Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

This really is a full service blog.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

Bark louder, little dog.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

I really should read my own blog.

It’s time for the GOP to dust off that post-2012 autopsy, completely ignore it, and light the party on fire again.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

You cannot shame the shameless.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

Eh, that’s media spin. biden’s health is fine and he’s doing a good job.

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

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Reader Interactions

111Comments

  1. 1.

    p.a.

    Well it’s obvious we need to airlift shipments of antidepressants to Manhattan to combat this inhuman suffering. Oh the humanity…

  3. 3.

    Reverend Dennis

    This is almost as moving as the one about the clown who found that giving up his private jet was the hardest thing that he’d had to do in his whole life.
    Now where did I leave my tiny violin?

  4. 4.

    D0n Camillo

    Reminds me of Oscar Wilde’s quote:

    "One must have a heart of stone to read the death of little Nell without laughing. "

  6. 6.

    Genine

    This is almost as moving as the one about the clown who found that giving up his private jet was the hardest thing that he’d had to do in his whole life.
    Now where did I leave my tiny violin?

    Up his ass, where it belongs.

  9. 9.

    TrishB

    There aren’t many of us out there who depend on these anti-depressant / anti-anxiety meds to keep our minds, lives, and sanity together, and yet are going broke because of these same meds. No, not at all. Where’s my private jet?

  14. 14.

    Delia

    Oooooh . . . . . Poor guy. Can someone find him an open window in a tall building so he can put himself out of his misery? Or maybe a bridge over a cold river? That would probably do.

  16. 16.

    Andrew

    He was not clinically depressed: his sleep, appetite, sex drive and ability to enjoy himself outside of work were unchanged. This was different.

    The problem was that his sense of success and accomplishment was intimately tied to his financial status.

    I have a solution! Spend the next three months hanging around with my friends and I, all of whom have at least bachelor’s degrees but make less than $30,000/ year with no benefits.
    You will then feel better about your financial success.

    That will be $5000, please. And I suggest a follow up session.

  17. 17.

    r€nato

    if I were his therapist:

    "Take a bullet to the head and have your next of kin call me in the morning so i can come over and defile your corpse."

  18. 18.

    Comrade Jake

    Heh. Check out the response to the first comment. Which one of you fuckers brought the Ayn Rand snark?

  20. 20.

    Jennifer

    /Denis Leary/"Be sure to get your WHOLE HEAD in front of the shotgun before pulling the trigger. Thanks for calling."/Denis Leary/

  22. 22.

    Jennifer

    I’d suggest a stand-up bass for that.

    Bass don’t have legs. What’s it gonna do, stand up on its fins?

    Yeah, like that’s gonna work.

  23. 23.

    Comrade Kevin

    @DougJ:

    The banality of not-even-evil. Evil has balls. This guy doesn’t.

    No, actually, Arendt really was referring to ball-less ones like this guy.

    The whole "banality of evil" is not about the architects of the Nazi regime, but about the shithead functionaries who would come up with bullshit reasons for their actions, and find a way of making it sound like they were put upon when they committed evil acts, and not their victims.

  24. 24.

    DougJ

    No, actually, Arendt really was referring to ball-less ones like this guy.

    All right, fair enough, but the SS guards didn’t whine to their therapists about how they felt emasculated now that they weren’t carrying out genocide anymore.

  25. 25.

    The Moar You Know

    I have a deep-seated, yea, an almost uncontrollable desire to seek this poor soul out and flog him with a four-foot piece of rebar.

  27. 27.

    ppcli

    But then something else emerged. He came in one day looking subdued and plopped down in the chair. "I’m over the anxiety, but now I feel like a loser." This from a supremely self-confident guy…

    Sir, you feel like a loser because you are one. That will be $300 please.

  30. 30.

    srv

    Wish I could find it, but there was a quote a couple months ago from a Wall Street guy who didn’t mind losing his vacation home, or a couple cars, but losing his LearJet was pretty much the end of his world.

  31. 31.

    rec

    Today on NPR I heard someone say he thinks it’s harder for the person doing the firing than it is for the people being fired (guess which of the two he was).

    Why? Because the people being fired now have the freedom to pursue other interests.

    No, seriously.

