MrsSpringsteen hit it right on the head. There's this crazy fear around Obama that I really do not understand. I truly do not think he is out to corrupt our country's souls or bring us to the firey pits of hell or whatever it is some people think he's going to do. Hell, I wasn't even scared of Bush. Bush just made me sad (Cheney and Rumsfeld and the like, on the other hand, now that's a different story). And speaking as somebody who did vote for Obama, it's just insulting my intelligence, it's like these people think I and others who voted for him are stupid and just don't see the evil lurking in him. I mean, yeah, I tend to be more trusting of people than I probably should be, but I'd also like to think I'm a fairly good judge of character.
It never ceases to amaze me how the Democrats can constantly lose to such characters as O'Donnell or Palin or the like. You would think it'd be a complete cakewalk for them, but somehow, they manage to fumble it up. "Stepfordy" is the right word-hell, a lot of the people in the Republican Party even LOOK the part. Caked-on makeup (why does it always seem the women who are all super-Christ-y also wear way more makeup than is necessary?), plastered creepy smiles, the men look like the guys in those Extenze commercials...it's really unsettling.
(Speaking of crazy, by the way, so I've been seeing clips of the one guy who was recently running-his name escapes me now, buthe's ranting and screaming at the crowd and getting all in a frenzy and whatnot over why he was running. And I watch him and think, "So...
he's perfectly okay, but Howard Dean let out a little yell at the end of a speech in 2004 in Iowa and everyone freaked out about that?")
Well, Richard Fuld will probably face civil if not criminal legal hassles for the rest of his life. There have been many cases of successful prosecutions in the US of former CEO's found to have engaged in malfeasance.
Good. I hope that continues to be the case.
Most people have no idea of the level of commitment and sacrifice involved in running a large company. (the aforementioned Fuld, for example, use to arrive in the office at 5.30 a.m. pretty much every day of his career). Now, granted, Wall Street bonuses in recent years have been unseemly and excessive and there are issues around 'rewards for failure' in some banks. The banking bailouts started by Bush and continued by Obama stick in the craw and rightly so.
Exactly. Like I've said before, if somebody has honestly and legitmately earned their keep and made a good living as a result, I'm fine with that. I have no issue with that.
But right now it just seems incompetence and corruption get praise and reward, and it's just infuriating to people. Especially when the money they scammed people out of could be put to better use, helping companies and people who genuinely could use it. And I do think it wouldn't kill the rich to share a little of their extra money every now and again. It's just the nice, decent thing to do.
But you are absolutely right, I imagine there is a lot that goes into running such a business. And that's why I'm torn. On the one hand, I don't want those who helped aid in the crisis to be rewarded, but on the other hand, the business itself may not be a bad business, it just unfortunately had some bad workers at its helm, so I don't know if we should necessarily throw the baby out with the bathwater, so to speak. And there
were some workers who were responsible and honest, and they shouldn't be punished for the actions of those who were crooks.
So yeah. It's very confusing.
Angela