Palast: "Why An A**Hole is Always in Charge"

[eleny]

Why An A**Hole is Always in Charge.

Greg Palast for SuicideGirls.com
Sunday 25, 2009

John Thain is the guy that looks like a Clark Kent doll you saw grinning from page one of your paper Friday morning. Thain was just fired by Bank of America because the square-jawed executive demanded a $30 million bonus after losing $5 billion in just three months at the bank's Merrill Lynch unit. In addition, Thain spent over a million dollars redecorating his office - including installation of a $35,000 toilet bowl - while the U.S. Treasury was bailing out his company.

There is no justice. Thain shouldn't have been fired; he should have gotten a $60 million bonus -- and Obama should immediately hire him as Secretary of the Treasury in place of that tax-dodging lightweight that's been nominated, Timothy Geithner.

Here's the facts, ma'am.

Thain was CEO of Merrill Lynch, the big brokerage firm. On a good day, Merrill is worth zero. A week before it was about to go out of business, Thain sold this busted bag of financial feces to Bank of America for $50 BILLION.

I'd say that's worth a bonus.

But it gets better. When the bag broke and another $5 billion in losses were discovered at Merrill, Thain went to the U.S. Treasury and got ANOTHER $20 BILLION to cover Bank of America's bad financial bet -- from us, the taxpayers.

Now that certainly deserves a bonus. And let's face it, a butthole that big needs a $35,000 toilet. Instead, the guy that paid the $50 billion, Bank of America Chairman Kenneth Lewis, is keeping his job. Lewis is the same guy that just spent billions more on buying Countrywide Financial, the sub-prime mortgage loan sharks that have brought America to its knees and put Bank of America into effective bankruptcy. (Note to Mr. Lewis: the only thing worse than getting cancer is PAYING for it.)

But dumber than Lewis is the loser who OK'd paying Bank of America for its losses on Merrill, who traded a pile of turds for a stack of gold -- our gold from the U.S. Treasury. That was Tim Geithner, Obama's pick for Treasury Secretary, who's now answering questions at Senate confirmation hearings about his funky tax filings. Tiny Tim was head of the New York Federal Reserve Bank during the Bush regime. Along with Bush's Secretary of the Treasury, Geithner came up with that $700 billion bail-out that loaded banks with loot on their way to insolvency. Bank of America got $25 billion of it to spend on Thain's company Merrill. That was before the extra $20 billion was weedled by Thain.

So why, President Obama, have you given us Tiny Tim to save our sorry nation's economic behind? What's with that?

In another life I was an economist. Really. So here's the economic facts of life: Our valiant young president is going to have to borrow a trillion dollars to bring our economy back from the grave. He's got to borrow it, no choice about that. But who in their right minds will lend it to us? I can tell you the number one job of a new Treasury Secretary will be to con Saudi sheiks and Chinese apparatchiks into lending us another trillion (they've already lent $2 trillion).

Who in the world can talk them into it?

The answer came to me after I went this afternoon to see my proctologist, a brilliant doctor with one eye and really long fingers. (OK, I made that up.) The good doctor told me that hoary old joke about the heart and brain and rectum getting into a fight about which one was more important. When the higher organs made fun of the butt-end, the rectum went on strike. After a month, the brain and heart couldn't take it any more -- the whole body was about to explode. So they told the rectum, 'You win.' And the rectum said, 'Now you know why an asshole's always in charge.'

There's our answer. Instead of an easily duped, incompetent weasel like Geithner for Secretary of the Treasury, what we really need is a lying bucket of evil snot, a flaming red take-no-prisoners asshole. A guy like Thain that can sell a piece of crap like Merrill for billions -- twice -- is just what we need to shake down the sheiks. "America for Sale! Cheap!"

And Thain comes with his own gold-plated toilet.

[babylonsister]

1. I do appreciate the rant, but

please. Does Palast offer anyone who might have a better idea?

[eleny]

2. I was disapointed in the Geithner choice

His being so chummy with Paulson makes me very uneasy. Is there nobody else?

