Senator Chuck Grassley on AIG bonus checks.

*
The great sound bites from our representatives just keep on coming. Look at the bright side if there wasn't an economic crisis we'd never really know half of the things most of them ever said. Though sometimes I think I felt better without all the noise from all sides.
So Senator Chuck Grassley republican from Iowa states:
"The first thing that would make me feel a little bit better towards them if they'd follow the Japanese model and come before the American people and take that deep bow and say I'm sorry, and then either do one of two things--resign, or go commit suicide."

He did later back down from saying he really didn't want them to kill themselves... likely after someone said, "Uh Chuck Ole Boy, you can't recommend suicide as policy and you might just be offending some Americans out there. Please put out one of those disclaimers stating that what you said isn't exactly what you meant."

Awful lot of those disclaimers going around out there on all sides.
Not helping.
Not helping at all.

Then we move on and get this beauty of a Grassley clip about AIG-



Thanks Chuck for putting that image in the minds of everyone that heard it.
Eeewww, I feel like I need a shower.

Intriguingly Rush Limbaugh doesn't seem to be bothered by this extreme capitalism and the bonus checks. He turns the whole crisis into an attack on capitalism and the basic tenets of our country.


I'm beginning to think no one really knows what to do, the rules just keep changing and people like Barney Frank and John Boehner keep talking ad nauseam.
Makes my head hurt.
Martha Stewart goes to jail, Madoff finally goes to jail, and AIG folk get bonuses for f**king everything up. Awesome.
Wow, I bet lots of small businesses would have loved to get bailed out when they were failing.
I still would have rather they bailed out the taxpayers rather than the banks and wall street.
Sigh.

G'night,

Laura
*

Boy I hope the Obama stimulus package fixes something in the ecomomy...

*
On the heels of CEO's getting bonuses as their companies failed...
On the wake of Madoff's "undiscovered until it was too late" Ponzi scheme that ripped off so very many.
I hope he understands what a corrupt capitalist weasel he is sitting in his penthouse with help, food and drink and a ankle bracelet but I doubt he gets it. None of them really seem to.

John Thain resigned under pressure from Bank of America after reports he rushed out billions of dollars in bonuses to Merrill Lynch employees in his final days as CEO there, while the brokerage was suffering huge losses and just before Bank of America took it over. CNBC said Thursday that Thain spent $1.22 million redesigning his office. Bank of America later received an additional $20 billion from the government, in part to offset the unexpected Merrill losses.
How does this shit outrageous disregard for the hard working taxpayers of this country happen? Over and over again. We need to rethink the consequences for so called "white collar" crimes, these aren't victimless crimes.

Lehman Brothers Chief Executive Richard Fuld sold his $13.3 million mansion to his wife for just $100 last November, according to Florida real estate records. He left after the Chapter 11 of Lehman. Yea, white collar crime. The rest of us just lose everything, out on the street. They protect it. Great.

Now there's the guy from Agape World in Hauppauge that newsday says is suspected in a scheme that cost investors some $370 million...

Why would we trust any investor, any bank, any CEO, any politician at this point?
It's so very hard to put this all together while so many Americans are hurting, and congress fights over a stimulus package that might or might not fix the mess we're in. I surely hope it does. But so far the bail outs have been steeped in excess and because of the lack of oversight money was given out and frittered away.

I hope the stimulus package works, I hope Obama succeeds in turning this country around or at least getting us on the right road. I don't think that the goal should be to go back to the way it was before. NO way.
I'm not sure where we should go exactly but we need to really take charge of our future.

Remember the saying "If you're not outraged you're not paying attention" Guess our attention is upon the system now!
And the system stinks to high heaven and probably always has.

You know all those people that think the government shouldn't control capitalism in any way...
Those that scream "liberal" "socialism" and spread fear of anything that they perceive of as un American because the market and capitalism should be unbridled with no government involvement whatsoever. The ones that believe capitalsim will always prevail: for it has in the past, well, sort of anyway. It will simply self adjust. Well, welcome to the readjustment.
People that believe businesses can regulate themselves. Sure and I've got swampland in Florida you should buy unseen.

Honesty is not a valued enough commodity these days. Ethical behavior is lacking and the anything goes mentality must stop.
Money is valued more than people it seems these days. It's a very sad situation we are in.

I wish you well President Barack Obama. I want you to succeed. I want all of us to succeed which is hard when we are bleeding jobs, 40,000 jobs lost on Monday.

