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bmwman91
@
2012 Jun 4, 4:54am
Oh and it is startlingly clear why various big bank executives got gigantic bonuses after the bailouts. It was precisely because of their exemplary performance; they were running the companies into the ground for astronomical short-term profits, and then managed to fleece the tax payers to cover all of their losses, and keep the companies going when they should have been selling office furniture to try to cover the losses in bankruptcy. When they say that they need to pay bonuses like that to retain talent, they mean it. A lot of people misinterpret the word "talent" though. The talent that they refer to is the ability to off-load gambling losses onto the government and general public while keeping the ill-gotten winnings from these activities in the hands of the bank. People are not even 10% as pissed as they should be about the bonuses that these criminals were given. These fucking criminal psychopaths were rewarded with more money than you or I will ever see in our lives for putting a gun to the heads of retirees and pension fund managers to force Uncle Sam to give them unimaginable sums of money to cover their idiocy.
I am not kidding when I call them psychopaths. Their behavior and attitudes are entirely consistent with the definition of that word. Just because they aren't rapists or serial doesn't mean that they can't fall under that label. In fact, the damage these reprobates have done goes well beyond anything a rapist or serial killer could ever dream of accomplishing. Al Qaeda is nothing more than a fly on the wall next to them.
Sorry about the negativity. It is just mind blowing how badly America has fallen, and how this sort of heist can occur without any real notice or response by anyone.
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I picked up this book a month ago and started reading it last week. I have always liked Hunter S. Thompson's writing style, so Matt Taibbi's writing has sort of a natural appeal to me. Anyway, I thought that I knew about a lot of the things that led to the financial melt down in 2008, but it turns out that I didn't know jack. The scale of greed, incompetence and outright disregard for everyone else is staggering. I used to get mad about government entitlement spending, and while that is a problem, it certainly is not THE problem that needs dealing with right now. Everyone holds some amount for the RE debacle (consumers, loan officers, banks, securities companies, ratings agencies, securities insurance agencies). The biggest offenders though, look to be AIG and Goldman-Sachs, to the point that the crimes of the other groups are almost immaterial until the two major offenders have been dealt with. Fretting over the other offenders is akin to worrying about wasting electricity because you left the bathroom light on while your house is on fire.
Has anyone else here read the book? If not, I highly recommend it. The first chapter seems a little off-topic since it discusses the 2008 election and Tea Party, but it was informative and relatively fair in its criticisms in my opinion. He also rags on liberals for some of the things that they support, so he doesn't just rag on the Tea Party. He also mentions Ron Paul a little, and not in a negative way, which is about as close to an endorsement as you can get from a self-identified lefty such as Taibbi.
I am currently half-way through the book and plan to finish it during my business flights over the next week or so. If anyone wants to borrow it when I am done, they are welcome to. Certainly, it needs to be taken with a small grain of salt since it is written in a somewhat editorial style, but it does provide actual numbers and factual information as well.
Th book:
http://www.amazon.com/Griftopia-Bankers-Politicians-Audacious-American/dp/0385529961/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1338834004&sr=8-1
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