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You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / Open Thread: Speaking of Douchecanoes…

Open Thread: Speaking of Douchecanoes…

by Anne Laurie|  February 25, 201412:35 am| 46 Comments

This post is in: C.R.E.A.M., Jump! You Fuckers!

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Andrew Ross Sorkin seems a lot more indignant about @GSEElevator guy than the obnoxious shit he reported (naturally). http://t.co/Ep0EtNao47

— billmon (@billmon1) February 25, 2014

If there is a more perfect example of the courtier-journalist than A.R. Sorkin in NYC, I'm not aware of it. The David Gregory of Wall Street

— billmon (@billmon1) February 25, 2014

Tweet author John Lefevre, on the other hand, retains his sense of humor:

… He said he chose to name his account after Goldman Sachs because “it was commercial.” In an email, Mr. Lefevre added, Goldman “has more love/hate Main Street appeal.” At the time, the Occupy Wall Street movement was in full swing. He said he was also struck by some of the lines, comical to him, he heard from people at Goldman when he first received a job offer. “Even socializing with them — going to bars and having guys buy girls drinks and then throw out a line like, ‘Don’t worry ladies, these drinks are on Goldman Sachs.’ ”

Mr. Lefevre, who left Citigroup in 2008 and began to work at a start-up boutique firm in 2009 in Hong Kong, insisted that many of the exchanges he published on Twitter were true: “I’ve been collecting these stories for years.”

He said his intent was neither to mock nor glamorize Wall Street. “I do not have an agenda to paint the people or this culture one way or the other,” he said, adding that he was “always a cynical banker” when he worked on Wall Street but “I loved it. We did a lot of crazy stuff. It’s not like I had a great epiphany along the way.”

Still, he said that working on Wall Street was an eye-opener. “I went into investment banking and I saw a group of people that aren’t as impressive as I thought they were — or as impressive as they thought they were. They defined themselves as human beings by their jobs.”…

Maybe somebody should warn Andrew Ross Sorkin that this guy is probably not actually a Deity:

Overwhelming inarguable scientific evidence is no match for a guy who "just knows".

— God (@TheTweetOfGod) February 25, 2014

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Reader Interactions

46Comments

  1. 1.

    NotMax

    February 25, 2014 at 12:48 am

    Leaping aboard the cuckoo choo-choo, or, “The Night the Rights Went Out in Georgia.”

    If enacted into law, HB 1023 turns religion into a veritable “get out of jail or lawsuits free” card for any state or local law. It exempts people and businesses from any government action or legal proceeding that “directly or indirectly constrains, inhibits, curtails, or denies the exercise of religion by any person or that directly or indirectly pressures any person to engage in any action contrary to that person’s exercise of religion.”
    [snip]
    Such legislation has become the latest conservative rage all around the country; similar “religious freedom” bills have been introduced in Kansas, Tennessee, Oklahoma and quite a few other states. The campaign is motivated by two or three isolated cases that have been well-publicized in right-wing circles in which businesses were sued for refusing to sell their services or products to gay couples.

    And of course, that makes the legislation here in Georgia even dumber than it first seems, which is saying something. Those lawsuits occurred in New Mexico and Colorado, where discrimination against gay people is illegal under state law. Georgia has no law that protects gay people from discrimination, and is extremely unlikely to be passing one anytime soon. It thus has no reason — not even a bad reason — to pursue HB 1023. The bill was filed and is being pushed solely because that’s what all the cool conservative kids are doing, and because it sends a message of defiance to those who believe that gay Americans ought to be treated the same as everybody else. Source

    More:

    Unlike similar bills introduced in Kansas, Tennessee, and South Dakota, the Georgia and Arizona bills do not explicitly target same-sex couples. But that difference could make the impact of the Georgia and Arizona bills even broader. Legal experts, including Eunice Rho, advocacy and policy counsel for the ACLU, warn that Georgia and Arizona’s religious-freedom bills are so sweeping that they open the door for discrimination against not only gay people, but other groups as well. The New Republic noted that under the Arizona bill, “a restaurateur could deny service to an out-of-wedlock mother, a cop could refuse to intervene in a domestic dispute if his religion allows for husbands beating their wives, and a hotel chain could refuse to rent rooms to Jews, Hindus, or Muslims.” Source

  2. 2.

