The Gaming Den

Maxus wrote:Hey! President Obama did something newsworthy other than wear long sleeves in the Oval Office!

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/ar ... 78FiCCibdA

So executives of companies which got the bailout can't make more than a paltry half-a-million? Sounds reasonable.

Reasonable, perhaps, but also entirely irrelevant. The financial system didn't collapse because these guys wipe their asses with hundred dollar bills. It's a (necessary) publicity move, but the actual addressing of the crisis comes later.

Maxus wrote:http://www.xkcd.com/526/

Those are some heavy captions.

Gelare wrote:The financial system didn't collapse because these guys wipe their asses with hundred dollar bills.

It actually did collapse because they wiped their asses with hundred dollar bills.

When you can make around a billion dollars in 4 years, you don't have to worry about long-term financial results. You just have to worry about the short-term. Consequently, you have a bunch of people who have nothing to lose by lying, cheating, and scamming the books for a few years. Weird how that ends up causing horrible decisions.

Right, the actual money that the guys looted was not the difference between staying profitable and going under. But the fact that they were looting so much so quickly with the stated intention of getting out quickly (the previous CEO of Merrill Lynch held that position for less than 4 years. The guy before that was CEO for six. Both of them are fantastically wealthy at this point, and neither one of them are in any danger of going down with Merrill Lynch.

Because of this setup, because of the fact that US Presidents can expect longer terms in office than major CEOs - CEOs can and do run things for the short term. Setting the future on fire to make more money now makes a lot of sense when the guy helming the entire corporation isn't even going to be part of the corporation by the time Obama leaves office.

Sure, George Bush isn't president of the country anymore, and for that we're grateful. But he's still part of the country. He still has to live with his mistakes for the rest of his life. His looting was perhaps tempered slightly by the fact that even though he is no onger in power of anything, he still has to live with the rampant disease and crumbling infrastructure and fallen environmental standards he left behind. He couldn't literally sell the US domestic production to China for a quick buck just before leaving office because he was still going to be living here at the end of his term.

But Merrill Lynch actually could and did help Enron cook their books - making a tidy profit in the short term just before the CEO walked away. The reason that these companies are going down is not because the executive compensation is breaking the bank. It's because the pillage pillage pillage game plan can only carry you so far. But the pillaging goes on because the executive compensation scheme is set up to reward predatory business practices.

-Username17

Religious right challenges Obama's Justice department nominees

EDIT: And here's one that'll make you cry

CatharzGodfoot wrote: 'Societies are worse off when they have God on their side'

Hasn't that been plainly obvious on the microcosm to anyone that isn't retarded since... ever? It only makes sense that what is true on every level of the microcosm would hold true on the macrocosm.

Speaking of relationships

CatharzGodfoot wrote: 'Societies are worse off when they have God on their side'

Facts not surprising, but thanks for the article.

http://serenitynowcris.blogspot.com/200 ... ntact.html

FrankTrollman wrote:Right, the actual money that the guys looted was not the difference between staying profitable and going under. But the fact that they were looting so much so quickly with the stated intention of getting out quickly (the previous CEO of Merrill Lynch held that position for less than 4 years. The guy before that was CEO for six. Both of them are fantastically wealthy at this point, and neither one of them are in any danger of going down with Merrill Lynch.

Because of this setup, because of the fact that US Presidents can expect longer terms in office than major CEOs - CEOs can and do run things for the short term. Setting the future on fire to make more money now makes a lot of sense when the guy helming the entire corporation isn't even going to be part of the corporation by the time Obama leaves office.

Sure, George Bush isn't president of the country anymore, and for that we're grateful. But he's still part of the country. He still has to live with his mistakes for the rest of his life. His looting was perhaps tempered slightly by the fact that even though he is no onger in power of anything, he still has to live with the rampant disease and crumbling infrastructure and fallen environmental standards he left behind. He couldn't literally sell the US domestic production to China for a quick buck just before leaving office because he was still going to be living here at the end of his term.

But Merrill Lynch actually could and did help Enron cook their books - making a tidy profit in the short term just before the CEO walked away. The reason that these companies are going down is not because the executive compensation is breaking the bank. It's because the pillage pillage pillage game plan can only carry you so far. But the pillaging goes on because the executive compensation scheme is set up to reward predatory business practices.

-Username17

So... the solution is... a tire iron to the face for every X amount of dollars that you set on fire in order to put Y amount of dollars in your pocket?

Waived if you don't put money into your own pocket after setting other money on fire.

I'm sure that a human can't stand more than two tire irons to the face.

Or you just take the money back. That also works.



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Unrelated, but... interesting, the Bacon Explosion.

