Calling the Pitch Fork Brigade
January 2nd, 2009 by Jon Taplin
These sumptuous Park Avenue digs were just bought by Peter Kraus for $37 million. Peter doesn’t need to worry about a real estate downturn. He just earned $25 million for 3 months work at Merrill Lynch.
Kraus is seen as a poster boy for the excess and irresponsibility on the part of America’s financial institutions that helped drive them into the ground.
Although he did not officially start work until September, he hit it big after just a couple of days in office, when Merrill Lynch’s CEO sold the company to Bank of America for $50 billion during the market meltdown.
Sigh…
Can we mail herpes to these guys? I mean, if we can’t jail them because they are merely greedy (insert favorite euphemism)s, but couldn’t we at least give them the itch that can’t be scratched?
I know… gross, but tit for tat.
Sigh…
Can we mail herpes to these guys? I mean, if we can’t jail them because they are merely greedy (insert favorite euphemism)s, but couldn’t we at least give them the itch that can’t be scratched?
I know… gross, but tit for tat.
Heads on pikes. Heads on pikes.
Row on row.
Heads on pikes.
Heads on pikes. Heads on pikes.
Row on row.
Heads on pikes.
This guy’s such a shameless spendthrift I think we should run him for President Pro Tem of the California Senate.
This guy’s such a shameless spendthrift I think we should run him for President Pro Tem of the California Senate.
Hugo- Enough about California.
Hugo- Enough about California.
I appreciate that, man, but no, not enough. You fools are running up a fifty-billion-dollar debt, and the fantasy has got to end. Period.
I appreciate that, man, but no, not enough. You fools are running up a fifty-billion-dollar debt, and the fantasy has got to end. Period.
It’s amazing to me that the general public isn’t more up in arms ab out this stuff??!!??
I think these guys should be held accountable – we’ll have a fair trial and then make them all castrati…
It’s amazing to me that the general public isn’t more up in arms ab out this stuff??!!??
I think these guys should be held accountable – we’ll have a fair trial and then make them all castrati…
Alternatively you just might work toward voting every one of them out of office. That would change things nicely. It’s peaceful and legal, and not really all that hard to do. (I’d be happy to offer advice.)
Alternatively you just might work toward voting every one of them out of office. That would change things nicely. It’s peaceful and legal, and not really all that hard to do. (I’d be happy to offer advice.)
Alternatively you just might work toward voting every one of them out of office. That would change things nicely. It’s peaceful and legal, and not really all that hard to do. (I’d be happy to offer advice.)
Hugo, we in California have a better chance of turning it around than you Lester Maddox axe handle worshipers do…
Hugo, we in California have a better chance of turning it around than you Lester Maddox axe handle worshipers do…
Hugo, we in California have a better chance of turning it around than you Lester Maddox axe handle worshipers do…
Off with their goddamn heads already!!
Off with their goddamn heads already!!
Off with their goddamn heads already!!
That’s very nostalgic of you, Rick, to remember a time when California was too forward-looking to take an axe-handle to its “minorities”, in favor of handing them short-handled hoes. Were you there then? Because I wasn’t here when Maddox weilded his mattox, but now I live in his old town, and now his restaurant is long gone and his family home grows derelict, as for decades no one has wanted to buy it. It awaits the axe, as it were.
I’m sad for Georgia because it is so much what it used to be, and for California because it is not. Sad for Georgia in terms of, say, 1978, when President Carter represented a hopeful New South, and Ham Jordan a Democratic rival of the GOP’s Southern Strategy, and the new black leadership of Atlanta a new Southeastern Capital. Sad for California for its huge advantages having been frittered with ever increasing irresponsibility over the years since then and, especially, since, say, 1983, or 1996, or 2000.
Your friend the museum director is right about insisting that folks propound solutions to the problems they see. When on the adjacent string you’d told me of her management approach in this regard, I’d just suggested an approach, democracy and turning the rascals out.
If what you mean by solutions is an economic plan, when then let’s talk about that, but please don’t begrudge me trying to identify the problem in the first place. The problem is that we are are asses to fancy ourselves Nuevo Federalistas when in fact our flagship state has been bankruptedly deliberately — to the extent that the California Legislature still deliberates — rendering us vassals of Los Federales.
That’s very nostalgic of you, Rick, to remember a time when California was too forward-looking to take an axe-handle to its “minorities”, in favor of handing them short-handled hoes. Were you there then? Because I wasn’t here when Maddox weilded his mattox, but now I live in his old town, and now his restaurant is long gone and his family home grows derelict, as for decades no one has wanted to buy it. It awaits the axe, as it were.
I’m sad for Georgia because it is so much what it used to be, and for California because it is not. Sad for Georgia in terms of, say, 1978, when President Carter represented a hopeful New South, and Ham Jordan a Democratic rival of the GOP’s Southern Strategy, and the new black leadership of Atlanta a new Southeastern Capital. Sad for California for its huge advantages having been frittered with ever increasing irresponsibility over the years since then and, especially, since, say, 1983, or 1996, or 2000.
Your friend the museum director is right about insisting that folks propound solutions to the problems they see. When on the adjacent string you’d told me of her management approach in this regard, I’d just suggested an approach, democracy and turning the rascals out.
