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Guest Post: The Face of Corporatist Hypocrisy
Submitted by John Aziz of Azizonomics
The Face Of Corporatist Hypocrisy
From Bloomberg:
“Retirement ages will have to move to 70, 80 years old,” former AIG CEO Robert Benmosche, who turned 68 last week, said during a weekend interview at his seaside villa in Dubrovnik, Croatia. “That would make pensions, medical services more affordable. They will keep people working longer and will take that burden off of the youth.”
Now, as a guy who is living in a taxpayer-funded villa after his bank-insurance-derivatives-hedge fund-ponzi company blew up, we know Benmosche is a hypocrite. In my view, management should be held personally liable a long time before taxpayers. That’s right, I believe in personal responsibility and that means no hiding behind limited liability and bailouts, no matter how “systemically important” you claim to be.
But let’s set aside disgust at government for first setting up this scenario via Gramm-Leach-Bliley, and then in 2008 throwing money at hypocritical grifters like Benmosche.
Is he wrong about social security and medical services?
Spending costs money. You can spend as much as you like so long as you have the revenues to do so. But the US government is failing to fund its current spending, let alone the $61.6 trillion (that’s a low-end estimate — the high end estimate is $127.5 trillion or 737% of GDP) of future welfare liabilities that the US government is mandated by law to spend.
So can America get the money to match future commitments without significantly raising the retirement age?
In theory.
In theory the Federal government can squeeze taxpayers. Perhaps Occupy will get their wish of raising taxes on the 1% to whatever figure they have in mind (though the way corporations and lobbyists have successfully colonised Washington, that seems exceedingly unlikely). But this is a globalised world, and the higher they tax the more activity will leave to lower-rate jurisdictions, and the less activity will be taxable. Tax evasion and avoidance will soar.
In theory America could have an organic recovery and start generating significant amounts of organic GDP growth. But right now, that’s a fantasy. Pinning your hopes to potential future economic miracles like 3D-printing, nanoengineering, widespread solar energy and synthetic petroleum is hardly good accounting practice, even if they are realistically the best hope of a rosy future.
In theory taxpayers could agree to accept less spending, as Benmosche suggests. But Americans overwhelmingly support social security and medicare, and politicians hawking cuts make themselves into political pariahs. Promises are promises, and politicians have suckered the electorate by promising so much for so little. If Greeks rioting over the retirement age seems raucous, wait ’til a politician tries to slash SNAP, medicare or social security.
Much more likely is the current trend of escalating deficits and printing money to pay the bills — and bail out washed-up corporatists like Benmosche (and his “systemically important” equivalents in Europe). Policy-makers can balance the budget and raise aggregate demand and GDP to whatever level they like (the “highest” level presumably being toilet paper) by throwing newly-printed money out of helicopters.
Trouble is, with the US dollar no longer functioning as the globe’s reserve currency it’s going to get harder and harder to hide the inflation overseas or on primary dealer balance sheets. Welfare recipients will keep getting welfare, but in the long run it may not buy much.
No, nations chose their paths long ago. America chose the path of big spending, big warfare, big bailouts and big welfare, and bailout-recipients like Benmosche who plead “systemic importance” are heavily responsible for that slide into fiscal irresponsibility. It won’t be the politicians, bankers and corporatists who created the mess who will have to deal with the fallout; they have foreign villas, foreign ranches, foreign bank accounts, and barbed-wire-shrouded EMP-proof survival retreats. It will be the average American who has done nothing wrong other than believing the words of politicians.
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How many outfits are going to want to hang onto higher paid 70-80 year old workers???
Congress, SCOTUS...
Coastal towns in Hrvatska are one of the best places to be when TSHTF.
This guy knows what's coming.
A grandfather was from Croatia, & I toured the coast 8-10.
Never seen better combo of coast views, castles, beaches, sunshine, great food, low prices & passable English skills.
Hrvatski should be fine when the SHTF. Many make cheese, honey, grapes & figs at home.