On that happy note: Welcome Timothy Geitner to the position of Obama's Treasury Secretary and um, good luck.

G'night,

Laura
*

Nine days left of GW Bush... finally in the single digits (or didgits if you're GW).

*

Last night I was talking aobut the economic melt down and how it really worries me that no one seems to have any answers.
Today on "Meet The Press" half the show was on the economy.
It made me feel good to hear more people talking about the problem because it needs discussion but at the same time it didn't make me feel much better. That's because this discussion should have taken place around 3 or so years ago.
There were many interesting topics that could have been made into one whole show instead of half but it was worth listening to. I find I'm liking David Gregory as the moderator a lot, he's lively, smart and interested it seems.


They brought up a point that I've been thinking about: If the economic stimulus plan does work is the goal to get back to where we were before? Because it seems to me that unrestrained extreme capitalism is not working for most of the "lower classes" and by that I mean the really poor, poor, lower class and middle class.
Is the goal to go back to business as usual where the top 10% of the food chain holds all the money and power?
Yea, yea I know, when you start talking like that it gets you called a socialist/communist/bleeding heart liberal whatever...
Which I'm not. I don't understand why we associate unregulated capitalism with our democracy.
Well, look where we are now.

The second half of the show was on Obama and how it effects Black Americans that he was elected president of the United States of America (Bill Cosby was one of the speakers).
It's interesting to me that I always thought the description "Black Americans" wasn't all that satisfactory since there are no Black or White people really.
And African American is inadequate since all "black" or "people of color" (which is pretty much everybody) aren't from Africa.
I think that a Barack Obama presidency is good for ALL Americans though perhaps more poignant for Black Americans.
A long time coming... And one day we will have a woman as president too, though NOT Sarah Palin. Puhleeze.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Gonna say g'night for now,
I might be back later but I'm tired and want to make hot tea.
Still coughing, this cold is really frustrating.

Laura

*

Seventy-one days left of GW Bush.

*



I was in NYC last night to see Neil Gaiman in conversation with Chip Kidd for the Sandman 20th Anniversary Celebration.
I lugged my Absolute Sandman Vols I, II & III in to get them signed. Vol IV comes out on Nov 11 I think.
I got a line on how I can get that one signed too after I get my copy.
Yes, that's me in the shot taken with my cell, absolutely in awe of this ability to tell a wicked tale.
A true first class storyteller! He's very multi-talented. My favorite author, creative person.
I'm definitely trying to absorb some of his talent by osmosis there. lol
He's so incredibly funny, smart, friendly and very nice to his readers.
Poor Neil was exhausted by the time he finished signing, he actually had circles under his eyes.
Since we had 2nd row seats you felt you were sitting in the living room with him which was great... but because we were in front, I was towards the end of the line to get my books signed. (Took around an hour)
Thank you Karen for going with me, enjoyed dinner and sing your praises for waiting for me so long to give me a lift back to Penn station!!! Thoroughly enjoyed the night.




*****

I'm so tired of Palin. Stop criticizing her, stop defending her, stop following her around, just stop. Please.
It's not about Palin anymore, or McCain, or Hannity, or Joe the "plumber." Enough, enough, enough.
She's going to be on Good Morning America tomorrow. Ugh. Let it go, let her go. She'll be back don't worry.

AIG is supposed to get more money. I still hate this whole bailout thing.
If any one gets money there has to be very powerful strings attached to it. This is what you can do with it, this is what you can't. Now get to work, get out and don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way. 150 billion dollars, makes me ill.

Auto industry will get money. Don't know where all this "magic money" is coming from because it seems like the govt is broke. Linens and Things and Circuit city is going bankrupt why don't we bail all them out too...
And maybe you could pay my student loans, the mortgage and buy me a modest car as a incentive "perk" as mine will shortly stop running. I hate this whole hypocritical thing. Reward the people that created the mess. Pay those on the top and cut lose the workers that made them the profits. Want to puke.

Everybody's bitching about socialism... what's so great about the unbridled greed of unrestrained capitalism???

Gotta go I'm participating in the National Novel Writing Month, trying to get to the coveted 50,000 words by the end of the month marathon. NaNoWriMo
Not doing badly either. We shall see. Spending huge amounts of time typing. Going to do a few overnighters to make up for some of the days I won't be able to do much writing (like Thanksgiving when Coll is out for a few days). I have my fingers crossed.

See you tomorrow. Kinda off kilter and tired today, didn't sleep very well last night at all.

G'night,

Laura

*