  32. 32.

    srv

    "A lot of those people will have to sell their homes, they’re going to cut back on the private jets and the vacations. They may even have to take their kids out of private school," said Frank. "It’s a total reworking of their lifestyle."

    He added that it’s going to be no easy task.

    "It’s going to be very hard psychologically for these people," Frank said. "I talked to one guy who had to give up his private jet recently. And he said of all the trials in his life, giving that up was the hardest thing he’s ever done."

    My googling skills are better than I thought

  34. 34.

    Delia

    Why? Because the people being fired now have the freedom to pursue other interests.

    Like eating cake? Like polishing the guillotines? Is this a multiple choice?

  35. 35.

    srv

    you fail at life.

    But this does confuse me. First Tim F is buffing the gilded cage of Capitalism, the Juice-o-sphere hails his neo-Gekko-Randianism, and then when The Gov’t fails to restrain the properly greedy captains of industry, you have no sympathy for them.

    Y’all want your cake and eat it too.

  36. 36.

    Fraud Guy

    He must be one of the ones who didn’t get told that it is the sociopaths who really know how to make a killing in the market.

  37. 37.

    CD

    srv @ 34…I can’t speak for Tim, but as I recall, his point was that the (properly) greedy captains of industry require the (properly) regulatory skills of government to prevent them from becoming crooks and taking society to the cleaners. In this case it didn’t happen, and the "little people" got hurt. Why do you say this is confusing to you?

    I don’t see any contradiction at all in Tim’s point, myself. What am I missing?

  38. 38.

    Warren Terra

    There was a whole feature article a week or two ago in, iirc, Vanity Fair, about the mega-wealthy of Wall Street no longer being able to blow a million bucks a month, and all the wonderful things they can no longer afford. My heart just bled, I tell you.

  39. 39.

    AnneLaurie

    The problem was that his sense of success and accomplishment was intimately tied to his financial status.

    Let’s try giving him a radical vasectomy using Chuck Butcher’s butter knife. That ought to distract him enough to overcome his potentially life-threatening case of Robber Baron Remorse.

  40. 40.

    srv

    I don’t see any contradiction at all in Tim’s point, myself. What am I missing?

    Most of these people on Wall Street aren’t crooks. They didn’t do anything "illegal". Just because gov’t failed to adequately regulate, why can’t you have sympathy for the greedy non-crooks?

    [edit] you want them to be greedy, you want 14% returns on your 401K and house annually, and then when the people who struggled to make that happen crash and burn, you snark on them.

    Not that I’m not snarking you, but I have about as much sympathy for the dumbasses who have $200K HELOCs as I have for Wall St.

  41. 41.

    ninerdave

    On a somewhat related note:

    The California GOP sent their budget proposal out today. They proposed to balance the budget by cutting k-12 education and health care of disabled and children.

    The GOP, aside from the Governator, in my state is not a serious group of people.

  42. 42.

    CD

    Most of these people on Wall Street aren’t crooks. They didn’t do anything "illegal". Just because gov’t failed to adequately regulate, why can’t you have sympathy for the greedy non-crooks?

    OK. Now I see what you mean. Valid point. I need to give that some thought.

  43. 43.

    CD

    Let’s try giving him a radical vasectomy using Chuck Butcher’s butter knife.

    Hey…beats the hell out of Chuck Butter’s butcher knife.

  44. 44.

    ninerdave

    Today on NPR I heard someone say he thinks it’s harder for the person doing the firing than it is for the people being fired (guess which of the two he was).

    Ever had to lay someone off? It’s fucking horrible and will make you reconsider in a minute why you got into management in the first place. I’m not discounting the shittiness of being laid off, but having been on both sides of the fence, they both suck…equally. However getting laid off entitles you to (usually) a severance package and unemployment.

    Laying people off, entitles you to nothing but feeling like an asshole.

  45. 45.

    Calouste

    @ninerdave:

    It’s more about the "pursue other interests" thing. If you mention that when you are laying people off, you’re clearly from the class that has never had to worry where the next rent/mortgage payment is coming from. And whinging about your own issues with laying people off (not you, the guy mentioned above. I understand it’s not the most fun thing to do), who will have to worry where the next rent/mortgage payment is coming from makes you exude about much empathy as Dick Cheney.

  46. 46.

