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Screw Wall Street
I must admit, watching the Dow tank 500 points on Monday felt something like fun. All those dazed and confused investment bankers walking out of the Lehman Brothers offices with plants in their hands, scared about their future, not knowing how they're going to make rent on their $2,700 studio apartments--it was pretty freakin' sweet. Better than watching the Yankees lose, Tom Brady blow out a knee or some rich trust-funder fall down and crack his head open on Houston Street.
Investment bankers are some people's ideal New Yorkers. They work twelve to fourteen hours a day. Their lives are completely centered around work. They rarely engage in political dissent, don't raise hell and question very little, unless it affects their money. They earn on average $280,000 a year, so can buy the townhouses and pay the punishing rents that force virtually everyone else out. They support expensive restaurants, bars, clothing stores, pet grooming and poop pick-up services that have turned once-unique New York neighborhoods into a soulless, upscale pukefest. These are the people who are happy to live in the Matrix and go along with the plan.
Sure I'm generalizing on some level, but who cares? Screw 'em! The world is falling apart, people are starving, our economic system is contributing to the destruction of the earth, there is injustice on every streetcorner--and these people decide to dedicate their entire existence to making as much money as they possibly could. There is no reason to become an i-banker except to get rich. To land a job at a Wall Street investment firm means nine times out of ten that you've gone to an Ivy League school. These are people with options--born on third base, yet believing that they don't owe anything to anybody--and from what can see, don't much care about the consequences of their relentless pursuit of wealth. If steering investments to war profiteers like the Carlyle Group, Halliburton or some oil company that's killing people and destroying the ozone layer is where the money is at--no problem. Let's hit the Hamptons on Saturday, it was a good week.
This is an unfair world. Most of the time, it feels as if there is no God. No old dude with a beard making sure that if two bad things happen to you, then two good things will happen down the line. The amount of suffering in the world is not evenly distributed. Poor people get crushed. Rich people get breaks. Most of us are not destined to be the ones seated inside the fancy restaurant; we're the ones outside on the sidewalk, looking at what's on their plates. So as disastrous as the market crash may be for all of us in the long run, take a minute and enjoy one part of it. Revel in their misery. Toast their unemployment and celebrate their pain! Or at the very least, don't be brainwashed into thinking you have to care about the newfound poverty of the super-rich. This is one of the rare opportunities to see a little karma in action--and know that the people who always get away with it don't always get away with it.
68 Comments so far
Show AllHa ha Jason Flores-Williams, Philly lawyer, the joke's on you puke head!
The joke's on you dum-dum, because these same pampered, self-indulgent, hypocrites have just passed the old maid of risk from their extortionate dealings off on you, me, and the rest of American workers Jason. Go read Amy Goodman's piece above and know that you have been had as much as they have.
Maybe then you will see the inexhorable action of Karma for the amnoral avenger it is.
Poet
The article may have been clumsy, with all the dwelling on schadenfreude, but the larger point seems to be that unless US corporate capitalism is exposed as the wasteful, cruel, dangerous, and destructive fraud that it is (fraud in that it sells itself as utilitarian but is virtually its opposite), then the future of humanity is very bleak. I would not have expressed it the way Flores-Williams did, but the financial news this week has given me a little bit more hope for the future.
Kivals--
I agree with your sentiments as expressed above, but to say "screw you" and invoke Karma is to show both ignorance of all of our interconnectedness (aka no man is an island syndrome) and the very idea of karma (that what goes around comes around--aka the boomerang effect). Flores-Willaims is acting like a poster child for a lawyer joke!
Poet
I agree too. There is some schadenfreude to be had here, but these are not just 280k a year bankers and ultimately a lot of this pain is going to radiate out into the economy. I don't love Wall Street and clearly they are doing things that are at the edge of ethics, but we are the ones that are driving them to some degree. Who here owns a house or condo that they can just barely afford? Many of us are on the edge because we bought into the shiny golden lie of the housing bubble. There were janitors buying $500k homes here in the bay area with no income verification. That is the lender's fault mostly, but the janitor has to bear some blame as well.
Anyway. Interesting turn of events, but to all out advantages if it doesn't wipe the whole street away.
I was watching some of the financial news yesterday. At one point, I heard one of the talking heads say something like this ...
"people who are relying on their investments to retire in the near future are probably going to have to put off retirement."
The key is to realize that this has impacts well beyond a group of investment bankers and lawyers. If it was just them getting screwed, I might be ok with this article. But the key is that this is affecting a lot of people beyond this.
