (http://www.opednews.com/articles/Representatives-Were-Threa-by-Patrick-Henningsen-081004-301.html) which was deployed to help Congress pass this mess.

[koshmom.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Obama mentioned it during the debate. I was astonished. He said that AIG spent over 400K on a retreat, and that if he was president he'd make sure that AIG not only paid the gov. back for that money, but that the people responsible for this travesty got fired. McCain didn't say a word about this incident, he likely was boning up for the debate, practicing saying the words "jobs, $5000 tax credit for health care, Obama sucks" and didn't notice the day's news, and Palin is looking up the word "retreat".

[jim-p.livejournal.com]

Reminds me of when I was working at DEC. We were deep into our third round of layoffs, perks were disappearing left and right, but the annual Hawaiian junket for the top sales people went right on as planned. There was quite a bit of impotent rage over that too...

The brass try to excuse this by saying that they need to retain their top talent (the same highly-talented folks who dug the company into such a deep hole in the first place, natch!). My response: "How's this for a retention bonus? You get to keep your job, and you may not even face criminal prosecution!"

grrr

[kimberlogic.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I thought I was past all the shock and outrage I could feel ... guess not. F'ing sigh.

[dfjdejulio.livejournal.com]

Wow. I guess I really am burned out on OUTRAGE.

I'm not the least bit surprised by any of that, and in fact was already taking for granted that it was going on.

I figure that there's a decent chance that most of this will have blown over within about 20 years, and that I'll be able to personally keep me and my family alive through those 20 years. And I'm not sure anyone can really hope for much more than that right now.

[laurenpburka.livejournal.com]

Is this more or less upsetting than hearing that folks at the Department of the Interior were getting their bits licked by oil company employees? For real and not metaphorically? Sorry, no link handy.

[lil-brown-bat.livejournal.com]

Oh gosh, you're making me all nostalgic here. You see, I can remember a day when I was driving along in my car -- I can see it clear as day, I could point out the exact spot on the exact road -- and I heard that the government had awarded no-compete military contracts to Halliburton.

"Holy God!" I said to myself. "Well, that's done it. That is the limit. There's no way they can get away with that!"

Yeah. I really thought that.

Over the years since, I've come to realize that it's pretty hard to be a really large-scale Ponytarians like that, or like AIG, unless your whole society is built on a foundation of small-scale Ponytarianism. If you have societal mores that include...oh I don't know...stuff like greed not being a virtue, a sense of restraint, the belief that your steal-of-a-deal is literally that even if you're not actually robbing someone, then it's a lot harder for big-time Ponytarianism to get up a good head of steam. But when the trailer trash walk into Wal-Mart and see the $29.95 DVD players and gasp, "OMG FREE PONIES!!!11", well, you're kinda fucked. When nobody cares that it's thievery as long as they can get some of the plunder, it's very easy for the AIGs of the world to do what they want to do unchecked -- because everybody down to the trailer trash knows that the only difference is one of degree.

[keren-s.livejournal.com]

I hosted a retreat at my house for the volunteer environmental group I head, so we could plan our agenda for the year. I probably spent at least $25 in noshes and beverages. You think I can get the gov't to pay me back? Man, I am SO in the wrong line of work.