    El Cid

    Another record of achievement by the "No One Could Have Anticipated" brigades, including Republican Congressman / SEC Chairman Christopher "America’s Operation Iraqi Freedom is still producing shock and awe, this time among the blame-America-first crowd" Cox.

    I saw an interview on CNN this morning with Frank Casey of Fortune Group, a hedge-fund related investment firm, and apparently his firm investigated and reported possible fraud to the SEC:

    Casey was vice president of marketing for Rampart Investment Management in Boston, one of the country’s top firms specializing in investing in options. Madoff, at the time, was earning a reputation on Wall Street as a can’t-miss money manager who used options strategies to produce double-digit returns without blemish… But from what Casey saw in 1999, Madoff’s system did not make sense… "Either he wasn’t doing what he said he was doing, or maybe he was using the clients’ money to help his own positions," Casey recalled in an interview yesterday… When he reported back to colleagues at Rampart, one in particular grew determined to unravel Madoff’s mysterious investment strategy – portfolio manager Harry Markopolos. And when he couldn’t, Markopolos undertook a crusade against Madoff that started with asking officials at the Boston office of the Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate him… Now an executive recruiter, Markopolos declined to be interviewed. But what regulators did – and did not do – in response to Markopolos’s entreaties is a now a burning question for the agency, after Madoff’s arrest last week on charges of running a Ponzi scheme that lost up to $50 billion, perhaps the largest in history…

    But at least Cox is wondering why the organization he ran did nothing.

    The SEC "has learned that credible and specific allegations regarding Mr Madoff’s financial wrongdoing, going back to at least 1999, were repeatedly brought to the attention of SEC staff, but were never recommended to the Commission for action,” Mr Cox said in a statement… "I am gravely concerned by the apparent multiple failures over at least a decade to thoroughly investigate these allegations,” said Mr Cox… "A consequence of the failure to seek a formal order of investigation from the Commission is that subpoena power was not used to obtain information,” Mr Cox said, "but rather staff relied upon information voluntarily produced by Mr. Madoff and his firm.”

    British investment consultants also asked a key question:

    "We therefore might also ask what financial institutions actually do for their management fee if being able to spot, and avoid, a pyramid scheme isn’t part of the service?”

    I remember a lot of times having my cautions not only in the Reagan years but in "Third Way" (Turd Weigh) Democrat years about the increasing hollowness and upper-class oriented corruptness of both the financial system and economy by lots of Tom Friedmanite ‘new economy’ bullshit.

    I sure wish I’d been wrong, but then, to run America you got to learn how to ignore the dirty fucking hippies, especially when they’re correct, which apparently was nearly all the the time.

    By the way, I sure am glad that good Republican Senators are working so hard to protect me from those greedy autoworkers’ unions.

  48. 48.

    Conservatively Liberal

    Since some of you don’t seem to think I’m bloodthirsty enough, did you stop to think about suicide by butter knife?

    Yes, and it sounds pretty dull.

  49. 49.

    r€nato

    if I told you that somewhere in America there was a kid named for Adolf Hitler, you’d probably think I was pulling your leg.

    if I then told you that the same parents gave another of their kids the middle name of "Aryan Nation", you’d probably think I’d mistaken an Onion article for the real thing.

    You’d be wrong.

    EASTON, Pa. – The father of 3-year-old Adolf Hitler Campbell, denied a birthday cake with the child’s full name on it by one New Jersey supermarket, is asking for a little tolerance…. The Campbells’ other two children also have unusual names: JoyceLynn Aryan Nation Campbell turns 2 in a few months and Honszlynn Hinler Jeannie Campbell will be 1 in April.

  50. 50.

    J.D. Rhoades

    The problem was that his sense of success and accomplishment was intimately tied to his financial status…

    Gee, ya think? Maybe you should have been treating that from the outset, you quack.

  51. 51.

    J.D. Rhoades

    if I told you that somewhere in America there was a kid named for Adolf Hitler, you’d probably think I was pulling your leg.

    if I then told you that the same parents gave another of their kids the middle name of "Aryan Nation", you’d probably think I’d mistaken an Onion article for the real thing.

    The hardest thing about satire these days is staying ahead of reality.

  52. 52.

    Reverend Dennis

    @El Cid:

    But at least Cox is wondering why the organization he ran did nothing.