Actually envy a vacation home near Dubrovnik, or Hvar, Zadar, Rovinj, Split...it's all good.
Many there are awake & aware...Ben-Mosche's stay could be short.
And don't forget Slivovica.....and the abundance of cheap firearms.
I have my place there all ready to go. 19.5 meters to the cafe, 21 meters to the bodega, 26.2 meters to the sea, 800 meters to the markets. 35KM to the toll exit on the A1.
I am set. Bring on ARMEGGEDON.
You'll be fine. Right up to the point Srpska and Bosniak forces decide they can get away with killing a few Catholics again, without fighter planes raining "peace bombs" from 10,000 meters....
No NATO = No Bosnia, or not much.
Place will get sliced & diced between Serb's & Croats faster than a fish at Benihana.
in theory the goverment can just print the soc. sec. money at no cost to the taxpayer. however the goverment would have to change the name across the money from "federal reserve note" to "United States Notes". in theory the goverment could than take all the monies collected from soc. sec. deductions and do something like pay down the debt...in theory mind you. in theory the goverment would have to hire non college grads to type into the computor the soc. sec. direct deposit for all who collect soc. sec.....all in theory of course. and since we are totally in theory land...doesn't that just cost pennies to create the free money sent out each month in soc. sec. theory land. now i will totally go off the wall by asking how much does that change the game...money sent to pensioners to spend into the economy and all those tax reciepts spent to reduce the debt. of course none of this will fly with the p.h.d. crowd, far far to simple. so lets all just let these bufoons write and write endlessly about how to correct or tweak or gut or starve people....because after all the system must be saved by all the bullshit taught endlessly year after year.
Funny things goin on with Russia and China regarding FTA today? This, my friend is unsettling for the U.S. hegemony. India, S. Korea, Japan, and now Australia are 'Prepping the New`Weigh Forward',... ready to trade direct having Mr. Hu Jintao, 'Tear[ing]-Down-This-Wall' - gutting America's lucrative 'Carry Trade' -- a soon to be dead albatross floating in a crimson tide off the debt-ridden shores of America's mainland?
Excellent! {Monti Burn's excellent} ,read :-))
I agree. The last remaining paradise in Europe. There are plenty of islands to chose from the Croatian coast w/o airports. Also scattered landmines throughout HR should act as a good deterrent.
Nazdravlje!
Corporate doesn't want u if ur over 40. 70-80 is hysterical! FUCK Benmoshe sideways.
Looking forward to my "golden hours"....
"Corporate doesn't want u if ur over 40."
Fuck Corporate.
Before you know it, you'll be 70, then quickly thereafter, you'll be 80. That's Life, get ready, this is no drill.
I'd like to say that's very astute of you, but...
Say people work until 75, that will save on SS/Medicare, but what about the employment picture for the younger workers? Seniors may vote, but youths riot.
Hey I hope I live to my eighties and die at work hopfully not too painful a death. Lucky me!!
I worked with guy that loved his job and fulfilled his dream and died in the elevator on the way to a meeting where he was going to make a presentation. I doubt he regreted it.
"Welfare recipients will keep getting welfare, but in the long run it may not buy much."
Tis the solution. Pretending their is another solution is just that, pretending. As you build your nominal wealth, keep in mind how it translates in real terms, and hedge accordingly, while hedges still exist.
5 klopniks (or whatever the hell Croatians will use for currency) says this guy puts his villa on the market by the weekend.
They use the kuna and might be adopting the € soon enough.
What the boomer generation will look like at 80; http://homepage.mac.com/k.j.vinson/wm.jpg
Nah, more like this:
http://www.norcalblogs.com/post_scripts/soylent_green07.jpg
With the astonishing number of prescriptions seniors take there is a free high (and raging hard on) in every bite!
Where are his tattoos?
I bet a lt of Euros and Dollars are being spent there right now..buying their hideouts
That's DUMB - and they're done. Finished. Ready-and-waiting.