    Suffern ACE

    February 25, 2014 at 12:55 am

    @NotMax: The question I have is whether or not this creates a new class of workers who are exempt from corporate headquarters policies. So if Marriott has a policy of non-discrimination in all of it’s hotels, can a local employee just ignore it and if fired for breaking policy, can that employee sue Marriott.

  3. 3.

    something fabulous

    February 25, 2014 at 1:01 am

    Oh good lord, what have I just done? I replied to a person I don’t really know on Facebook (I know, I know…) about some huge imaginary fear he’s having about Obamacare and DHS for his adult children not being covered, and then saw that my reply also linked to teaparty.org, where he got his article from. And of course, it’s now not letting me delete! Hold hard for le deluge! Never friend friends of friends!

  4. 4.

    KG

    February 25, 2014 at 1:04 am

    @Suffern ACE: better question… Owner has a problem with the gheys and them gettin’ amarried… Employee doesn’t give a flying fuck (or better yet believes his religion requires him to help) and takes the order. Owner tries to cancel the order and fires employee. Who wins and who loses?

  5. 5.

    Mnemosyne

    February 25, 2014 at 1:05 am

    @Suffern ACE:

    The Chamber of Commerce has concluded that it does give employees more rights, which is why they’re now screeching Abort! Abort! at all of the governors whose desks these bills have landed on.

  6. 6.

    Villago Delenda Est

    February 25, 2014 at 1:05 am

    @NotMax:

    So, what’s next? It’s legal to perform human sacrifice because your religion demands it?

  7. 7.

    TooManyJens

    February 25, 2014 at 1:06 am

    A Goldman spokesman, after being told that @GSElevator had been unmasked, said in a statement, “We are pleased to report that the official ban on talking in elevators will be lifted effective immediately.”

    This would imply that: 1) GS thought that it was plausible that their employees were saying this shit; and 2) the best way they could think of to deal with it was to ban talking in elevators. That is fucking gold.

  8. 8.

    KG

    February 25, 2014 at 1:07 am

    @Villago Delenda Est: animal sacrifice is already a constitutionally protected religious act. There is a Supreme Court case involving (I swear I am not making this up) the church of babalu

    ETA: didn’t catch the “human” part… Nevermind

  9. 9.

    jl

    February 25, 2014 at 1:09 am

    @Villago Delenda Est: Sacrifice by gunshot? Maybe that is where the stand-your-ground laws come in.

  10. 10.

    Big R

    February 25, 2014 at 1:10 am

    @TooManyJens: It could also imply that their PR people have a sense of humor.

  11. 11.

    jl

    February 25, 2014 at 1:10 am

    @KG: Oh, OK. My thoughts wandered to human sacrifice for some reason. I guess THAT is where the stand-your-ground laws come in.

  12. 12.

    KG

    February 25, 2014 at 1:12 am

    @Big R: assumes facts not in evidence

  13. 13.

    TooManyJens

    February 25, 2014 at 1:12 am

    @Big R: I wondered, but it’s not exactly something Wall Street firms are noted for.

  14. 14.

    jl

    February 25, 2014 at 1:18 am

    I hope that God is the One actually tweeting those God tweets. Seems like an OK guy, maybe, after all, despite appearances and dubious earthly followers. Seems like the kind of guy who at least tries.

  15. 15.

    mai naem

    February 25, 2014 at 1:18 am

    You may think Andrew Ross Sorkin until you watch his co-host on Squawk Box, Joe Kernen, who makes Sorkin look like a communist ready to hang Wall Streeters. Also too, I saw a clip of Maria Antoinette Baritiromo on her new Fox Business show and, jeebus, her lips are beginning to look like the actress/model who won Dancing With the Stars who admitted that she’d over collagened her lips and permanently ruined them.