    Nice bit of playacting on Cox’s part. He knew damned well that the economy was suddenly generating shitloads of money although there’d been no changes in the fundamentals. Had he investigated Madoff it may have led to some ugly questions about where the rest of all that money was coming from. The right kind of people were making bales of money, that’s all Cox needed to know and all he wanted to know. The only time Republicans find it necessary to intervene is when the wrong kind of people; Union workers or single mothers for instance, are trying to get ahead.

  53. 53.

    Reverend Dennis

    The father of 3-year-old Adolf Hitler Campbell, denied a birthday cake with the child’s full name on it by one New Jersey supermarket, is asking for a little tolerance…

    Irony lies unconscious and bleeding at the side of the road.

  54. 54.

    Hawise

    A couple years ago I read an article about how hard it was on rich men to lose money because then they had to give up their mistresses and their second wives would leave them. My heart is crying about as much now as then. Seriously, boo hoo- boo hoo (giggle, giggle) whups.

  55. 55.

    dewberry

    The best was the Daily Beast piece from a couple of days ago, that showed people like Kathleen Fuld (wife of Lehman Bros head) showing their compassion for those less well-off than themselves…

    How, do you ask, are they showing their kindness and empathy for those who don’t have millions stored in small bills in the basement?

    By asking for the plain white bag while shopping at Hermes, rather than the ostentatious signature orange bag. See! The rich — they really truly care!

    Shopping in Secret

  58. 58.

    r€nato

    if things ever get so bad that we bring back "People’s Revolutionary Courts", these SOBs are going to find out what real suffering is.

  59. 59.

    Anna Granfors

    The author of the piece that John links to, however, ends his post by asking "why on earth would the Times publish this when there are people out there who are losing their jobs, losing their homes, losing their access to health care, all because of the miscalculations of people like his clients?"

    Um, maybe because the NY Times publishes for guys like him, not people like us? It truly IS a Village, and you’re not allowed.

  60. 60.

    sparky

    every so often the NYT publishes some jaw-dropping bit like this. i figure it’s a concession to the neighbors on Park and Fifth, just like the weddings pages. i suspect the editor and writer are snickering the whole time.
    i will put a plug in for them though–just discovered i could read all their blogs through google reader, and they have a treasure trove of blogs.

  61. 61.

    D-Chance.

    @r€nato:

    As I noted on another board:

    Eh, when the kid reaches 18, he can go to court and have his name legally changed…

    Adolph Hitler Ocho-Cinco.

  62. 62.

    Reverend Dennis

    @dewberry:

    JOE: They run up a red-and-white flag on the
    yacht when it’s time for cocktails.

    SUGAR: You have a yacht? Which one is yours – the big one?

    JOE: Certainly not. with all that unrest in the
    world, I don’t think anybody should have
    a yacht that sleeps more than twelve.

    Billy Wilder – Some Like It Hot

  63. 63.

    kommrade reproductive vigor

    OK, OK. Maybe I fail at life but I went to school with people like this schmuck or at least the kids of people like this schmuck* (although he’d fall at the lower end of their income scale) and I feel a little sorry for him because he’s just so fucking clueless. "Boo hoo, I’m not making nine gazillion dollars any more. I’m worthless!" No. You may or may not be worthless but it has nothing to do with your annual income. And yeah, there are people who go into a fucking Force 5 panic at the thought of being to give up ANYTHING, even if anything is pretty fucking close to everything. And don’t get me started on the people who go nuts (and into debt) trying to fit in with those clowns. They’re deeply be-screwed and I feel sorry for them the way I feel sorry for an addict.

    Which is to say I read stories like this and feel an urge to apply a caring, sharing boot to the junk until he starts to appreciate the things he does have.

    Why? Because the people being fired now have the freedom to pursue other interests.

    No, seriously.

    Well duh. Do you think Torquemada liked torturing Jewish people until they converted to Christianity and then killing them? They got to go to Heaven while he had to stay behind and send MORE people off to Heaven. Sheesh.

    *Scholarships, jobs and loans. Lots of loans.

  64. 64.

    Terri

    Whew!
    Was beginning to think that I was the only one who thought that it’s a damn shame we’ve become more "civilized", to the point that we’re not dragging these cocksuckers into the middle of Wall Street, and hanging their sorry asses from the lightposts.

  66. 66.