Where do you think all the missing trillions went pre-9/11, anyhow?
Hardly going to happen, Why would Brussels give themselves a bigger headache by putting them in the Euro, once you are in the EU beaurocracy, they have you by the short hairs.
Let me wonder out loud for them.....HMMMM invite myself another future Greek funding headache or just force them to do my bidding, shove debt down their throats and let their Kuna float down the drain. Making Croatia stay on the Kuna gives everyone in the EU 1% the opportunity to buy their own villas in Croatia. BenMoocher is not ever leaving. He will have plenty of other friends coming over to retire with full benefits at 50. The only crisis the 1% will have to deal with in their cozy costal villas will be avoiding all the Russian mobsters making a ruccus next door.
It is far more likely that they will relocate the vagabond EU government to the Croatian Coast for "special" summer sessions instead of Strasbourg. I mean come on why just spend your paid month long vacation at your villa when you can "work" the whole summer there. They could even pass the relocation off as an olive branch to the former east block states. "Look we like all you slavs enough to make you feel like you're an improtant part of this whole EU thing. No hard feelings about having to trade the iron curtain for the body bag of debt. CHEERS!
Just made me wonder if there are countries not in the EU that use euros for their currency.
Just made me wonder if there are countries not in the EU that use euros for their currency.
Montenegro, just kicked out of talk about joining cause government corruption
Hey all you Greek and Croatian readers of ZH! See where this guy lives? Looks like a great place to get some of your money back!
you could land the commando copter on his nose...
Decades of tax-payer funded single malt scotch will do that to a pirate. Arrrrr!!!!
I just figured out why he got the AIG job, He is lousy at decision making.
He picked just about the most inconvinient place to have a retirement villa in Croatia. Out of all the islands, coastal inlets, bays, penninsullas to pick from in all of Croatia, he picks the spot that is the most overrun with tourists.
That place is engulfed in large hotels, the car ferries and giant crusie ships run back and forth in front of his view to reach the crusie terminal. The only benefit to the location is that it is close to the County Hospital. It is fine if you need regular kemo treatment or near death, but if you are healthy, there are thousands of better locations to live on the Croatian coast.
That is exactly what,s so funny about it. They have a need to feel above the "plebs" the people, but close enough for other people to see their wealth. They are in need of the feeling, i am special and above of the plebs, even when they,re sick. I feel pitty for him, but not because of his suffering from cancer.
Funny you should mention that, He is also right next to the former Yugoslav Dictator Tito's beach house. I guess he is good company. Tito managed to collect over 30 villas.
There's a villa right on the point of Cavtat that's seen lots of improvements since 2003.
We'd solve all our problems very easily if we looted the nations we chose to go to war with instead of pretending that we are going to war for righteous reasons. Let's call a spade a spade and do what war was meant to do if we are going to build the worlds largest army...
We'd solve even more problems if we dismantled the war machine to where is serves only for defense and we started producing things again.
plowshares bitchez!
You are both correct. It would be best if we took an honest defensive stance and should a single American freighter or tax-paying territory be attacked, then the actual perps are removed from existance (this being the individuals reponsible, not necessarily a country). The technology exists, period.
In any case, you are both correct, no one should go to war lightly. It is a huge mis-allocation and mal-investment of capital and resources, there is no arguing that. However, if one does go to "war", then one should bring the full brunt of one's military might. in the end, this results in a more beneficial outcome for everyone (especially if the unfortunate souls who perish, perish quickly).
Some things never change and Nature makes no promises regarding anyone's survival.
I agree but how does one use "the full brunt of one's military might" against increasing asymetric threats or groups? Easy concept to follow in practice but an increasingly difficult one to follow in reality.
Talk to someone who has served in a black ops unit, if you can find one. The last two I knew have recently been called back to Fort Mead. Rather strange, they were at least ten years older then me, so late 40's, early 50's. I guess they could still serve a role in tactics training. Anyway, the gruesome truth is these guys make people "dissappear" all the time. Sometimes entire villiages.
