Sc and any other corporatist lackeys -- Democrats R Us Returns

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Date Posted: 16:10:54 03/21/10 Sun
Author: Bob
Subject: Sc and any other corporatist lackeys

...these excerpts from Frank Rich's column in today's NY Times:
"We now know, as we didn�t in September 2008, that Lehman�s collapse wasn�t exactly an unexpected, unpredictable calamity to those in its executive suites. The 2,200-page bank examiner�s autopsy released 10 days ago concluded that Lehman, in league with its auditor Ernst & Young, used 'materially misleading' accounting gimmicks to mask its losses, duping investors and the ever-credulous Securities and Exchange Commission alike.

Far from being held liable for the chicanery and recklessness that would destroy their company and threaten their country�s economy, these executives benefited big time. In a study late last year, three Harvard Law School researchers examined public documents to assess whether one 'standard narrative' of the crash was true � that 'the meltdown of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers largely wiped out the wealth of their top executives.' It turned out to be a fairy tale. 'In contrast to what has been thus far largely assumed, the executives were richly rewarded for, not financially devastated by, their leadership of their banks during this decade,' the Harvard Law team wrote. The top five executives at both Lehman and Bear collectively took home $2.4 billion in bonuses and equity sales � that�s nearly a quarter-billion dollars each � between 2000 and their 2008 demise."

And now we come to the Republican "defense" of the average investor: "The question for the politicians at the center of this battleground is simple enough: Which side of the war are they on? The Republican leadership revealed its hand unequivocally last week. Addressing the American Bankers Association, the party�s House leader, John Boehner, promised to delay and fight any finance-reform bill. 'Don�t let those little punk staffers take advantage of you, and stand up for yourselves,' Boehner instructed the poor, defenseless bankers.
In late January he met the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, Jamie Dimon, to make a pitch for donations. That may have been unnecessary. Chase and its employees, an A.T.M. for the Democrats in 2008, gave 73 percent of their contributions to the G.O.P. in the fourth quarter of 2009.

Republicans in the Senate will be no different. Mitch McConnell�s strategy of unmitigated obstructionism remains gospel there. Just as Charles Grassley and Olympia Snowe played the Democrats with months of fruitless negotiations on health care reform, so Richard Shelby and Bob Corker have been stalling a financial reform bill with similarly arid feints at 'bipartisanship.' Corker insisted that any bill exclude regulation of extortionate 'payday lenders,' who just happen to be among his biggest campaign contributors."

Note: Boehner enlisted in the Navy during the Vietnam War, but magically developed a "bad back" during basic training and was discharged after 8 weeks. How does one either pass a Navy physical with a "bad back" or injure it in Navy basic training---which is nothing like Army and Marine basic in terms of physical rigor.

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