    Punchy

    Sooooo..Today Show, with the collapse of the economy nigh, decides instead to open its broadcast with a "Holy shit! December’s fuckin COLD!" bit. Unfuckinreal.

  69. 69.

    TheFountainHead

    Well, to be fair, last night was the first time it’s been cold in Manhattan, and these people have the memories of goldfish.

  70. 70.

    Reverend Dennis

    @D-Chance.:
    Finely atomized cologne + open flame. It will be an unforgettable evening indeed. "Hey, remember the time you had to put out your date?"

  71. 71.

    AhabTRuler, V

    Plus, the Burger King would drink Frexinet, wouldn’t he. I guess if you have a giant plastic head, you don’t have taste buds.

    Yech.

  73. 73.

    chopper

    @ninerdave:

    However getting laid off entitles you to (usually) a severance package and unemployment. Laying people off, entitles you to nothing but feeling like an asshole.

    well, that and staying employed. which is kinda important these days.

  74. 74.

    Bob In Pacifica

    I’ll give some sympathy to Niner Dave. Unless it’s a small company it’s not the guys at the top who get to hand out the pink slips. It’s someone in mid-level or lower level management. No Lear jets for these guys.

  75. 75.

    Luddite

    "Take a bullet to the head and have your next of kin call me in the morning so i can come over and defile your corpse."

    Not until Mr. Anxiety pays my whimsically priced therapy fees first.

  76. 76.

    Mme Dufarge

    Been knitting these scarves for a long damn time, but I tell you, these days I just can’t keep up.

    Could somebody roll out the guillotines already? kthxbai

  77. 77.

    Reverend Dennis

    @Bob In Pacifica:
    I was working at an Internet startup when the bubble burst. I had to let go of sixty people, every one of whom I’d hired and worked with. My only consolation was that I had already been told that I was out too as soon as I finished telling them. Well, that and the drunken revel we held afterward at a local bar.

  78. 78.

    Aristides

    Alright, I’ll bite. I don’t really see why it’s so crazy for a guy who’s used to being very successful to be down in the dumps when he encounters epic FAIL. This dude’s job is his life (like with a lot of people, not just guys) and over the course of a few months he finds that his job as in the toilet and and he feels pretty crappy about it. I don’t really get why it’s wrong for him to feel this way, or it’s wrong for somebody like me to feel a little bit sorry for him. His life sucks in its own way, just like life sucks for somebody losing their house or their livelihood, and I have enough sympathy to spare some for both of them. Maybe it’s the compassionate liberal in me, who can afford to feel sorry for everybody.

  79. 79.

    Reverend Dennis

    His life sucks in its own way, just like life sucks for somebody losing their house or their livelihood…

    Yes, because losing a hundred grand off the top of your income is exactly like having to live in your car.

  80. 80.

    Barry

    One of the many irritating things about the NYT is that their ‘lifestyle’ articles almost always assume that the bottom is upper middle class, and the broad middle is the upper class.

  81. 81.

    Conservatively Liberal

    Gee, December is cold? Last night it was -17 in Paulina, Oregon. East of Klamath Falls it was -12, Mount Hood was at 0, Newport was 23 and here in Brookings it got down to 32.

    Positively balmy here! On a good note, yesterday I filled our Mustang up for less than $20.00. Last time I filled it the cost was just over $50.00. Too bad everything else is still going up though. Now that the Fed is encouraging people to hurry up and spend their money because the banks can’t pay any interest with the rate set at 0 to .25%, I am expecting prices to stabilize for a short time before heading over the cliff.

    I told our daughter that if she could get one of those student loans with the interest rate set to prime – 1, that the bank would actually help pay her tuition costs. ;)

    One comment at CR really made me laugh. One guy said that he was considering paying his mortgage off because he would earn 5.25% return on his money. My how times have changed. ;)

  82. 82.

    Grumpy Code Monkey

    However getting laid off entitles you to (usually) a severance package and unemployment.

    I’ve been laid off twice. I’ve learned that it’s better to be laid off earlier than later; there’s still money for severance packages, and there are still other jobs available.

  85. 85.