In the next few years, if you see someone who's say 69 years old and they are still working, remember this. This crisis is probably the reason. And if you picture someone who's worked crappy jobs for a lifetime and was looking forward to finally retiring and getting away from that, being told that 'you have to work for a few more years' is not a little thing.
I notice this writer is an attorney. I'm guessing he has enough money that a dip in the stock market isn't canceling his retirement. Or that he's not old enough to be thinking about it.
----------------------------
"To know, and not to do, is not to know"
www.samsonsworld.blogspot.com
Anyone who uses the stock market or real estate to grow their money is gambling. There is risk in gambling. I can't feel too sorry for someone who risked more than they should have.
Right on! Because it's completely infeasible that these cretinist scumbags could have families to support, or parents to take care of.
And, obviously they work on Wall Street, so they must be loaded; so they aren't going hungry, or worrying about what tomorrow might bring (like maybe a spouse's a cancer diagnosis.)
Yeah, let's celebrate a 158 year old company having to layoff all of it's employees, including IT, custodial staff, security staff, brokers and management. Let's revel in their uncertainty! I'm ecstatic with the lack of hope tomorrow brings for them!
Besides, they should have tried their luck at law anyway. Attorneys are the most honest folk I've met.
Dick.
Actually, these are really dishonest people whose willingness to engage in illegal and questionable behavior (that they knew perfectly well was wrong) is endangering the families of honest Americans. There hasn't been any justification for aiding and abetting corporate crime in this country for some years, and there's no reason to feel sorry for those who broke the law and are now receiving their just desserts.
"Attorneys are the most honest folk I've met." Are you for real? :) I'm 55 and I've never, ever met an honest attorney, never met a single one who was prepared to accept responsibility for anything they've done. Not a single one. American lawyers are the most corrupt people on the planet, possibly the most corrupt in all of human history.
Scarcasm genes not get passed on to you MikeP?
This article is a tad mean-spirited, no? I mean, cheering when a guy blows out his knee, or hits his head? Celebrating while the world blows up around us? There are a few valid points hidden within the invective, but it hardly seems worth it to dig them out. Doesn't really seem progressively enlightened, especially at a time when CD was supposedly getting complaints because people were upset with seeing the writing of us commentors. Maybe this article needs a "Hide" button.
I thought the same thing, also about the comment above of wall streeters jumping out of windows. Not good. It does point to a lot of simmering (and justified) anger out there. But wishing violence and ill upon others then reveling in it is not going to help.
The Wall Street Suits are the "good Americans' of our empire as were the 'good Germans' to Hitler. But before we kill them all we should remember that these bottomfeeding auditioners learned all their skills right here in our country. Same place Timothy McViegh grew up. The poor Wall Street financial losers don't deserve any attention because we already know they come from you and I.
Hoa binh
Good thing we didn't privatize social security, huh?
you were probably one of the guys cheering when bush announced that: yes, social security is still broken; yes, social security is still predicted to be bankrupt; and no, congress again did nothing to address it. what a reason to cheer, huh?
Baloney
in what respect?
Atta boy Jason. Let's entomb all the investment bankers in clay and gravel. Murder is a crime, why can't investment banking be a crime too? And YOU with your attorney job - wanna scrub your own toilet? You and Dianne Feinstein, give those beautiful senoritas who scrub your toilets some dignity. Ehh? Mr Raygun, tear down these class walls!! Mrs. Thatcher, HERE IS the classless alternative!
It was nice to see but not enough for this hater liberal. I am waiting with quiet anticipation for these little pricks to start jumping out of the windows like in 1929. Now that would have been fun to watch. Oh and RMouse you can just go fuck yourself. I'm sure it's the only way for you to get any sex.
typical liberal hate. And you wonder why Obama is sinking like a stone in the polls?
He who lives by the sword shall die by the sword. Well? Wall $treet doesn't believe in Big Government handouts every time they complain against the little guy. In return Wall $treet deserves to DIE by their own sword. If the little guy deserves no bailout, neither does Wall $treet.
Actually, from my dealings with a large variety of people, it's the so-called conservatives that seem to espouse the most hate... yourself included RMouse. Everytime I've seen you on CD, you're being hateful.
Uh...actually, he's climbing again. But, I don't expect Fox News to tell you that.
let's all take a moment and also celebrate the devaluation of all the teacher's and firemen's and union factory worker's pensions and 401ks for which these evil-bankers were trying to make money for.
and while were at it lets tack on a windfall profit tax on oil companies so we can further deplete every american's savings and increase their daily living expenses.
after all, we are the ones (with bill clinton's help) who pushed all this bad debt in the first place just so we can later kick people out of their homes that they could never afford. a big setup that also ought to have you smiling.
can you contemplate that even emotionally compelling actions have logical and predictable reactions?
