$480 Million for Lehman Brothers CEO
Posted on Monday, October 6, 2008What do you think of that?
As shareholders contemplate the annihilation of their money, and while prudent savers, who should be enjoying a comfortable retirement, instead apply for welfare, the man who presided over the collapse of Lehman Brothers sits pretty.
I watched with expanding incredulity as Henry Waxman, the chairman of the Congress oversight committee, grilled Dick Fuld:
Your company is bankrupt, the economy is in crisis, yet you took home nearly half a billion dollars. I have a very basic question for you. Is this fair?
Did you hear what Richard Severin Fuld Jr said in reply?
Of course you didn’t, because this Master of the Universe had no answer. The Gorilla of Greed sat in insolent silence as governments and taxpayers the world over are putting everything on the line to protect him and his ilk.
As this thing continues, I grow more and more angry. I grow angry at the years of lectures we have received from these financial experts, dictating to us about the virtues of the free market, the infallibility of laissez faire capitalism, and the need to ensure survival of the fittest, with no regard for the weak and the vulnerable.
I am sick of that shit, and I am sick of these self-important, self-proclaimed experts. Frightened, brash, spotty boys in expensive suits who, it turns out, know nothing.
Nothing about running an economy.
Nothing about running a country.
Nothing about running a civilised society.
Nothing about compassion.
Nothing about human feeling.
Nothing about kindness.
Nothing about fairness.
Nothing but greed and rapaciousness and dishonesty and ruthless self-absorption.
Nothing, in other words, about being a decent human being.
And these are the bastards who have held the entire world in thrall, as if their word counted for anything.
My friends, I’m sorry to tell you that for decades we have been listening to the word of soulless vermin, and now we reap the reward.
______________________________________
Here.
Let’s listen to a bit of music to calm us down. This is the sublime Jascha Heifetz playing the Waxman-Carmen fantasy, which seems appropriate in the circumstances.
Relax yourself.
_______________________________________
And here, for absolutely no reason at all, except that I choose to include it, is Paganini’s Violin Concerto No 1. This has been my favourite since I was in my teens when a mad Australian bastard introduced me to it.
_____________________________________
Also on Bock:
Banking Crisis Financial Jargon. The Language of Bullshit
Irish Nationwide Building Society Send Out Begging Email. What a Crowd of Shits!
Banks Are Safer in Small Corrupt Countries
Bankrolling a Bank. Ireland’s Government Guarantees Liabilities of Credit Institutions.
Economic Mismanagement — The Irish Experience
Banking Crisis, the Free Market and the Media
Irish Economy Fucked — Official!
Elsewhere:
Stumble it!
October 6th, 2008
Nothing to add.
Thanks for the music, Bock.
October 6th, 2008
Friedman.
Bernaise.
Fuckers.
October 6th, 2008
I wonder if he’d lend me €70 for me leccie bill? Tis due this week…
October 7th, 2008
Hi Bock,
McWilliams tried to tell us three years ago that we were on the road to nowhere and just got abuse. I even heard a banker last week saying he wished he would shove off.
What do we do now about the poor sods living in crap houses in soulless estates who spend four hours a day commuting and who now face oblivion?
Maybe music is the only escape. I stood with a pint on the balcony of the Tripod watching people watching Steve Winwood last Friday night - for an hour the world disappeared.
October 7th, 2008
Might explain why somebody punched him.
October 7th, 2008
Sean — You’re welcome.
Thrifty — Indeed. Fuckers.
Eva — he might charge you a couple of million for the favour.
Ian — Don’t forget, those poor sods believed all the bullshit too,and have to carry some of the responsibility for their own stupidity. And for destroying Tara to build the stupid road to their stupid little dormitory towns.
Darwin –I’ll try to find the video.
October 7th, 2008
Brilliantly said -and thanks for the YouTube links which were truly soothing.