    LiberalTarian

    Listen, I don’t know if you’ve been looking at what the GOP are saying, and Reid calling Corker a great guy and all, but it is time to admit that the DC crew are not going to save us from the New Great Depression. Obama is too little too late, these guys have already killed the economy. It is just taking a long time to die. Like taking a poison that destroys your internal organs: you are technically still alive, but there is no way you are going to see another Christmas.

    These guys just don’t give a fuck who suffers as long as they get theirs. And, even worse, they are too fucking stupid to realize that they are cutting off their nose to spite their face.

    I’m going to start doing research into how families who made it through the depression without losing absolutely everything did it. Looking back it is easy to forget people were starving for years, and recovery didn’t really have a foothold until after WWII in the 50s.

    The party of Hoover in-fucking-deed. Get ready. This is going to suck.

  86. 86.

    AhabTRuler, V

    @LiberalTarian: My father-in-law’s family made it through the depression ok. His dad was a postal carrier, so get a job in necessary government services. The ones that haven’t been outsourced, that is.

  87. 87.

    r€nato

    I don’t really see why it’s so crazy for a guy who’s used to being very successful to be down in the dumps when he encounters epic FAIL.

    down in the dumps, sure. That’s understandable.

    But if he’s gonna be a drama queen about it, then I hope the universe/god/karma/whatever gives him something to really be depressed about.

    People starving to death in Africa, there’s misery.

    Getting involved in a car accident through no fault of one’s own and becoming a quadriplegic for life, there’s misery.

    Young children having limbs blown off by land mines or hacked off by mercenaries in African guerilla wars, there’s misery.

    Contracting ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease) out of the blue, there’s misery.

    American troops suffering severe brain damage or disfigurement thanks to Bush’s war, there’s misery.

    Losing your home and life savings due to a medical calamity? There’s misery.

    An American autoworker laid off and wondering how he’s going to feed his family when all he knows how to do is work on an assembly line? There’s misery.

    Dropping from a seven figure income to a six figure income, or not getting your year-end bonus because the market tanked? That’s not misery and it’s the height of narcissism to indulge in self-pity for very long over that.

  89. 89.

    J. Michael Neal

    Alright, I’ll bite. I don’t really see why it’s so crazy for a guy who’s used to being very successful to be down in the dumps when he encounters epic FAIL. This dude’s job is his life (like with a lot of people, not just guys) and over the course of a few months he finds that his job as in the toilet and and he feels pretty crappy about it. I don’t really get why it’s wrong for him to feel this way, or it’s wrong for somebody like me to feel a little bit sorry for him. His life sucks in its own way, just like life sucks for somebody losing their house or their livelihood, and I have enough sympathy to spare some for both of them. Maybe it’s the compassionate liberal in me, who can afford to feel sorry for everybody.

    It’s the fact that his self worth is tied to his money that gets me. I probably have more in common with this guy than just about anyone else here. I was an options market maker for Citigroup until October, 2005, when I had a nervous breakdown from the stress. There’s nothing like sitting awake at 2:30am, wondering if washing down a handful of Xanax with a bottle of vodka would mean not having to go to work in the morning to get one to realize that you need a career change.

    So, I understand working in the markets. I understand suffering depression because of it. What I have never understood were the people who defined who they are by how much money they make. I’ve seen a number of cases of it*, and I never fail to dislike the person in question.

    Sorry.

    *This is less common among actual traders than it is among other people in the finance industry. Traders, if they define themselves by their profession, do it through the fact that they are tougher, smarter, and better at it than you are. The money is more a way of keeping score of the fact that they just ripped your face off. I can’t put my finger on exactly why, but I deal with this set of people better than the money focused ones. Maybe it’s because I’m a lot like them.

  90. 90.

    DougJ

    But if he’s gonna be a drama queen about it, then I hope the universe/god/karma/whatever gives him something to really be depressed about.

    I don’t really blame this guy at all. Everybody likes to complain. But why on earth did the Times run this?

  91. 91.

    Reverend Dennis

    @OriGuy:
    My boss called me into his office, handed me my last check and told me that I was free to go. I asked about my troops and he said that someone from HR would take care of giving them the word. After all of the time we’d spent together in the pressure cooker atmosphere of a start up I just couldn’t let a stranger be the one to tell my people that it was over.

  92. 92.

    JR

    These guys just don’t give a fuck who suffers as long as they get theirs. And, even worse, they are too fucking stupid to realize that they are cutting off their nose to spite their face."

