Come the revolution...

Oh the hubris! A group of wealthy, probably obscenely rich, American is suing Swiss Bank UBS from turning over their names to the US Internal Revenue Service as part of an investigation of possible, one might say probable, tax evasion on the part of these unnamed Yanks.

The list grows longer; even if I have to leave their actual names off of it for the moment.

He's also not giving back Checkers

Disgraced, but not impoverished, former RBS chairman "Alright! Said" Sir Fred Goodwin is refusing to return one red cent of the £16,000,000 pension pot he clearly didn't earn during his 10 year stint at the helm of the now foundering, if not grounded, bank.

This means that over the decade he "worked" at RBS the company put in roughly £133,000 a month; approximately the annual salary of about five of the bank's frontline workers. Should Sir Fred suddenly discover his honour, an admittedly unlikely event, and return his ill-gotten gain perhaps the bank could use the funds to keep about 600 of the 20,000 RBS workers about to get the sack in employment for an extra year. Or maybe not.

All right said Sir Fred

I'm doing something wrong. I'm obviously not incompetent enough. This cunt works for ten years at RBS, drives into nationalisation and at the age of 50, younger than me, ends up with a £16,000,000+ pension pot returning him £650,000 a year!

And he's not even a banker

Chelsea FC have sacked Luiz Philipe Scolari and as reliable news source The Daily Mash notes he as once again displayed his tactical brilliance by banking £15,000,000 for a mere seven months work. I think his performance is superior to even that of those bastards are Merrill Lynch.

Come the revolution...

I'm not sure what the point of this NY Times article is meant to be but I am absolutely certain that people who are making (well) in excess of $1,000,000 a year but have virtually no funds available at the end of their year, who are therefore living pay cheque to pay cheque, ARE INCAPABLE OF MANAGING THE PUBLIC'S MONEY and therefore we won't be needing them in their $3,000,000 or, if the President has his way, $500,000 a year jobs. I'm sure that they will enjoy their live on the dole.

Come the revolution...

...one Mr. James F. Reda must surely be high on the list. Mr. Reda is an "executive pay consultant" and his reaction to the pay cap mooted by President Obama for those starving fat cats running taxpayer financed banks in the US is the following:

“That is pretty draconian — $500,000 is not a lot of money, particularly if there is no bonus”

Well if Mr. Reda smokes I will be happy to provide him with a last cigarette.

And if you think $500,000 per annum is "draconian" he ought to have a look at the pay packet of American living in the real world; assuming said American is getting a pay packet at all anymore.

Come the revoluition...

...we have another fine candidate for first up against the wall in Alexandre Mouradian who is suing his employers for the incredibly precise sum of £92,571 for allegedly short changing him over the bonus he awarded himself (yes - you read that correctly) for the second half of 2006. The amount he is suing for represents about 5% of his total compensation of £1,632,000 for the second half of 2006. (Yes - you read that correctly - for the second half of 2006!) Mr. Mouradian had awarded himself 92% of the total bonus for that period and allocated absolutely nothing to about half his staff.

I think the "cunt" word is the only adequate description, don't you?

1,000 reasons John McCain shouldn't be President

Number 99: just because he's running for President and his wife is stinking rich it seems that Verizon is giving them very special treatment indeed; although a man with a history of cancer might want to think twice about living just so close to a mobile phone mast!

It must have been all that free checking

Washington Mutual has slipped into bankruptcy after the sale of its banking operations to JP Morgan with the potential loss of thousands of jobs. But at least one ex-employee won't risk financial disaster; the CEO of the failed institution Alan Fishman stands to get $13 million in severance after roughly two months on the job. Heartwarming.

Time to just say no (or when $700,000,000 just isn't enough)!

The ink isn't even dry on US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's income redistribution plan for the rich and already the greedy fuckers are begging for more.

This deal cannot be allowed to go through as is. The have to been a number of quid pro quo including:

• serious new regulation of the banking and investment industries, especially derivatives and short selling;
• limits on executive salaries and bonuses, including the cancellation of bonuses and golden parachutes for any and all executives and board members of firms who receive these taxpayer subsidies for, say, the next five years;
• and a means for the return of some portion of the taxpayer investment from future profits;
• additional protections from foreclosure for primary residences of middle class, working class and poor households.

If this goes through as is it will be amongst the greatest transfer of wealth from the middle class, working class and the poor to the extremely wealthy in history.

OK then here's the deal

We need a quid pro quo for this $1,000,000,000,000 bail out of America's shockingly poorly run banks. And the quid pro quo I suggest if this: the board members, the CEO, the COO, the CFO and all and sundry executive Vice Presidents of any institution that sticks the American taxpayer, or perhaps more accurately the grandchildren of the American taxpayer, with the dross of their business are prohibited forever from ever serving as a board member, a CEO, a COO, a CFO or an executive Vice President of any financial institution AND they must accept the same severance package as any ordinary employee of their business has access to (including pension and stock rights). I think it's only fair, don't you?

Come the revoluition...

...these three must surely be on the short list for first against the wall; especially if they ever have the temerity to suggest that they've "earned" this obscene amount of money for virtually no work.

I too am inspired

John McCain is right to be proud of his wife, who made her money (and his career) the old fashioned way, by inheriting it. And The Aged One is right to view his father in law as a great American success story who seems to have made his money the Republi-con way, by breaking the law. Maybe someone, other than a blog or two will ask him to explain but I rather doubt it. Holy shit, it must be true! Even Jerome Corsi and WorldNetDaily have noticed.

"Gee Jay did I forget to mention I was a POW (without a kitchen table)"

John McCain, on The Tonight Show, to explain how the plethora of homes owned by he and his wife is just a sad attempt to make up for the time he lost whilst an untortured prisoner in Vietnam without a kitchen table.



Oh, and let's stop calling John and Cindy's "little" place in North Arizona a "ranch"; let's call it what it is - their country estate.

1,000 reasons John McCain shouldn't be President

Number 79: his cappuccino has an enormous carbon footprint and I'll bet it's not free trade either!

1,000 reasons John McCain shouldn't be President

Number 77: between 2006 and 2007 the McCain family budget for domestic servants went up from 184K USD to 273K USD. I reckon the increase is due not to an increased number of genuflecting domestics but, anticipating his Presidential run, the hiring of legal immigrants for a change.

It is the best of times, it is the worst of times

After six years of the inept reign of His Imperial Highness Emperor George the Last it is good to know that he has done well by a least a small percentage of the population as America's richest 1% grab the largest share of American income since 1929 and what a year that was! At the same time their tax rate has fallen to the lowest level in nearly two decades. The other 99% aren't doing nearly as well.

1,000 reasons John McCain shouldn't be President

Number 59: even though the Mrs. is worth around $100 million she can't seem to scrape together enough cash to pay the property taxes. Given that they have approximately seven or eight different homes I imagine that they just forgot they still owned the one in La Jolla!

Come the revolution...

...I think we should start with these people.

"He said it, not me!"

Well known America hating radical left winger (and billionaire) T. Bone Pickens says that we have reached peak oil.