CEOs to get their cake and eat it too?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...021104488.html

Am I the only one that thinks this is retarded?

For your entertainment:

Wall Street to Washington:"HELP HELP!! We're in danger of collapsing!! We need a bailout!!"

Washington:"Calm down! Here's a zillion dollars!! You don't need to be specific on how you'll spend it. We know you'll do the right thing!"

Wall Street:"Phew, thanks for having our back, dog!! (suckers!)"

A few weeks go by............

Washington:"Hey Wall Street, you haven't been dishing out billion dollar bonuses to your CEOs have you? I mean, we just gave you a zillion dollars, right?"

Wall Street: "Pardon? I can't hear you over the loud roar of our private jets taking off!!"

(alternative response) GASP!! How dare you imply that we've ripped off the American people!! *Turns away dramatically with face in palms sobbing*

(Wall Street internal dialogue, with strange French accent)
"Sheet, sheet guyz! Zey are onto us!! Vite, vite, doublez ze interest rats on our clientele's credit cards, and add more service chargez, but do not tell zem!!"

Congress to Wall Street:"Since the bailout, have you started lending out money again to home buyers?"

Wall Street:"Maybe we have, and maybe we haven't!! We don't appreciate all this government oversight.
*dangles a golden pocket watch in front of the congressional committee* "you will remove any pay caps on CEOs who have received a bailout!!"

Congress: Okeley dokely!! We apologize for questioning the integrity of Wall Street!!

Congressmen:"say, did you just feel something weird happen? Meh, it's probably just our imagination"

Does MoveOn.org pay you per word for your mindless hyperbole, or do you do this pro bono?

Edit: Do you not appreciate a twinge of irony in the quote by Thomas Jefferson in your own signature?

Do you have any idea what that quote actually means?

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Gaviani
Does MoveOn.org pay you per word for your mindless hyperbole, or do you do this pro bono?

---

Code:

---

    ROFL:ROFL:ROFL:ROFL
          ___^___
 L    ____/    [] \
LOL===___          \
 L      \__________]
            I    I
          /--------/

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Gaviani

Edit: Do you not appreciate a twinge of irony in the quote by Thomas Jefferson in your own signature?

Do you have any idea what that quote actually means?

---

Aw man. You spoiled it. I loved the fact that kestra had a quote in his signature that decried the tax-happy philosophy of socialist left.

I am quoting it here, because if he gets someone to help him figures it out he'll remove it.

Quote:

---

I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.

-Thomas Jefferson 3rd President of the United States.

---

Quote:

---

Does MoveOn.org pay you per word for your mindless hyperbole, or do you do this pro bono?

---

Well, you got the hyperbole part right.
If you can remove your ego from the explanation, I'm willing to listen to your history lesson on Jefferson.

From the article quoted by kestra:

Quote:

---

"It was not part of the original agreement," said Laura Thatcher, head of the executive compensation practice at Alston & Bird. "If they're going to retroactively change playing rules, it would seem to me that, in fairness, they would have to give the institutions an opportunity to back out of the deal altogether."

---

What am I missing here? As far as I know, any institution that wants "to back out of the deal altogether" can do it at any time. Just pay back the money....

Quote:

---

Several compensation analysts said yesterday that many of the measures that were in the Senate bill would have faced legal hurdles because they applied retroactively to banks that received government funds under rules agreed to last fall when Congress passed the Troubled Assets Relief Program's capital repurchase plan.

---

This is part of the problem IMO. Did those who drafted the TARP bill not take the huge bonuses into account? If memory serves, Wall Street tried to ensure that no government oversight would be allowed, or perhaps that was the car companies. Maybe I'm wrong.
All this retroactivity (is that a word?) just seems amateur.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by kestra
Well, you got the hyperbole part right.
If you can remove your ego from the explanation, I'm willing to listen to your history lesson on Jefferson.

---

Correct me if I'm wrong somebody.