    It might just be me, but I don’t think being "too stupid to realize they are cutting off their noses" is worse than not giving "a fuck who suffers as long as they get theirs."

    I think it their stupidity is much better, since it ultimately destroys "them."

    * * * * *

    Oh, and the reason you FAIL if you feel compassion for the narcissistic pigman is that you are wasting your better human feelings on a bacillus of the Con greed disease which has gripped our nation and the world.

    With compassion being in such short supply in our new CONservative America, it is wrong to waste it on swine.

  93. 93.

    r€nato

    With compassion being in such short supply in our new CONservative America, it is wrong to waste it on swine.

    …particularly since this specific swine likely helped contribute to the current state of economic affairs.

  94. 94.

    Reverend Dennis

    …particularly since this specific swine likely helped contribute to the current state of economic affairs.

    Sorta’ like having compassion for the guy who just shot you because he’s out the cost of the bullet.

  95. 95.

    LanceThruster

    He’s become one of the people he previously despised. When he was doing well, he blamed their predicament exclusively on their own ill-advised actions. Now he has to bear up under that same assessment and he doesn’t like the feeling and will most likely find a way to shift blame away from himself in order to insulate his ego.

    Either that (most likely), or he might reassess his outlook and modify his perceptions and behavior (least likely). It is most probable that we will be saddled with this character type indefinitely.

  96. 96.

    Comrade Dread

    Title of the original article should be: Portrait of "a bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first up against the wall when the Revolution comes…"

  98. 98.

    LanceThruster

    Title of the original article should be: Portrait of "a bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first up against the wall when the Revolution comes…"

    "Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-two million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.

    This planet has — or rather had — a problem, which was this: most of the people on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because on the whole it wasn’t the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.

    And so the problem remained; lots of the people were mean, and most of them were miserable, even the ones with digital watches.
    Many were increasingly of the opinion that they’d all made a big mistake in coming down from the trees in the first place. And some said that even the trees had been a bad move, and that no one should ever have left the oceans." ~ Douglas Adams

  99. 99.

    Chuck Butcher

    I had to lay off my crew before mid-year. I work alongside these guys, they’re generally my friends. I hate that, I know – because I pay them – how close they are to the edge. The other piece of bad feeling is that I know my making a living is not far behind in falling apart. When it’s down to single handed projects that’s not too far from the end, money is drying up at a high rate. I’m a contract short of making it this month after pushing payment things back last month. I’m looking at January as when the bad things start happening.

  100. 100.

    LanceThruster

    Sorry to hear that, Chuck. I hope for the best for you and your friends. It is clear that the system is rigged so that others are always positioned to profit from the chaos and instability. I used to worry about my underemployed friends having some sort of healthcare. Now I worry about them having jobs at all. The ripple effect from institutionalized stupidity is frightening. That such irresponsibility is rewarded as the coffers are being looted by their partners in crime and enablers is all the more frightening.

  101. 101.

    ChrisB

    Here’s another item from The New York Times that ran in Monday’s Metropolitan Diary:

    "Times are difficult for everybody.

    I was on the subway one recent morning and overheard this conversation. It started out because the man standing next to me, holding on to the horizontal pole over the seats, was acting kind of strange.

    He looked relatively young, maybe in his late 20s or early 30s, and was quite well dressed in a striped blue business suit, with a very nice dress shirt and gold cuff links. He seemed sort of agitated and couldn’t seem to stand in one place.

    A middle-aged woman who was sitting below him on the bench asked him if he was all right and wanted to sit down. Apparently she thought he was going to throw up and she was (for obvious reasons) concerned.

    Turns out he was a stockbroker on his way to Wall Street and he was having an anxiety attack. He apologized and said: “I’m sorry but I’ve lost a lot of money lately. I lost about $200 million dollars over the last five weeks, and it’s getting to me.”

    To which the lady below him smiled slightly and replied in rather blasé fashion: “So has everyone else on this subway car, but they aren’t getting bailed out. Have a Diet Coke. It helps a lot.”

    I’ll have to remember that next time my 401(k) statement comes in the mail.

    Alison Kent-Friedman"

    Good for that lady.

  102. 102.

