Americans are a very tolerant people except when it comes to matters of race and ethnicity, then we become rabid, vociferous, mean, hateful and we tend to get in one another’s face. I wish we would get in the face of people who exploit EVERYBODY by using American bodies and their money for personal enrichment. So this story of an oil speculator who, it could be reasonably argued, was responsible for the high gas prices we experienced last year, should make everyone hoping mad when it’s revealed his tactics resulted in him possibly getting a $100 million bonus from a bank that received US taxpayer bail out funds!! Where are the burning effigies of this Andrew Hall from the lamp posts in front of every town hall; or the demonstrations in front of the corporate offices of Citigroup which received $45 billion dollars of our money because of bad business practices which then turns around and gives $100 million of it away to reward someone else for……..you got it, bad business practices. Sure, it’ll be said Hall helped his company profit and so what’s good for the goose is good for the gander, i.e. the American public, but you could make the same argument that Citigroup has profited too by staying solvent at our expense….literally, with taxpayer money which they don’t deserve.
The issue for me becomes what is the breaking point for American tolerance? Is it whether the President of the United States was really born in Hawaii, who lied in the Gates arrest, health care, the war in Afghanistan, or the theft of America’s wealth by the rich and greedy? It’s really a no brainer! American wealth was robbed by first the “military industrial complex” under George Bush and later by financial institutions under Barack Obama, and we’re just in the first six months or so of his administration! Yet, everyday people go to work to earn their living and support their families, their money is stolen out from underneath them by a government which takes from the poor and well to do and gives it to the rich and militant. Wherever Osama bin Laden is, he must be rolling over with laughter at our priorities. It’s too bad we don’t see the irony in all of this nor apparently feel any outrage about it all. I guffawed at the crocodile tears shed by the NYT which tries to make it seem as if the financial institutions have a dilemma when it comes to finding good high priced talent that can steer these businesses in the shark infested waters of capitalism and if these $100 million bonused executives aren’t around to navigate the treachery then all is lost and we should abandon ship. Corporate entities, like government are far too condescending towards the people they are supposed to serve when they assume the policies and/or the news they report are necessary to help a public unable to care for itself. That attitude alone is worth the indignation of the Public.
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