I believe the quote means that Jefferson was opposed to large government which, while purporting to benefit the citizens, would in practice lead to a heavy burden for the people in terms of taxes, inhibited capitalist ventures, corruption, bureacracy, inefficient state-run institutions, etc...

If I've got it right then it's very funny because most of the stances you take on government/economic/societal issues in the forums are always ones that in practice could have the opposite effect to what Jefferson was advocating.

About the topic you posted on, though. I'm not sure, it can't be that the CEOs are getting paid too much or giving themselves too many gifts if people aren't up in arms enough to actually do something about it other than feel armchair outrage.

Of course it was rather tactless but that is what these evil capitalist pig-dogs do, right?

If the USA (or Canada since you are there) was really in dire straights and people couldn't afford to limit themselves to lazy critiquing based on quasi-information seen in the news then the CEOs wouldn't dare to try it.

Be positive, if they are rolling cigars with hundred dollar bills made from your tax money and not getting torn limb from limb by hungry mobs is a sign that the economy is not so bad after all!

I will only start to worry when -all- of the Nike manufacturers in my city shut down instead of only some of them, like now.

So please buy more China-made shoes, they will last just long enough to get you to the car and back* when it is time to go vote on how to handle the economic crisis!

Just kidding :biglove

Well. Kind of. I do still want you to buy our shoes. I will slap a logo on them of an old guy with a wig and knock off 5 RMB per container!

*unless it rains

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Noxul
So please buy more China-made shoes, they will last just long enough to get you to the car and back* when it is time to go vote on how to handle the economic crisis!

*unless it rains

---

You should ship your shoes to Melbourne then. Rain here is so rare that it takes the entire city by surprise.

In all fairness to Kestra, people take contradictory ideological stances all the time. Yes, the in-your-faceness of the quotation is pretty ironic, but not much more so than other people here who decry "socialism" and "government interference" everytime someone questions laissez-faire capitalism, and simultaneously in other threads call for forced (government) sterilization (or similar punishments/control) of welfare recipients, criminals, etc.

For that matter, Jefferson himself, while adamantly anti-federalist, spent millions of tax-payer money to buy land from France on behalf of the federal government. He was heavily criticized for it, but did it anyway because he thought it best for the country.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by kestra
If you can remove your ego from the explanation, I'm willing to listen to your history lesson on Jefferson.

---

Not that you need my approval, but this is a pretty admirable response.

As to the sentiment expressed in the original comment - the situation makes me think of something Chomsky once said, that, at the time, I disagreed with. Not a direct quote, but he basically said that people tend to see the government as "the enemy", but the real masters in our society are the corporate elite over whom we have zero control.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Pelic
Yes, the in-your-faceness of the quotation is pretty ironic, but not much more so than other people here who decry "socialism" and "government interference" everytime someone questions laissez-faire capitalism, and simultaneously in other threads call for forced (government) sterilization (or similar punishments/control) of welfare recipients, criminals, etc.

---

Uh..... wrong.

A condition for accepting government funds for more than a few years of time is not "forced." They could still choose to not take the funds. That is the government mitigating its damages and trying to break the cycle of dependence.

Nice try though.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Pelic
...Yes, the in-your-faceness of the quotation is pretty ironic, but not much more so than other people here who decry "socialism" and "government interference" everytime someone questions laissez-faire capitalism, and simultaneously in other threads call for forced (government) sterilization (or similar punishments/control) of welfare recipients, criminals, etc.

...Chomsky once said, that, at the time, I disagreed with. Not a direct quote, but he basically said that people tend to see the government as "the enemy", but the real masters in our society are the corporate elite over whom we have zero control...

---

Why is that ironic?

The laissez-faire capitalism is an economic issue, the right to force sterilization (unless welfare is being received) is more a social/moral issue than economic.

I thought your country was always saying keep church (meaning morality) separate from state? Laissez-faire capitalism is supposed to be about money not human rights. I thought...

Either way people don't want the government taking/lessening their income with meddling with the free market, or via a welfare mother who eats up tax money. Both are arguments against big government IMO.