    Lupeyg2

    I don’t understand why addiction to money is not a greater cause for concern? We have individuals that will lie, cheat, and steal for drug – they’re called addicts and they hurt people. We won’t allow them to get jobs because they’re not mentally fit. What’s the difference with money addiction? They lie, cheat, steal, and hurt others in their pursuit of more money – and what do they get? Promotions.

  103. 103.

    TheAssInTheHatOnMyCat(Formerly Comrade Tax Analyst)

    Reverend Dennis says:
    I was working at an Internet startup when the bubble burst. I had to let go of sixty people, every one of whom I’d hired and worked with. My only consolation was that I had already been told that I was out too as soon as I finished telling them

    Now THAT’S a shit assignment.

  105. 105.

    Dreggas

    He can find my sympathy between shit and syphillis in the dictionary. I was laid off for 3 weeks and while I knew I could find a job (fortunately the market where I am is good, for what I do) it was stressful. I had to cash out my 401(k) and deal with the screwed up unemployment system here in CA so I could stay afloat and hope to the FSM that I’d be employed before rent was do and that I’d have health insurance again before my meds ran out. COBRA was just too damn expensive for me to really get on.

  106. 106.

    chodor

    Probably the best thought amongst all of these (not that I wouldn’t like to kick the bozo in the butt, myself) is the one about looking into how to make it through the next several months/years. We have a lot to learn about life.

  107. 107.

    Aristides

    Yes, because losing a hundred grand off the top of your income is exactly like having to live in your car.

    And if you read my comment more carefully before busting out the can of whoop-snark, you’d read the words "his life sucks in its own way." I didn’t really say it sucks in the same way as a dude who loses his house, as I’m not a moron.

    Dropping from a seven figure income to a six figure income, or not getting your year-end bonus because the market tanked? That’s not misery and it’s the height of narcissism to indulge in self-pity for very long over that.

    Yes, according to your list no one is entitled to feel sad unless their limbs have been blown off and their house repo’d and they were laid off.

    Oh, and the reason you FAIL if you feel compassion for the narcissistic pigman is that you are wasting your better human feelings on a bacillus of the Con greed disease which has gripped our nation and the world.

    See the funny thing is, nowhere in the article did I get the impression that this guy was "bacillus" of greed. I just got the sense that a lot of his self worth is tied to his job, and lately his job sucks. And he feels bad. I’m not really sure why this is a sign of preening narcissism or drama-queenism. And actually, there’s a lot of assuming about this dude by commentators here that is completely unjustified, for which there is probably a safe psychological explanation…but I don’t make gross assumptions about people’s motivations.

  109. 109.

    DougJ

    This planet has — or rather had — a problem, which was this: most of the people on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time.

    And the rest of the people were idiots.

  110. 110.

    DougJ

    And actually, there’s a lot of assuming about this dude by commentators here that is completely unjustified, for which there is probably a safe psychological explanation…but I don’t make gross assumptions about people’s motivations.

    Yeah, but will you agree it looks pretty fucking silly for the Times to run this while there’s people who are losing everything the own, they have while this guy is just losing the balls to browbeat the maître d’ at Per Se into a 7 o’clock reservation?

  111. 111.

    me

    "Most of these people on Wall Street aren’t crooks. They didn’t do anything "illegal". Just because gov’t failed to adequately regulate, why can’t you have sympathy for the greedy non-crooks?"
    Just because something isn’t illegal doesn’t mean it isn’t obviously harmful and thus immoral. Your definition of crooks here is misleadingly narrow. If the president somehow gets a bill through that gives him a loophole to transfer $300m to a Swiss bank account and then does so, he’s still a crook. That’s almost not a hypothetical: I’m sure his bailout-buddies will give him and his folks at least that much payback.

    "[edit] you want them to be greedy, you want 14% returns on your 401K and house annually, and then when the people who struggled to make that happen crash and burn, you snark on them."
    Oh noes! The poor dears might be traumatized by our vicious wagging tongues! Get a grip.

    "Not that I’m not snarking you, but I have about as much sympathy for the dumbasses who have $200K HELOCs as I have for Wall St."
    I’d qualify that: the dumbasses who have $200K HELOCs and voted Republican thinking they wouldn’t get screwed. Only the bottom 99% would not have significant other assets. And why would the Oligphants give a shit about them beyond their ability to persuade them to make the right marks on a voting slip?

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