I think we have the right to be disappointed and that "we" includes Palast.

[babylonsister]

3. Considering how fast the rethugs agreed to Geithner,

there is no one else. Yes, that is worrisome.

But, no one has come up with anyone more knowledgeable. That gives me some hope, more than thinking we are all doomed. That's my chemistry. :D

[undergroundpanther]

4. You cannot compromise with the right wing

Once you do you have compromised with sociopaths,you might as well have become as corrupt as they are by proxy.I fear this will happen if Obama keeps cozying up to these monsters and listening to them.
Being Bi partisan with evil can only make you look evil too..

That's how I feel about it.I thought Obama was changing things he isn't changing what I'd hope would be changed.He let some of bush's monsters stay in power.That ain't change it's compromising with monsters.I hope he does better changing very soon.

[tom_paine]

7. This is such an absolutist way of thinking, under normal circumstances I'd be appalled. However,

these are NOT ordinary circumstances. Not even close.

The Bushies, the Leaders, anyway, are monstes, almost all of them. More specifically, thives, frauds, murderers, and authoritarian tyrants pretending to be super-patriots. Does that sound familiar? It should, this same evil brew has probably murdered a billion people if one counts their many incarnations across human history.

Anyway, up, I won't tell you more stuff you already know. What I will say is that I do completely agree with you about the Bushies. It took 25 years and conversation with a dozen or more Bushies to convince me. But yes, with a few exceptions (there are always exceptions), Bushie Leadership is a kinder and gentler form of tyrannous monster - but only kinder and genlter because they HAVE to be, for the moment

As soon as they no longer have to pretend or speak in code about it, the minute the get to form their posses against their "enemies", and with the permission from "authority" they so desperately crave, they will do so with Nazi-esque joy. This I predict if such a day ever comes.

That's the flip side, upanther. Glass half-empty vs. glass half-full. I know, it's an old lame cliche, but this really is one of those things where it could go either way, still.

The flip side also is that the Bushies have had 30 pretty-much unrestricted years to do what they will to a gullible nation, and none of that can be repaired instantly.

I share you're upset over some things, and your concern. I've got news for you, we are going to remain concerned, even if things start going the way we 100% want them to.

Bushies and Nazis NEVER go away. That mentality is part of the human condition, and society has never really tried massive education in skepticism and critical thinking skills to try and counter it.

Thus, a great mass of people will ALWAYS be RW Authoritarian Followers, always carrying with them the seeds that will allow an authoritarian tyrant to hijack their minds and passively acquiesce to any atrocity, though not all have the stomach or the truly evil souls to carry those atrocities out. They'll sit home and quietly applaud, though.

You might want to read this:

http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/

It helps understand the human condition and why the Global "Bushies" throughout history have prety much ruled the human race since we crawled out of the mud, with brief exceptions.

But I digress. I don't know how this is all going to turn out, no one does, but I will say that, even though I share your concerns, Obama's first week's actions have shown at least some Jeffersonian desire to truly repair our System of Checks and Balances, which is all we have to protect us from the Bushies and their followers from doing what they just about fully did, which is eradicate America and turn it into a Bushie Inverted Totalitarianism.

As with the positive outcomes, this, too, might still happen.

We won't think it's going fast enough, even if it is all happening in the end as we'd wish. Hell, I think the Bushies should have been investigated, tried and convicted for multiple serial felonies and treasons, the evidence for which is laying all around, but lacks someone iwth the balls to prosecute it.

Anyway, we have to wait and see. I share your concerns, but at the same time I am a bit optimistic after watching Obama in action for a week. And not completely, but mostly pleased.

[truth2power]

12. You are absolutely correct, UP. I have said this elsewhere

and I'll say it again: Obama is a fool if he thinks that the Republicans, or the RW in general, believe in consensus or compromise in any way whatsoever. They keep their eyes on the prize, which is total and complete power, and like two-year olds having a tantrum, there is no give-and-take about it.