Is Chomsky a reputable scholar in the West? The foreigners I know here say he's not really, just several rungs below the Farenheit 911 guy on the nutty liberal scale. He is famous but not taken very seriously.

I disagree you have no control over your corporate elite. You can hear about your corporate elite's evil deeds on the news, openly protest them and band together to change your laws to protect against them. When they do something against the law they have to at least take it seriously when they get caught and use their money to mount a defense. They can't just kill you or get rid of you, and nobody will do anything.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Aristotle
Uh..... wrong.

A condition for accepting government funds for more than a few years of time is not "forced." They could still choose to not take the funds. That is the government mitigating its damages and trying to break the cycle of dependence.

Nice try though.

---

It's inconsistant to decry government intervention with economic lives of corporations who behave in ways we don't like as "socialist" and then turn around and call for government intervention in the social lives of people who behave in ways we don't like.

Those corporations are no more "forced" to take government money than those people. If it's ok to do that to the second group, why not the first?

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Noxul
Why is that ironic?

---

The first responses to this thread answer that pretty well.

Quote:

---

The laissez-faire capitalism is an economic issue, the right to force sterilization (unless welfare is being received) is more a social/moral issue than economic.

---

The only thing I said was that it's inconsistant to object to government involvement and condition placing in the one case and not the other.

Quote:

---

I thought your country was always saying keep church (meaning morality) separate from state? Laissez-faire capitalism is supposed to be about money not human rights. I thought...

---

I don't see what this has to do with anything I said at all.

Quote:

---

Is Chomsky a reputable scholar in the West? The foreigners I know here say he's not really, just several rungs below the Farenheit 911 guy on the nutty liberal scale. He is famous but not taken very seriously.

---

He's extremely well-regarded for his linguistic work (though some disagree with him). As far as politics go, he's considered fairly iconic to the radical left (meaning those who consider the Democratic Party to be centrist in the broader political spectrum, not restricted to American politics).

Quote:

---

I disagree you have no control over your corporate elite. You can hear about your corporate elite's evil deeds on the news, openly protest them and band together to change your laws to protect against them. When they do something against the law they have to at least take it seriously when they get caught and use their money to mount a defense. They can't just kill you or get rid of you, and nobody will do anything.

---

Finally, a comment that addresses what the thread was about to begin with.

I think the fact that the government is tripping over itself to hand trillions of dollars to the banking, automobile, and other corporate giants, all the while ignoring historical profit making by American oil companies suggests that those corporations operate beyond the realm of public control. Otherwise, if we actually believed in laissez-faire capitalism, we'd have let them crash and burn.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Pelic
It's inconsistant to decry government intervention with economic lives of corporations who behave in ways we don't like as "socialist" and then turn around and call for government intervention in the social lives of people who behave in ways we don't like.

---

There is no intervention if people don't want a welfare check. It is a choice. You want continued welfare payments after X number of years, then you take a step to mitigate damages.

Are you going to argue welfare brood mares are a good thing for the country?

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Pelic

Those corporations are no more "forced" to take government money than those people. If it's ok to do that to the second group, why not the first?

---

You said capitalism and laissez faire, and now you are talking about corporations taking money from the government. If the government wants to attach conditions to corporations taking money, then they should do so (and they do). I have always been a proponent of things like FDA drug approval being contingent on a drug company not charging Americans a higher price for the drug than they charge internationally. I support rules that say if you are a company that takes government money of some kind, you have to keep a certain % of your work force in the country. Attaching conditions to a government aid plan is not anti-capitalism or anti-laissez faire. If the company does not want to accept the government's conditions, they do not have to accept the grant, aid, funding, whatever.

Try to at least stay on your own point.

Welfare brood mares willfully pump out more kids specifically with the goal of getting a bigger check from the government. That is not only bad for the country, but bad for these kids who are brought into the world solely to suck more money away from the government and thus from hard working taxpayers.

