Thursday, September 25, 2008

A Few More Questions and Some Comments and Some Profanity

A) One clutch hit...ONE! Is that too much to ask? How about six good innings from the #2 Starter? Seriously, its ridiculous.

B) Why should we get involved in having Paulson cap CEO pay? Let the shareholders do it. Have "say for pay" be mandatory and binding. Right now it is a foxes (executive boards) guarding the hen house situation and we have Paulson "reluctantly" agreeing, as a former fox and present wolf, to set the pay for his friends. Uh-huh.

C) "The bailout must be passed quickly to avoid panic." Who's panicking? Do you know anyone who is financially panicked? I don't. Worried? You bet. Just like they have been for years as expenses have gone up, housing prices have gone through the roof, and their wages have been flatlining even as layoffs around them have them doing more work than they did before. Has my IRA been tanking? Yes. But it was such a pittance to begin with I can't get too upset about it, and I think most in America are in that same situation.
Now if I worked on Wall Street, was making $10,000/month mortgage payments as I watched my year-end bonus (the vast majority of my salary) slip away...yeah, I'd be panicked. And I feel for those folks, actually. And I worry for New York City next year, when all that bonus money is not spent here. But I'm sick of hearing about panic.

This is a time for our leaders to remind us that we are a country with a goddamned backbone which has bulled through much worse. It is time for us to stand up to those with the unmitigated gall to ask us to be fearful, shove them out of our way and get on with the distasteful business at hand.

I don't agree with everything Mayor Bloomberg does, but I can't tell you how good it was to hear him the other day say that in the face of this crisis the city budget next year would, to paraphrase "...have to have some spending cuts, which nobody is going to be happy about, and a need to make up for lost Wall Street revenues, which means taxes, which nobody is going to be happy about." The "nobody is going to be happy about" is a direct quote, and it says it all. No bullshit, no fake promises. Just doing us the favor of talking to the citizens of the city as if we are adults. Why is that so rare?

D) If I had 13 cars and 7 houses, I wouldn't be too excited about a nationally televised debate this week either... (An interesting point I heard this morning: With the Jewish Holidays and upcoming big television events, if the debates don't happen Friday, the possible make-up days would be nights where a small fraction of the expected Friday viewers would tune in.)

E) "If CEO pay goes down as part of this bill, they may not have the incentive to stick around and help work out of this." Really? You mean we may lose the expert services of a person who, given control of a fucking bank, can still run out of money? Well, thats a damn shame and a half!

Yes, everyone's getting sick of these posts, I know. I'm thinking of starting to post only photos of men urinating in public on the streets of New York. I've passed 3 in the last 24 hours, including one guy in a wheelchair. Ah yes, the life of a City Sophisticate....

7 comments:

  1. You crack me up Don. I saw no one urinating on the way to work except a neighbor dog.

    I'm not panicked, my bunker is stocked and ready to go.

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  2. Don-- I wish I could be as confident as you that
    a. the media constantly spouting the word 'panic' won't cause one and
    b. the idiots who told me a few days ago (I sit on a non-profit board) that the board should have "mattressed" the foundation investments before this all occurred -- BECAUSE THEY MATTRESSED THEIR KIDS 529'S - won't actually cause a panic with their actions

    like you -- my IRA was about enough for a nice retirement dinner, and now we will have to settle for a nice retirment snack - so be it

    I hope there isn't a panic - one would think that most people who have investments also attended school since 1929 and were taught how the panic caused a collapse and that sticking it out is better for the individual and the community

    I did see a guy peeing on my way to work, and I don't commute through the city!

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  3. oh and p.s. -- my son's team played like the Mets last night, so I am equally disappointed in baseball at the moment --even if the RedSox did pull a win

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  4. I never SEE people in SFO peeing, but there are whole blocks where the memory lingers on. I was there yesterday and apparently the block behind Symphony hall is popular with people with full bladders.

    I don't have any better answers to your questions than anyone else, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't keep asking them.

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  5. Anonymous10:08 PM EDT

    I like your posts, they inspire thought.
    I think public peeing is on the same level as public farting. Everyone has to do it, & however, everyone has different comfort levels as to where.

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  6. Ha, Tracey, as the government walks deeper into this swamp I've been waiting to read about your head exploding! For those of you who haven't clicked on Tracey's profile, he writes a very well reasoned blog from the Libertarian Perspective...which is of course totally Lord of the Flies With Guns insane.

    With respect, as they say here in the city.

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  7. I love a good Lord of The Flies reference.

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