What threats?
Besides fat-nose gorging at the all-you-can-eat US taxpayers money buffet in Croatia and his fellow thieves, I can't think of what asymetric threat you may be imagining and inventing?
Is Saddam stealing babies out of incubators again? DAMN HIM!!
prole, you're still here. Shouldn't you be off in search of a serious fucking accident or something?
What happened to the 'Give me Liberty, or give me death.' bullshit you keep spouting. Surely, you should be dead by now.
Go on, do it, stick your head in a fuckin' grinder or something, you know you want to slave boy. We certainly do...
and we want you to take photos...
That's crazy talk. Don't you know that all of those countries are chock-full o'terrorists who are dyin' to kill us all? /sarc.
At the risk of re-repeating myself - but it's a risk I'm willing to take - and this looks like a GREAT Place To Take It:
There... I feel much better...
How do you defend against ballistically armed nuclear submarines that patrol your coast in silence? You can't. Duh
You're kidding right? Seems to me like we can't do that now since they are already launching missiles off of our coast. Maybe if we spent a little less time invading countries we could focus our efforts on problems like that.
"dismantled the war machine to where is serves only for defense " So genius which componets are just for "defense", once you are attacked part of what you will be doing is counter-attacking. Only morons think our problems financial problems are caused by our defense spending and not the entitlement programs.
SS money gets put back into the economy, War sucks money out. Look in the mirror to see the moron.
I'd rather be more on than more off. So I thank you for the compliment.
I guess your solution is to keep expanding the empire with illegal wars on borrowed money. That sounds like a very Roman and Nazi like approach.I prefer to think that we have a little more ingenuity than that.
BTW ...Only moreoffs think we can have both guns and butter.
we are looting them. the loot doesn't just go to mom'n pop is all......
it goes to a cabal of contractors politicians monopolists and internationalists.
-
We'd solve all our problems very easily if we looted the nations we chose to go to war with instead of pretending that we are going to war for righteous reasons. Let's call a spade a spade and do what war was meant to do if we are going to build the worlds largest army...
This got upvoted Sheople? This nonsense go upvoted?
Post is post ironic mind fuzz.
"We" are already looted. The US only exists as a colonial possession of Israel, we have no autonomous existence. "Our" politicians are colonial governors whose loyalty resides with our true masters across the seas.
Our only purpose is to be looted, to be plundered and shorn as sheep should be. What was the latest bill that passed Setate 100-0, swearing eternal feasance to our masters? Loot, we are loot and nothing else biatch
I forgot: we are also their well-trained attack dog, we attack and destroy our master's enemies at his command. Our blood also heavily taxed into perpetuity
Oh do stop fucking whining please...
'Give me Liberty, or give me death.' - Since you clearly can't have the former do us all a favour and choose the latter will you.
and get it over with.
I'll miss you... honest...
We'd solve all our problems very easily if we looted the nations we chose to go to war with instead of pretending that we are going to war for righteous reasons. Let's call a spade a spade and do what war was meant to do if we are going to build the worlds largest army...
___________________________________________
Alas, alas, triple alas, it is hard for war to be more than war.
US citizens have been impressively successful robbers. Consequence: they own the marbles. More and more, the impossibility for US citizen wars to add is going to appear obvious. US citizen wars will be to prevent withdraw.
They will be for maintaining the grip, not to expand the grip. No inputs added, only upkeeping the inflow of inputs.
As US citizens own most of it, the consequence is also that high return, high yielding territories are scarce. The few uncontrolled by US citizens territorities have a lower return, they are mere pockets too small to sustain the US citizen mammoth. They are looted at optimum rate, but the cargos of loot brought from these territories are simply not enough.
Once again, the expression of expansion in US citizens.
Expansionists can not accept that saturation is a normal stage in an expansion scheme, therefore when saturation is reached, expansionists deny it and start to think that old habits were dropped, that something changed along the way and went wrong.