Frankly, it is a moral issue as well. Rewarding people for having children specifically to exploit the system is contributing to an extremely evil and immoral act.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Aristotle
Are you going to argue welfare brood mares are a good thing for the country?

---

I'm not sure those people even exist anywhere outside of conservative rhetoric. But, let's assume they do. I'd agree with you 100% that they were a disgusting drain on society.

Quote:

---

You said capitalism and laissez faire, and now you are talking about corporations taking money from the governmen...

Try to at least stay on your own point.

---

I did and am.

I said that slamming Kestra for the ironic Jefferson quote was a little unfair because human beings take contradictory ideological stances all the time. The socialist/welfare comment was an example of something I consider to be an inconsistent stance. Being Pro-life and pro-capital punishment is another example. Saying this isn't taking a stand for or against any of the positions given in the example. They're examples of things I consider to be inconsistent ideological stances.

The comment about corporations being our masters was directed at the thread topic, since no one (other than Damieux) had actually responded to the topic in any way other than to slam Kestra.

You responded to my example of inconsistency. I responded to your comment. I'm not mixing anything up.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Pelic
I'm not sure those people even exist anywhere outside of conservative rhetoric. But, let's assume they do. I'd agree with you 100% that they were a disgusting drain on society.

---

When I worked in legal aid (for those who don't know, that's providing free legal services for the poor) I witnessed it first hand. I have also read numerous studies and analyses of the problem that were extremely credible.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Pelic

You responded to my example of inconsistency. I responded to your comment. I'm not mixing anything up.

---

Yes, you are. You treated laissez faire economics and support for corporate welfare as the same thing. They are most certainly not.

First, I doubt anyone rational believes in absolute capitalism or absolute laissez-faire economics. Second, you directly tried to label me a hypocrite and then used examples that do not actually compare.

The contradiction in Kestra's sig file is extreme. The fact that some people hold DIFFERENT political beliefs that would seem to be contradictory is not the same.

Being pro-life and pro-death penalty is not necessarily contradictory. One can rationally argue that killing criminals is acceptable, but killing babies is not. This is not my stance, I am only offering it as an example.

But Kesta has a quote in his signature file that is the complete political opposite to the political stance he takes here on countless issues.

Nice try, but no comparison.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Aristotle
Second, you directly tried to label me a hypocrite

---

No, I didn't. Nowhere did I mention you personally. You evidently took my comment about inconsistency as being aimed at you though.

I'm not going to bother with the rest. I think they are perfectly valid comparisons. We can disagree on that. But, you took comparisons that had nothing to do with you personally and that kills any chance that this can be a productive political discussion. So I'm done with it.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Pelic
The first responses to this thread answer that pretty well.



The only thing I said was that it's inconsistant to object to government involvement and condition placing in the one case and not the other.



I don't see what this has to do with anything I said at all.

---

No, no. I was asking why you think it's ironic that people would support laissez-faire capitalism -and- forced sterlization, if it was due to someone getting a free ride on your money. Because that is not irony. All of those things, up to the Chomsky part, were a response to your misstatement.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Pelic


I think the fact that the government is tripping over itself to hand trillions of dollars to the banking, automobile, and other corporate giants, all the while ignoring historical profit making by American oil companies suggests that those corporations operate beyond the realm of public control. Otherwise, if we actually believed in laissez-faire capitalism, we'd have let them crash and burn.

---

-------------

Perhaps your country doesn't believe in 100% laissez-faire capitalism. Perhaps the government and the people believe these are special circumstances. Perhaps this isn't a bailout, it's an investment. Your country could be in serious trouble without its automobile mfg industry and its banks and needs to maintain a certain level of operation across the board or other industries will experience trouble as well. Like the global economy is having trouble because your banks are. Perhaps your government is just trying to stop things from getting any worse, or slow down the recession.


Why do oil companies (or any) making a profit mean that banks or other industries shouldn't get bailouts? Companies are supposed to make money, you make it sound like a bad thing.

None of this means they operate outside any control, infact it likely just made them more accountable, since it's your peoples' money that's keeping them above water.