My definition of "class" doesn't include Madoff or Lupica and his Marx in the Parks buddies.
Posted on 10/28/2011 2:06:47 PM PDT by presidio9
Now we are expected to believe that Bernie Madoff, once a star of the one-percenters, could run the kind of elaborate Ponzi scheme he did and steal billions under the nose of the SEC, but not know how many sleeping pills he and his wife needed to take themselves out. Like he finally forgot how to count.
Apparently Madoff and his wife Ruth, who failed spectacularly at killing themselves, apparently now intend to kill the rest of us telling their pathetic story.
Somehow a thief and rat like Bernie Madoff is still treated as if he should be in beer commercials as the most interesting man in the world. He is with Barbara Walters, and his wife is on "60 Minutes" talking about sleeping pills, and his last living son is with her because he is out with a book.
All because Bernie was one of the one-percenters who got caught.
"I thought about suicide," Madoff says to Walters, though you have to say he didn't think on it nearly as hard as he did stealing.
So Bernie is in jail for a thousand years and Rajat Gupta, formerly of Goldman Sachs, stands in a courtroom this week and hears the charges against him on alleged insider trading with Raj Rajaratnam's Galleon Group hedge fund. Rajaratnam has already gone away for 11 years on insider trading. Another big fat one-percenter who got caught, after years when he thought he could get away with anything in a Wild West, casino economy.
Gupta says he is innocent, which means he must have a perfectly good explanation of why he called Rajaratnam within seconds of getting real good boardroom information at Goldman Sachs. And Gupta's lawyer says his client is a man of integrity.
They all are until caught.
And people still wonder what the beat of the drums is all about in Zuccotti Park, from the 99 percenters making all kinds of noise these days, here and everywhere. The difference between those from Occupy Wall Street and the ones like Gupta - ones who thought they ran Wall Street and maybe the whole world - is that you get a much better class of person sleeping in the park.
I was there at Zuccotti the other day, before Gupta ended up in court, and saw a guy stretched out and putting the finishing touches on a poster that read this way: "Arrest Bernanke."
I said, "What, only Bernanke?"
The guy didn't look up, just kept working away as he said, "You have to start somewhere." This was way before Gupta had to post a $10 million bond at the beginning of his fight to stay out of jail. One-percenters behind bars! Maybe they can eventually start a club, or have their own reality series, or become pen pals as they keep reminding each other how smart they thought they were in a culture where guys like them were allowed to do pretty much whatever they wanted to.
They would not fit in too well at Zuccotti Park, where you really do find a much better class of American. One of the things they talk about and yell about sometimes is more government regulation, at a time when you are supposed to be some kind of crummy socialist hater of capitalism if you even suggest that. We tried less regulation over the last eight years under Bush and Cheney and all who still think they were such great American capitalists. How did that work out for everybody?
We keep hearing from those who hate everything about Occupy Wall Street - those whose only relevant political philosophy is "I've Got Mine" - that the protestors have no coherent message. It is another lie, like the one about how nobody in these protests really wants to work.
Of course there is a message, loud and clear. A big part of it, a huge part of it, is that less regulation of high finance in this country, going all the way back to the Clinton administration, was a good thing for everybody. It was good for the rich, as the gap between rich and poor in America kept widening, and some of these thieves ran wild right under the noses of the SEC. It was like they were telling everybody to fly around the country without air traffic controllers.
Now we are told, constantly, that the people yelling about the system are the bad guys here. Told that even as the likes of Madoff and Rajaratnam and maybe Gupta, formerly of Goldman Sachs, keep making the point for Occupy Wall Street.
It happens without anybody in Zuccotti Park having to say a single word or bang a single drum, a long way from where the king rat of them all, Bernie Madoff, sleeps un-medicated jailhouse sleep for the rest of his miserable life.
Allow me to crystalize the liberal and conservative viewpoints of those neither in the park nor in the 1%. Conservatives look at rich people and dream that if we work hard enough, we could be there ourselves someday. The 1% is filled with examples who came from nothing. Strike that: Most of us aren't looking for fantastic wealth. We just want the government to get out of the way, so we can work hard and enjoy the fruits of our own labor. Liberals are either wealthy and believe that most people (particularly women and minorities) are not capable of achieving the same success they themselves have enjoyed, or less than wealthy, and have given up. They want a government to control their lives and hand out free cheese. In case you haven't heard, the truely needy aren't welcome at Liberty Square/Zuccotti park.
Incidently, I worked right by Liberty Square/Zucotti Park (across the street from 1 WTC) ten years ago. I was down there last night. It was raining, so there wasn't much stirring, but I did witness said hippie relieving himself on hallowed ground.
Maggots of a feather, slurp together
My definition of "class" doesn't include Madoff or Lupica and his Marx in the Parks buddies.
Actually, Lupica's right. They do have a coherent message.
They want to take all they can from those that have earned some wealth and give it to those that don't feel like earning anything.
That's it in a nutshell, no matter how much this turdy little sports typist wants to whitewash it.
Gimme. Gimme. Gimme. Or I'll burn the system down.
You don’t have to do much “cherry picking” to make Madoff the centerpiece of an article unabashedly decrying Wall Street shennanigans.
After all he is one of the 50% of shysters who has faced any real retribution.
And it doesn’t take great powers of observation to suspect that Madoffs undoing was that he played his con exclusivly on the 1%.
The more I ponder this, the more I have come to the conclusion that the Obama shill media is trotting Wall Street's Madoff back into the spotlight to rally more support for the Occupy movement. If I'm correct, they've taken using the elderly as a propaganda tool (remember Social Security checks can't go out without a debt limit increase?) to a new, disgusting level. Like his investors haven't suffered enough, already.
Hey Mike, what did you do with my last 3 years? I NEED those. I already lost my quota between the ages of 18 & 24.
Madoff with how much? Thanks presidio9.
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