If what you mean by solutions is an economic plan, when then let’s talk about that, but please don’t begrudge me trying to identify the problem in the first place. The problem is that we are are asses to fancy ourselves Nuevo Federalistas when in fact our flagship state has been bankruptedly deliberately — to the extent that the California Legislature still deliberates — rendering us vassals of Los Federales.
Jon is a prophet.
“Lippmann likened the average American-or “outsider,” as he tellingly named him-to a “deaf spectator in the back row” at a sporting event: “He does not know what is happening, why it is happening, what ought to happen,” and “he lives in a world which he cannot see, does not understand and is unable to direct.” In a description that may strike a familiar chord with anyone who watches cable news or listens to talk radio today, Lippmann assumed a public that “is slow to be aroused and quickly diverted . . . and is interested only when events have been melodramatized as a conflict.””
Jon is a prophet.
“Lippmann likened the average American-or “outsider,” as he tellingly named him-to a “deaf spectator in the back row” at a sporting event: “He does not know what is happening, why it is happening, what ought to happen,” and “he lives in a world which he cannot see, does not understand and is unable to direct.” In a description that may strike a familiar chord with anyone who watches cable news or listens to talk radio today, Lippmann assumed a public that “is slow to be aroused and quickly diverted . . . and is interested only when events have been melodramatized as a conflict.””
P. Cross,
Jon is prophetic, literally and possibly figuratively as well. His record as a political-economic forecaster astonishes me, anyway. And he not only exemplifies but seems actually to presage a better attitude, in the sense of better angels and also in the sense of collective betterment.
But Lippmann was just Lippmann. Lippmann wouldn’t have winced at seeing a great state on the skids, unless that state were New York, and unless he himself also were on the skids. I doubt that Lippmann, were he alive, could construe a Georgian praying for the prosperity and power of New York.
P. Cross,
Jon is prophetic, literally and possibly figuratively as well. His record as a political-economic forecaster astonishes me, anyway. And he not only exemplifies but seems actually to presage a better attitude, in the sense of better angels and also in the sense of collective betterment.
But Lippmann was just Lippmann. Lippmann wouldn’t have winced at seeing a great state on the skids, unless that state were New York, and unless he himself also were on the skids. I doubt that Lippmann, were he alive, could construe a Georgian praying for the prosperity and power of New York.
P. Cross,
Jon is prophetic, literally and possibly figuratively as well. His record as a political-economic forecaster astonishes me, anyway. And he not only exemplifies but seems actually to presage a better attitude, in the sense of better angels and also in the sense of collective betterment.
But Lippmann was just Lippmann. Lippmann wouldn’t have winced at seeing a great state on the skids, unless that state were New York, and unless he himself also were on the skids. I doubt that Lippmann, were he alive, could construe a Georgian praying for the prosperity and power of New York.
What if we were to all pray for each other, not for prosperity or power, but to have our eyes opened, to be able to see things as they are, to see life as it is? (That’s just for starters.)
What if we were to all pray for each other, not for prosperity or power, but to have our eyes opened, to be able to see things as they are, to see life as it is? (That’s just for starters.)
Were one to do that, as you’ve just done, I’d call that “figuratively” prophetic. And in the figurative sense, the prosperity and the power also are transformed — are they not? — to something like a cultural greatness resulting from the opening of eyes.
It frightens me a bit, frankly, your suggestion that the opening is an opening to life as it is. But then when I was child in California Steinbeck frightened me too.
Were one to do that, as you’ve just done, I’d call that “figuratively” prophetic. And in the figurative sense, the prosperity and the power also are transformed — are they not? — to something like a cultural greatness resulting from the opening of eyes.
It frightens me a bit, frankly, your suggestion that the opening is an opening to life as it is. But then when I was child in California Steinbeck frightened me too.
I think you are right that the prosperity and the power would take care of themselves. The next part of our prayer, as your second paragraph demonstrates, is that we be filled with courage. (Next- generosity.)
I think you are right that the prosperity and the power would take care of themselves. The next part of our prayer, as your second paragraph demonstrates, is that we be filled with courage. (Next- generosity.)
I think you are right that the prosperity and the power would take care of themselves. The next part of our prayer, as your second paragraph demonstrates, is that we be filled with courage. (Next- generosity.)
Selah ~
Selah ~
Selah ~
God grant me happiness with what I already have and the will not to take from others just because I can.
God grant me happiness with what I already have and the will not to take from others just because I can.
God grant me happiness with what I already have and the will not to take from others just because I can.
See, T Bone? Len’s already made that transition to which you allude, the transition from courage to generosity. His is a generosity of spirit. And from that, what blessings might flow are, in our country so unspeakably rich in talent and training and sheer wealth, vast.
See, T Bone? Len’s already made that transition to which you allude, the transition from courage to generosity. His is a generosity of spirit. And from that, what blessings might flow are, in our country so unspeakably rich in talent and training and sheer wealth, vast.
See, T Bone? Len’s already made that transition to which you allude, the transition from courage to generosity. His is a generosity of spirit. And from that, what blessings might flow are, in our country so unspeakably rich in talent and training and sheer wealth, vast.