Warning, viewing is not safe for your heart. I feel fat just looking at the thing. It does however look interesting to make.

http://www.sadlyno.com/wordpress/upload ... 900109.gif

Edited by The Associate Fence Builder for easier viewing.

Those numbers are absolute job losses rather than relative job losses, so you would expect them to get bigger over time simply because of the extra people. Which is presumably why they picked the last two recessions rather than the "biggest" ones (the Great Depression happened out of a population that was only 122 million, so the fact that we've had comparable total job losses already isn't quite as bad as it sounds).

Nevertheless, it is quite a statement.

-Username17

Yes, population hasn't changed all that much in the last few years. It's the shape of the curve which is more important, really.

The population has only changed by ~50 million people in the last two decades, which is about 15%. These graphs are further apart than that.

-Crissa

Yeah, I was wondering what was going on with that graph, b/c I'm not really noticing that sort of percentage of job loss going on up here in Canada. While in the 1990 it was much more pronounced.

Obama Hope poster artist arrested

Apparently it was for putting the Obey Giant graffiti on some buildings in Baltimore, but I really doubt they can pin the particular graffiti on him.

So far, the job loss is heavy in the core industries.

In the other recessions, we generally would have felt it in the service industry by now... But that hasn't happened yet because of the timeframe and size. There isn't a big move east, or west, because there are no areas currently unaffected. And people losing their houses doesn't really make much of a difference - as they're just no longer in your neighborhood.

In a year, when those houses are uninhabitable, you'll notice. In a year, after state employees have felt their 5% smaller paychecks, 50% smaller credit cards, and no new construction projects. When states literally start running out of money for welfare and foodstamps and cops and schools.

That's the kind of size of effect we're going to look at.

Also, Canada's dollar is luckily one of the stronger ones, having not experienced the bubble that the rest of the industrialized world was trading in.

-Crissa

So, we've been having bushfires in Australia - Victoria, specifically. So far, one small town (pop: 500) has been razed to the ground, and 35 have been killed. The firefighters have been dropping water on the flames - water that isn't getting replenished any time soon, and that would otherwise be used for all sorts of things. The fires are still going, and not much can really be done to defeat them - the army has been authorised to assist, presumably for the manpower and vehicles.

And some dickheads are going around lighting fires, still. Last I checked, arson had been declared "an act of terrorism" in Australia. I would not be opposed to having police roam vulnerable places and just shooting people who light fires.

Yeah, this news isn't "kind of funny in a way", it's just upsetting.

Well, shooting someone who's starting wildfires in high danger areas is probably deadly weapon vs deadly weapon.

But the problem is finding them...

-Crissa

Yeah. Seeing as it's most likely just a few people realising "Hey, no-one else is around to see me. I'm going to do something really clever here!" and not a coordinated assault, the chances of catching anyone in the act is pretty small.

Granted, if evidence can be found, they're looking at 25 years in prison. So for the most part, people are dissuaded from doing it. But there are just some people who manage to fail so hard at basic intelligence and morality that they go ahead anyway.

Well, very few wildfires are set intentionally, even though many are started by people.

Now, we're still dealing with the porta potty arson and builders are striking back.

-Crissa

Unfortunately, Ab, that's not 'substantial', that's 'guilt by association'. A US Attorney is expected to be by Ashcroft's side in a US case... And the last guy, while they talk about him being involved in the case don't actually link to anything that actually says he's a prime mover in the case.

On the other point, hiring the enemy's lawyers is usually a good thing.

-Crissa

The U.S. isn't the only country with crazy Christians

CNN wrote: "Why should we use contraceptives, teaching our children the use of contraceptives," said Ed Sorreta of Pro-Life Philippines. "It's totally against the teaching of the Catholic Church. The poverty is really caused by other issues, moral values."

"When you talk about natural family planning, it needs discipline, that's where many couples fail. They lack the discipline."

Translation: If you're poor and you have a sex drive, your continued poverty (virtually ensured by all those children) is your own fault and you deserve no sympathy.

The best part about the Philippines and their crushing STD and population explosion problems is that legislation which ruined their nation was actually headed up by the leader of the Catholic church there. Whose name was James Sin.

His actual name was Cardinal Sin and he ran around in a red supervillain outfit running the nation into the ground.



-Username17

Crissa wrote:Well, very few wildfires are set intentionally, even though many are started by people.

Apparently some of these were deliberate arson. And the PM has promised to throw the book at anyone caught, that they can enjoy the maximum sentence of 25 years without lubricant.

Frank wrote:The best part about the Philippines and their crushing STD and population explosion problems is that legislation which ruined their nation was actually headed up by the leader of the Catholic church there. Whose name was James Sin.

His actual name was Cardinal Sin and he ran around in a red supervillain outfit running the nation into the ground.

That is inappropriately awesome. I have a new supervillain to write up.