  16. 16.

    Villago Delenda Est

    February 25, 2014 at 1:19 am

    @jl:

    Moloch demands blood! All hail Moloch!

  17. 17.

    Villago Delenda Est

    February 25, 2014 at 1:22 am

    OT from Noisemax:

    Bill Kristol: ‘No Regrets’ Rice Reflects Obama’s Arrogance

    It’s always projection with these motherfuckers.

  18. 18.

    Another Holocene Human

    February 25, 2014 at 1:26 am

    @NotMax: The last under state law; pretty sure it’s stone cold illegal to deny hotel rooms to a patron based on creed under federal law. Insert Jawjawn’s feelings about Federales here.

  19. 19.

    Alison

    February 25, 2014 at 1:27 am

    Hey parents of teenagers: how exactly do you do it without completely losing your shit? I’m only an aunt and I’m ready to fucking crack. Siiiiiiiiiiiigh.

  20. 20.

    Another Holocene Human

    February 25, 2014 at 1:28 am

    @Suffern ACE:

    The question I have is whether or not this creates a new class of workers who are exempt from corporate headquarters policies. So if Marriott has a policy of non-discrimination in all of it’s hotels, can a local employee just ignore it and if fired for breaking policy, can that employee sue Marriott.

    Pretty sure the underlying intent is to cloud employment law such that big national corps can’t enforce their own internal HR policies regarding sexual harassment, religious harassment/proselytizing, and discrimination when True Christians™ are working there.

    Little do they realize that corps that located to Atlanta can just as easily relocate to New Jersey. It’s not like the weather or commute was better in Atlanta.

  21. 21.

    Another Holocene Human

    February 25, 2014 at 1:34 am

    @something fabulous: That sucks. Make sure your security is tight on your wall and otherwise, maybe if FB keeps showing the thread to you, HIDE IT. The friends of friends of friends replying like the douchebots they are don’t show up in your friends feeds, so who gives a shit.

    I feel your pain–had to baleet most of my lj when I made a post critical of the Catholic Church (ex-Catholic here) and some Warriors of Derp decided to firebomb it incessantly until I was forced to shut down comments. I wasn’t in college any more and did not have time for that shit!

  22. 22.

    jl

    February 25, 2014 at 1:34 am

    @NotMax:

    ” a cop could refuse to intervene in a domestic dispute if his religion allows for husbands beating their wives, ”

    Could the policy department, or the city,then fire the supposedly religious cop?

    Sounds like a lot of cops would start their own religion that conveniently prevented them from doing work they found bothersome.

    Edit: same for other workers I guess. My religion, the ‘jl religion’ besides teaching that I should have all the money, also teaches that it is sinful to wash floors, and counter tops, woodwork, glass, or dishes (if you get too wet running the dishwasher and its hot and sticky and crummy sweaty).

    Edit2: I’ve just had a revelation that it is sinful for me to be ordered to do any work that is sweaty or uncomfortable.

    Edit3: my religion permits progressive revelation. Then we can work on theology. For example, sexual activity at work is OK in my relgion, as long as no one order me to do it.

  23. 23.

    Comrade Colette Collaboratrice

    February 25, 2014 at 1:35 am

    @Alison: The deep-freeze strategy. Stick ’em in the chest freezer when they turn 13 (14 if you can stand it that long), thaw them out when they turn 18 and send them on their merry way. We’re midway through step one and it’s looking good so far.

  24. 24.

    Alison

    February 25, 2014 at 1:36 am

    @Comrade Colette Collaboratrice: Unfortunately the hell already started at 13, before anyone thought of that.

  25. 25.

    Mnemosyne

    February 25, 2014 at 1:37 am

    @jl:

    Sounds like a lot of cops employees would start their own religion that conveniently prevented them from doing work they found bothersome.