That's not what the article was about Troll... It was about a fleeting moment of satisfaction seeing those "Masters of Capital" getting their asses kicked like the rest of us for once.
Come on, any self-respecting fascist troll like yourself understands taking joy at someone else's misery.
L ◎ L
Namaste
"Come on, any self-respecting fascist troll like yourself understands taking joy at someone else's misery"...yes, as i said before i am starting to understand how you guys think in here, as evidenced by this article and its subsequent support.
what i don' understand is why this joy-in-others-misery is so misplaced. who's misery is it really? if it feels good, do it, i guess.
i liken it to the oil company windfall tax thing. you all seem to think that it's going to hurt the CEOs and the evil oil companies (like you think a wall street fall hurts the traders). but the real effect is it hurts you and me, the little guys (and yes i am a little guy). i bet there were as many of those traders that made money as lost money in this blip. similarly, a windfall profit tax on oil companies will not reduce ceo pay, it'll raise prices.
but because it FEELS GOOD, you rejoice (or vote for the guy that will push the windfall tax). forget the consequences...its symbolism over substance.
i've got an exercise for you to do (i've done it but it'll help more if you do it yourself i think). take the top three oil companies' ceo annual pay and divide it by the number of gallons they sell annually. this will give you the amount of price impact the ceo pay has on each gallon of gas sold. hint: you'll need a calculator because it is measured in hundredths of cents per gallon
Ah quit being a corporate-appolgist. It's sickening. Considering the Oil Companies are making BILLIONS in profits every QUARTER, and mostly dodge paying taxes, damn right they should have a windfall tax applied to them. They're already gouging us badly anyways... price of oil dropped but the cost of gas didn't drop proportionately.
Frankly Peter, you're fast asleep dude... better wake up before it's too late.
He who lives by the sword shall die by the sword. Well? Wall $treet doesn't believe in Big Government handouts every time they complain against the little guy. In return Wall $treet deserves to DIE by their own sword. If the little guy deserves no bailout, neither does Wall $treet.
"let's all take a moment and also celebrate the devaluation of all the teacher's and firemen's and union factory worker's pensions and 401ks for which these evil-bankers were trying to make money for."
If it weren't for those unions, you wouldn't even be here typing rightwing bullshit in the first place.
"and while were at it lets tack on a windfall profit tax on oil companies so we can further deplete every american's savings and increase their daily living expenses."
Oh come now. We could end the ban on Cannabis by supporting Ron Paul's Hemp Farming Act and grow our own hemp for fuel. By growing our own fuel, we can quit digging for oil and quit empowering Chavez and the Saudi Royal elites. Gotta problem with that?
"after all, we are the ones (with bill clinton's help) who pushed all this bad debt in the first place just so we can later kick people out of their homes that they could never afford. a big setup that also ought to have you smiling."
Typical GOP rightwing bullshit. It was reckless war spending in Iraq and tax cuts for the uber-wealthy and more "free" trades along with the GOP refusing to step up to the plate and cut back on those "free" trade scams which caused all the deficits. Add to it, the lying liars on Wall $treet, banks and lenders, etc ... Quit blaming the consumers for everything.
I completely agree. But for a different reason. It always takes a huge disaster in America for something to get done. Let's hope we actually get something good done for a change.
I have to admit, that there have been times when I did wish that Wall Street would crash, but I always stopped myself from finishing that thought, because deep down, I don't believe someone has to lose for me to win. This is a truth that I have witnessed in many areas during my lifetime.That is why I support Obama and Biden, because I think in these two men we have the brains, the experience, and the compassion that this country needs to stop our bleeding caused by the Bush/Cheney team of abortion malpractitioners who were about gutting the government oversight agencies and regulators. Both Bush and Cheney are the abortion malpractitioners who have used a coathanger, make that a rusty one left over from the Reagon years, leaving the people to bleed to death.
We are in a crisis, and we need a transfusion of healthy blood that can get us moving again.
Sierra sez:
"...deep down, I don't believe someone has to lose for me to win. This is a truth that I have witnessed in many areas during my lifetime..."
*****************
I totally agree with your sentiment as stated above. In fact, it is paradoxically--from your point of view anyway--why I don't support either Obama or McCain. They are primarily being financed and advised by people whose view of life is the antithesis of your's and mine.