I was pleased to see that my point of view was affirmed by Thomas Frank on Bill Moyers Journal last Friday night.

Here's a link to Moyers' interview with Thos. Frank and David Sirota:

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/01232009/transcript2.html

"Let them, you know, why go to them? Let them come to you. And I think — you know what I think is going to happen is that he's going to discover very quickly what Bill Clinton discovered but then Bill Clinton never — you know, that these guys are implacable, you know? That they are not going to come around, that they don't have his best interests at heart. And they don't even have the nation's best interests at heart. I'm sorry. I'm very partisan."

[notesdev]

5. Tell me when it occurs to you

that the elections are a sham when it comes to things that really matter in the big picture, and that no matter who wins the elections the same group of clowns run the show.

Republican or Democrat, they are all CFR. How is it that the membership of this club manages to get every single office of consequence, every time, regardless of which party is in power?

If you want to frighten and amuse yourself, here's a scavenger hunt: find one high level appointment over the past 20 years that went to a non-CFR member (harder than you might think!)

[truth2power]

13. This is as good a place to put this as any, I suppose. Two things I read

from way back during the primaries that relate to your post. Separate articles, and I'm sorry, I don't remember the authors: (paraphrased)

1. The way we'll be able to tell whether Obama is a true Progressive and really wants to bring about change: He'll lose. Or, if he keeps on fighting and wins the election, they'll kill him.

2. At some point the new president is taken into a room and shown a clip of the Zapruder film, after which he is asked, "Any questions?" This is (almost certainly) metaphorical, but even so, it's a powerful statement about how things work in the political sphere.


* * * * * * *

I realize that the above will be seen by some here as exceedingly cynical. Nevertheless, anyone who pays attention knows that the truth is close to what you have stated, above.

[librechik]

15. Sheila Bair, please

works at FDIC and opposes derivatives.

[4lbs]

6. Geithner was discussed a week or so ago on either Keith or Rachael's show, and a guest said that

even with his tax screwup, he should still be the choice. The guest, I think it was either Howard Fineman or Lawrence O'Donnell said that it's almost impossible to find someone who understands TARP better than he does.

[Tansy_Gold]

14. B U L L S H I T

There are a couple dozen people who show up daily for the DU Stock Market Watch thread who know more about TARP than Timmy Geithner will EVER know.

And no, I'm not adding a sarcasm icon because I'm not being sarcastic.

The SMWers know that TARP is really SHIT, something Geithner will never be able to understand. He will continue to throw money at the banks and never figure out, not as long as he lives, that this stuff is dead and needs to be buried. It cannot be revivied or resuscitated or reanimated. he don't know squat.


and that's the truth.

<>


Tansy Gold

[European Socialist]

8. Best thing I've read in weeks--K&R

[DemReadingDU]

9. Here is a direct link

1/23/09 Why An Asshole Is Always In Charge by Greg Palast
http://suicidegirls.com/news/politics/23528/

[eleny]

11. Thanks, my posting was the newsletter I received in email

[AnneD]

10. I am socially liberal...

but fairly conservative financially. Most of Obama's picks have been ok but his economic ones have diappointed me deeply. HE IS A MAN BEHOVING TO NO SPECIAL INTEREST GROUPS BUT THE AMERICAN PEOPLE THAT NOT ONLY OPENED UP THEIR WALLETS, BUT VOTED TOO. So when will our government be representitive OF THE PEOPLE-or is that a quaint old fashioned idea.

[DCKit]

16. A "commode" is a chest of drawers, not a toilet bowl.

Just sayin'.

Personally, I think it's torches and pitchforks time on Wall St. and the banking centers - Boston, Charlotte, et. al..

[undergroundpanther]

17. I have heard of toilets being called commodes before.

Plenty of times. You say tomato I say tomato kind of thing.
You say Toilet, I say commode.

[DCKit]

18. *This* commode was not a toilet. It was a chest of drawers.

They did, however, spend a shitload of $$$ on the bathroom too (get it... shitload?).