US citizenism has not changed one bit. The environment has changed, drained, moved toward depletion.
But US citizens wont be able to admit that, pushing for more pressuring, more extortion, more farming etc
After invading territories, Chinese citizenism government forces millions of ethnic Chinese citizenisms to move into them and steal all property of existing citizenism's thus ensuring effective future looting of other citizenisms for long term. US citizenism's instead seem to give other country large sums of money without moving any US citizenism's there. Kind of like the huge sums of money US citizenism's gave to China to fight Japan in 1930's. Chinese citizenism's did nothing except give away territory, get killed and wait for US citizenism's to save them.
Dont worry, US citizenism is spreading in China. No doubt there that if ever China manages to invade territories, the US citizen chinese are going to issue huan to monetize the wealth of invaded countries.
Doing the US citizen way.
they are wrongfully basing these models on the fact that there wont be any advances in mediiene..if you cure cancer and alzhemiers those models collapse..we put a man on the moon with less technology than a i phone and built the atom bomb without a caclulator..so dont tell me we cant cure anything..we just need the drug companies to stop stonewalling every delelopment with there bed buddy the fda..
Already they are scaling back on prostrate screenings and mammograms. What makes you think they want to cure cancer? Just wait till obamacare comes online. Remember, on average, you were supposed to be dead two and a half years before you were eligible to collect social security.
Well mammograms only prolong the suffering, and lead to many false diagnoses. The reason they say breast cancer victims are surviving longer is that they can now detect it earlier.
Cancer will never be cured by any allopathic therapy. It is a chronic metabolic disorder.
It will and can be prevented through proper nutrition.
pods
Agreed Allopathic Doc have their place, But.....Naturopathic Medicine is what will SAVE all of us as soon as we understand that there is so much TRUTH to you are what YOU Eat!!!!
End GMO's, Start supporting Organic Foods, and STOP Demonizing Nutrients and Nutrition as the REAL Solution to our problems.
Healthcare would "Almost" be a mute point "IF" Americans had a proper Nutritious Diet and not this crap that they all eat, with such the majority of Health/Medicals problems would vanish in a matter of months. Treat the ROOT of the problem and not the Symptoms [as all Allopaths seems to do] and we would again be the Healthiest Nation on Earth!!!!
Just my 2c.......
"Well mammograms only prolong the suffering, and lead to many false diagnoses."
No. Any positive result intitiates a much more sensitive diagnostic mammogram, performed and interpreted by a specialist radiologist.
"Well mammograms only prolong the suffering, and lead to many false diagnoses."
A tumor cannot be detected, with current technology, until it is at least the size of a pea, and contains by then billions of deranged cells.
"It will and can be prevented through proper nutrition."
My wife, a nutrition freak, ate mostly brown rice and vegetables, perfest health otherwise, DIED AT 42. Breast cancer. The most agressive her oncologist had ever seen. Diagnosed at stage IIIB.
I can assure you I know a great deal more about this than you, unless you are an oncologist.
I am sorry to hear about your loss. My prayers and condolences to you and your family. Breast cancer is scary stuff. It runs in my wife's and I think I worry about it more than she does. I agree with pods that nutrition goes a long way, but to ignore a mammogram is nuts.
Best not to worry. That's why it's not monitored after remission. Just causes worry. They chemo'd her to the point that one more dose would have killed her anyway, so there's nothing left to do.
And you are right, ignoring a mammogram is madness.
Absolutely. Always worth getting at least a 2nd opinion on a positive mammogram result from another provider before undergoing a treatment regimen but ignoring it is nuts. Breast cancer is not something like prostrate cancer which is often benign, harsh treatmens which result in a poor/terrible quality of life, and in most older patients who get a positive result end up doing of something else besides the prostrate cancer.
One of the oldest jokes in medicine is 'Why do they nail coffins shut?' Answer: To keep the oncologists from continuing to treat the patient. Its morbid often why too true. Happened with one of the oncologists who wanted to treat my senile 89-year old grandfather for bladder cancer treatment. Made zero sense to treat it aggressively especially having him undergo scrapping and localized radiatation. Eventually passed away before the bladder cancer spread anyways.