They will, therefore, do what their benefactors and handlers tell them. The last presidents who went off-script were either killed (Kennedy) or marginalized into a ventroloquist's dummy of a figurehead (Reagan after the assassination attempt by a Bush family friend failed). I'm just sayin'.
Poet
As "Poet" mentions above, the wages of greed and malice, represented for virtually all time by corporate and war profiteers, and in recent times, by (as highlighted by Jason Flores-Willimas (JFW) above) the I-bankers, the MBA gasbags, and the Milton Friedman gang of "economists" (to me, the rest of these pseudo-scientists are usually just as much into quackery)- actually damage everyone- on or off Wall Street.
But that is true when dealing with most crimes, anyway. The crimes of the Bush gang have taken the lives of millions in Iraq, Afghanistan, elsewhere in the world, and right here in the good old U.S. of A. (think Katrina, think the bridge collapse in Minnesota, think the dreadful medical care fiasco, think the sky-high rise of commodity prices for everyday living- and you get the picture).
However, the purpose of JFW's supposed joyful euphoria is easy to understand. Even the lowliest amongst us may well feel the effects of "comeuppance" visited upon the heartless, ultra-greedy, super-arrogant snobs (aka White-Collar killers, usually answerable to no one).
Indeed, there is little reason to shed tears for the inhuman, greed-besotted money-grabbers. Truly, what price has any of these ever paid for their enormous crimes? Look at Michael Milken, Ken Lay, Carly Fiorina, Dick (Darth Vader) Cheney, and so many other members of the mega-robbers' club! If you steal 250 million dollars, and, in a few rare cases, are asked to pay 20 million in penalty (and time served in, say, about a year)- well, seems like a pretty good deal! This is what has gone on in the corporate world for ages (and especially in the past 25 years, since the rampage of the Reagan gang).
And, none of the above purely financial factors even begin to measure up to the ghastly criminality of these corporate war-sponsors- these sanitized professional killers that wreak havoc upon the world, all the while romping around in sleek suits and ties, and when needed, spout pious words invoking such noble socialists as Jesus Christ and, indeed, the great bearded guy in the sky.
This is what the likes of Rmouse are made of. Non-evolving, Neanderthal-like in mind, me-me-me in the sum-total of thinking.
So, Poet, let those that have cared about people, ordinary people, bombed and exploited people, exterminated and abused people- let them have a moment or two of euphoria when the crimes of the mega-criminals catch up with them. True- it will likely not last for long. But then the struggle for good is indeed never-ending. Ask the Buddha, Jesus, Gandhi, Mandela and Rachel Corrie.
Mean-spirited? Yes. Yet, how refreshing, and from The Nation no less, to hear an unadulterated non-p.c. rant. Live a little CD people. It's called sarcasm--Hunter S. Thompson made a career out of it. I doubt anyone's superego rejoiced in Brady's knee injury, but you can't tell me that a small part of the Id didn't smile.
Look around. Professional sports people making tens of millions of dollars, while teachers get paid shit. Buy the ticket, take the ride! The author's point, if I my be so presumptuous, is not to encourage rampant schadenfreude. He is saying if you aren't a little pissed off, then you aren't fucking paying attention!! So, quit clinging to your outdated political correctness and get plum-crazy mean for there is a storm of major freaking proportions on the horizon. And if you think the likes of Sarah Palin and the rest of the well-placed Christo-fascists will do anything short of sticking your liberal heads on a spear outside the palace, then you are deluding yourselves.
My hat is off to Mr. Flores-Williams for an honest, refreshing and ultimately malicious commentary.
Fuck Wall Street!
Give this guy 20 years and he'll be one of those lefty turned conservatives like PJ O'Rourke or Mike Savage. Sure, he's young just out of school and he's all worked up about his liberal ideas but as he gets older he'll stay just as obnoxious since that's the only constant about his type but he'll turn on his old liberal friends. Don't trust and side with an a-hole just because you think he has the same politics as you, this guy will be an a-hole to you someday too not just investment bankers.
Wow! And again Wow!!! What a nice fight! Sierra, I like what you said...beautiful!