    Fix’d. This is apparently an aspect of the law that occurred to conservatives too late, which is why you now have people like the Chamber of Commerce begging governors to veto the bill or legislatures not to pass it.

    It’s sort of like when a conservative state (was it Kansas?) passed a law that would give public funds to religious schools and only pulled back when someone pointed out to them that Islam is a religion, too. They literally did not realize that anyone other than Christians would get the money.

    ETA: “Not thinking things through” is pretty much the hallmark of conservative lawmaking these days. It’s the legislative equivalent of, “Hold my beer and watch this.”

  26. 26.

    Big R

    February 25, 2014 at 1:38 am

    @KG: Any conclusion other than “GS made a statement in response” assumes facts not in evidence. Just because it fits your finely crafted narrative doesn’t mean it’s any less speculative.

  27. 27.

    jl

    February 25, 2014 at 1:40 am

    @Mnemosyne: Were you listening in on my big revelation, or what?

  28. 28.

    patrick II

    February 25, 2014 at 1:42 am

    @jl:

    The combination of the religious freedom law and stand your ground law could be interesting. “Yes judge, I refused to serve him because I thought he was gay, he got angry, so I felt threatened and I had to shoot him.”

  29. 29.

    Villago Delenda Est

    February 25, 2014 at 1:47 am

    @Mnemosyne:

    Of course, thinking things through requires you to think.

    The vast majority of “conservatives” don’t think. Period.

  30. 30.

    jenn

    February 25, 2014 at 1:52 am

    @something fabulous: Ack! Hope you avoid the deluge!

  31. 31.

    srv

    February 25, 2014 at 1:52 am

    So Mt. Gox has gone offline. Bitcoinapocolypse.

    Sure didn’t see that one coming.

    I wish this had gone longer – so many more glibertarians who could have been sucked into this.

  32. 32.

    NotMax

    February 25, 2014 at 1:59 am

    @Villago Delenda Est

    So, what’s next?

    Drug stores being forced to hire people as pharmacists whose religion forbids the use of medical drugs? Hospitals being sued because they would not hire an admissions person because his/her religion forbids medical intervention? Petting zoos required to hire those who practice the reading of entrails?

    The list is longer than Ebenezer Scrooge’s chain.

  33. 33.

    MomSense

    February 25, 2014 at 2:01 am

    One of my coworkers had life just pummel him this weekend. While at the hospital with his partner who has cancer, partner’s daughter is rushed to the same hospital and has to deliver a stillborn baby at 9 months. Something just happened and the baby’s heart stopped and by the time she got to the hospital it was too late. We are going to try to do some things to help out but this is just too much sorrow for one family.

  34. 34.

    Steeplejack

    February 25, 2014 at 2:05 am

    My question on all these “religious freedom” bills is whether they popped up in multiple states spontaneously, like poisonous mushrooms, or are they the result of a coördinated campaign by ALEC, some similar organization or a fundie billionaire.

    What’s frustrating to me is that I think a lot of the momentum of these things would be sapped, even among low- or no-information people, if they were shown to be cynical campaigns rather than some upswelling of popular sentiment. It’s like the whole Tea Party “phenomenon”: I think that could have been nipped in the bud, or at least the damage contained, if somebody—anybody—had gotten the message out about what an Astroturfed, put-up job the whole thing was. It might not have swayed the bulk of the mainstream media, but it would have provided a strong counternarrative. Specific, fact-based reporting like, say: “The 38 Tea Party protesters arrived on a bus that, WKRP reporters learned, was chartered and paid for by the League of Calamitous Intent, a subsidiary of Koch Industries.”

  35. 35.

    something fabulous

    February 25, 2014 at 2:17 am

    @Another Holocene Human: @jenn: Phew! early days yet, but so far, don’t seem to have gotten any TP (!) stuck on my shoe…

  36. 36.

    ruemara

    February 25, 2014 at 2:19 am

    @Steeplejack: yes, this is an religious version on ALEC. Randi Rhodes has been talking about it and her source articles are from Mother Jones, but I’m on the mobile now & canna cut n’ paste.