Most disease has already started before you reach adulthood. It is set in motion when your body is growing the fastest (childhood).
I am sorry for your loss. But modern medicine knows nothing of the reparitive capabilities of the human body.
Not going to argue about whether I know more than you about this. No need. The information is out there for anyone.
As an aside, I have probably worked on one or more of the numerous drugs that they gave your wife.
pods
Yes, we were told that she could have had breast cancer when she was born...who knows. Thanks for the condolences, I have problems with so called "modern medicine" as well. They wanted to put me on some anti depressant to make me gain weight? It didn't make sense then and it doesn't now. Thanks for your work with the medicines. Wish they were more effective. She went through absolute hell taking them. Dense dose chemo. Brutal. Wished she hadn't given the outcome. I certainly won't if it happens to me.
I didn't junk you BTW.....
I could not imagine losing my wife, it is prevalent in her family. Again, my condolences for your family.
Stay away from any kind of SSRI or NRI, they will REALLY mess you up. If need be try some 5 HTP, an intermediate between tryptophan and melatonin/serotonin. Vitamin D is also very helpful.
Nothing in the medical area is going to really help you though.
I would hold off on thanking me for work on medicines, as there are only a few I could call myself proud to have worked on.
I cannot say what I would do if given a cancer diagnosis.
pods
"ate mostly brown rice and vegetables, perfest health otherwise, DIED AT 42."
Sorry to inform you too late. Brown rice is unhealthy. Rice is mostly starch. Starches are converted into Sugar. Eating a bowl of rice is the same as eating a bowl of sugar. Cancers thrive on sugars, starches and carbohydrates. A health diet should include vegetibles and meats (for protein). Starchs, carbohydates, and sugars should be the least consumed. Recall for about 100,000 years, humans lived as hunter-gathers, and did not consume starches or carbohydrates. They ate mostly meats, nuts, fruits and some vegetables. It wasn't until very recently (about 8,000 years) ago that we started agraculture and consuming grains.
Cancer is an auto-immune disease, like diabetes, like arthritis. While auto-immune diseaese can be caused by genetic issues, proper diet can delay or complete avoid them.
@AGuy
Tumors have an especially high need for fructose than the other carbs. I've alway wondered if the increase in cancer could be related to the massive increase of high fructose corn syrup we consume now. Maybe big food is just giving big pharma an income stream.
Miffed:-)
Another reason to avoid HFCS:
Study Finds High-Fructose Corn Syrup Contains Mercury
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/26/AR200901...
I think there is a strong arguement for excessive sugar consumption, whether its ingested or metabolize from carbohydrates and starches, causing auto-immune diseases. The link between Sugars and dietbetes is already well known, but others including cancer are not considered yet.
"Maybe big food is just giving big pharma an income stream."
Big Food has one objective: To make money on the population by selling the cheapest products with the highest returns on invested capital. The problem is even if the public was warned and fully informed in the risks linked to diet, they would choose to ignore it anyway.
So sorry to hear of your loss,however eating brown rice and vegetables is not neccesarily healthy. Breast cancer rates have been rising steadily in this country and have been correlated with a dramatic drop in vitamin D (which is actually a hormone involved in cell death, cancer is unregulated cell proliferation) in this country. Most vit D analysis in our lab shows people are extremely deficient and therefore more susceptible to various cancers especially colon and breast. Mammograms have been way over prescribed in this country and have been theorized to actually have caused cancers. Do you realize that 1 mammogram is equal to 1000 chest Xrays in radiation? Also younger breast tissue is more susceptible to ionizing radiation vs post menopausal breast tissue. I prefer Thermography because it is safer. Don't get me started on prostrate screenings...there's another revenue generator with dubious benefits.