My anger has risen beyond my eyebrows now. I am drowning in anger over what our country is doing. My country...the U.S.A.....the one I've been proud of all my life. Now, I read and hear more and more about horrible crimes against humanity perpetrated by my country upon its' own people and the world! Whenever I read something, lately, that sounds like the government, U.S. military, Fascist corporate pigs, etc. is going to get some sort of comeuppance, I experience that "behind-the-eyes" little smirk....like, uh-huh.....had it comin! There are consequences to bad actions....period! I know in my head that anything awful that might happen to the U.S. will probably happen to me and my children as well, but even so, I can't help but wish and hope for something or someone to hurry up and stop this madness before the fools in office actually cause Armageddon! And they are on their way!
Remember though, it all can be different! We must choose now!
rtdrury September 18th, 2008 2:48 pm
Maybe those kamikaze kapitalists flying out of the windows on wall st will sprout wings on their way down.
Or maybe they'll just fall to their deaths like the people who jumped out of the Twin Towers on September 11.
A tough and smarmy article...but there is truth in it...sadly, there is much truth in it...
Actually, they are getting away with it. All of the CEO's are keeping the huge compensation packages they received in the past three to five years, and most are still getting their severence packages. All of the congressmen and women who heavily benefited from their lobbying are still keeping all of the money, and all of the corporate board members who enabled these criminals are keeping their fees and self respect. Only the little people are getting trounced as usual. The big boys will sip gimlets in the bahamas, costa del sol, French Riviera or some other spectacularly beautiful destination and laugh at the rest of us suckers.
Ha-ha-ha!
All the crocodile tears shed for those poor investment bankers!
Maybe all the compassionate people, who are taking a moment out of their selfless lives to post here, because they can't stand to see those poor investment bankers get made fun of in their moment of misery, could spare a little shred of compassion for the vast majority of the world's people who live impoverished lives in the global economy of greed and concentrated wealth that the investment bankers and their overlords have built?
Nah. Sit around and call people names, that's the ticket.
Talk about hate. What a joke.
i'm often amused and often amazed at the sheer volume of trollers who come to this site to harass and take up space. Excellent work, accomplishing a lot, thanks for your contributions.
He who lives by the sword shall die by the sword. Well? Wall $treet doesn't believe in Big Government handouts every time they complain against the little guy. In return Wall $treet deserves to DIE by their own sword. If the little guy deserves no bailout, neither does Wall $treet. How many of you rightwing trolls want to dispute that?
The rich have booby-trapped the financial system so that if they go down, everyone goes down with them. It would be nice to celebrate if this only effected the rich, but ripples are huge. Over a few weeks we've racked up enough debt to be equivalent to (or eventually dwarf) the amount spent on the "War on Terror". Say goodbye to all social spending and get ready for inflation.
"I don't believe someone has to lose for me to win"
You might not, it's a nice sentiment, but in a capitalist society, in a competition, winners create losers. Wall Street has been happy to win at your expense for decades.
How is it that people keep saying that Marxism is dead when it is the only analysis that actually expains all this shit? comradely greatings, Elisabet
Yes Elisabet. Perhaps you could enlighten us all?
If I remember correctly, Marx' analysis stated that capitalism was unsustainable. It is clear that this fact is taking a while to sink in in the US but there are many enclaves that do understand that 'the market' is not magical and is dependant on extreme exploitation of labour and resources. So, as the giants fall we must seize the day and use political events as a lesson by which people can learn something and then make decisions in the future that are more humaine.
UNREGULATED capitalism is unsustainable.
FDR put a stop to it for a spell, but Raygun kick-started the reversal and Gingrich/Gramm (yes, Clinton assisted) completed the restoration.
Good thing Gramm's new buddy, McKeating, is going to tackle Wall St. on our behalf.
ah, anything that requires infinite growth in a finite environment is unsustainable. Period. To say anything else is illogical.
China or some oil rich country will buy up the debt with the money we have been giving them, then when we get our money back we do what all those socialist countries do, confiscate their assets in the name of the people.
The one who will get screwed is not Wall St. but the American Taxpayers and probably some foreign "supreme" funds and central banks.
Wall St. big shots will get away untouched with very fattened bank accounts.
"..extreme exploitation of labour and resources." An extreme exploitation creating mass alienation that is the beginning of a real politics.
I see the failure of our existing financial system a painful but necessary step away from a greedy, competitive culture, toward a cooperative one. My retirement account has lost 22% of its value. As I grow older, I may need to depend on my relationships with others to sustain me. Maybe that's a good thing. Maybe we shouldn't have money as a barrier to interdependence.
I believe you chose this writing style to touch a few nerves. I hope you don't really find happiness by watching suffering. Thinking of yourself as seperate from those who suffer and numbing yourself by dehumanizing them is exactly what we need to get away from.