  37. 37.

    NotMax

    February 25, 2014 at 2:21 am

    @Steeplejack

    paid for by the League of Calamitous Intent, a subsidiary of Koch Industries.

    Can hear it now.

    Dr. Girlfriend: “Honey, that is dirty money and You. Are. Not. Touching it. Not if you ever want to touch me again.”

    The Monarch: “How about just a few grand? I’ll buy you that bulletproof ermine hat you always wanted.”

  38. 38.

    cckids

    February 25, 2014 at 2:27 am

    @Alison:

    Hey parents of teenagers: how exactly do you do it without completely losing your shit?

    Mostly you start when they are young (like under 4) and establish a relationship of respect that goes both ways, teach them that they can talk to you (yes, even at 4 or 5, when their conversation skills may be lacking), and keep it up.

    As they get older, remember what it was like to be a teenager & practice empathy. While maintaining your position as the parent, not the best friend. :)

    And keep the wine handy.

  39. 39.

    Alison

    February 25, 2014 at 2:31 am

    @cckids: Yeah, sadly, my brother and his wife did, um…not do any of that. And now they are reaping what they sowed, but it’s really bad right now. I feel helpless, and it sucks.

  40. 40.

    cckids

    February 25, 2014 at 2:36 am

    @Alison: Yeah, parenting by hindsight is so much easier. I had the (very bad) example of an older sister & her disasters with kids to show me a different way. Though our daughter was such a handful at 3-4 my spouse & I used to tag-team with her because she could make us so aggravated. He’d usually be the one to want to give up, but, as I said then, if she’s like this at 4, imagine her at 14! It gave us both more spine. And paid off well, she turns 20 this fall & is a great person.

  41. 41.

    Steeplejack (tablet)

    February 25, 2014 at 2:37 am

    @NotMax:

    Heh. I love Dr. Girlfriend’s voice.

  42. 42.

    piratedan

    February 25, 2014 at 3:05 am

    @Steeplejack: +1 for the venture brothers reference….

  43. 43.

    Joey Maloney

    February 25, 2014 at 4:28 am

    @Mnemosyne: It’s the legislative equivalent of, “Hold my beer and watch this.”

    I’m totally stealing this.

  44. 44.

    TS

    February 25, 2014 at 4:49 am

    @cckids:

    Mostly you start when they are young (like under 4) and establish a relationship of respect that goes both ways, teach them that they can talk to you (yes, even at 4 or 5, when their conversation skills may be lacking), and keep it up.

    As they get older, remember what it was like to be a teenager & practice empathy. While maintaining your position as the parent, not the best friend. :)

    And keep the wine handy.

    We did all of that – the only thing that helped was the wine. It doesn’t matter how much they love and respect you – the day they turn 13 – every person on the earth understands them better than you do. A teenager can stare you down and tell you a lie in a way that even a politician would be impressed. As I found out later in life “It stops you worrying about me”.

    How children behave as teenagers is often pure luck – within the same family they can be so very different. It is so easy to be critical – it is so much harder to accept the reality of a teenager.

    @Alison:
    My advice – Don’t stop loving them and drink more wine.

  45. 45.

    NorthLeft12

    February 25, 2014 at 7:02 am

    I particularly enjoyed to read this in Mr. Sorkin’s article;

    ” but the offer was later revoked, according to people at the firm who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter.”

    Translated:
    Uh, sorry, I can’t give you any details about this little smear, but I will leave it to your fertile imagination as to what we found out that made us change our minds about this ……..person.

    You know, they just can’t help themselves.

  46. 46.

    Mnemosyne

    February 25, 2014 at 12:07 pm

    @Alison:

    As an aunt myself, the one thing you can do is try to keep the lines of communication open as a neutral adult that she can come to and vent about her parents. Obviously, you can’t interfere in their parental decisions, but it would probably be good if you can keep yourself open as a person she can turn to for advice if she feels like her parents would just freak out.

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