Miffed:-)
Cancer rates will go down after food rationing is re-introduced (the Big War is coming). During food rationing in WWII, cancer occurances dropped down dramatically.
Cancer is caused by radiation, not "metabolic disorder"
There are all types of cancer include those caused a number caused by viruses. What we are moving away from is the ridiculous focus on classifying cancers according to their orgin in the body which is badly outdated given what we have learned in the past 20-30 years especially in proteonomics.
This is what I believe as well..is there a place with the the stats on that.
Well don't believe anything (I can be anal about word choice, sorry), but there is a ton of information about correlation between cancer and animal products (China Study) and alot about nutritive therapies.
http://www.drfuhrman.com/
He is a doctor that would probably look at a hybrid therapy, and he does not rule out allopathic stuff.
His stuff is meticulously researched, and well referenced.
Books to look for would be the new one (which I do not have yet) Eat for Health, Disease proof your child, and several others.
His writing can get repetitive, but that is because most of our main diseases are chronic metabolic disorders with a similar solution.
He does great work with Type IIs, advanced heart disease, etc.
pods
Check out "food matters" on Netflix and see what you think...
Latest research on breast cancer indicates a major cause is poisons now prevalent in our environment.
Breast tissue acts as a collector of these poisons.
Breast tissue has a lot of fat. Fat stores toxins. They are the perfect incubator for cancer with all of the pesticides/herbicides being dumped into the environ. Stick a stalk of celery into water dyed with food coloring & watch. Better to buy this organic. Same with berries.
Plastics/pthalates are endocrine disrupters. Ever see man boobs?
Will check it out tonight Hulk.
pods
PSA is a shitty test for screening.mammograms depend on the expertise of who reads them.
Preventative screenings are actually covered by Obamacare and one of the things that will increase costs especially for Medicare. As for SSI, that was life expentancy that was in the mid 1930s.
If you are going to rant about something, at least have some basic point to make that is either correct or timely.
If you need it spelled out, don't attribute noble intentions to those in positions of authority.
Yes, they could end the fraud in the medical/pharma industry at the same time as they end the fraud in the financial industry. Are you going to hold your breath?
If only my mom took more statins for her health...
Cancer is way too profitable for any cure to be allowed.
If it was ass cancer prevalent in men (as in 1 in 6 chance like breast cancer) there would be a NASA style research project to find a cure. Bet on it,
Prostate cancer, second most common cancer in men after skin cancer. 241,740 cases per year. Ever heard of it? Not near as often as breast cancer. But then, only men need to worry about it.
Women having an abortion have a 3x greater chance of breast cancer than women without. The high use of anti-pregnancy pills also contibutes to breast cancer rising rates. The number of abortions in the last 30-40 years coincides with the rapidly rising incidence of breast cancer. The 'cure' is forgoeing the pill and not having abortions.
100% dead wrong. Majority of people start to mentally and physically breakdown once they enter their 70s and this is quite pronounced by their late 70s. Even if you cured cancer (and we will never accomplish this or at not any time in the near future) you would still start to have organ failure and other issues that come with the natural wear and tear of aging.
If you look at why life expentancy increased so much in the 20th century, it was really public health iniatiatives and simple things such as access to clean water & food and improved sanitation. Other big thing was the great decline in infant mortality rates especially in the industrialized world.
I started breaking down in my early twenties, but that was mainly due to fast motorcycles...
But, but, but you are supposed to actually take the risk, the only thing that they take is the profit. Socialization of losses. I laugh when I here a paper-pusher say "well I took the risk, so I deserve the salary". You are only taking risk asshole if you are being held accountable. Welcome to fascism and crony capitalism bitches. Same as it ever was (even more so now - game fucking on).
Mighty and brave capitalists...begging the gov't to back them up and bail them out if need be. Also, please dump private costs onto the public. Men of action, Maggie Thatcher's "there are only individuals" and entrepeneurs like Curt Schilling are today's LOSERS.
Yes and the then every government Apparatchik says I am a high level performer and I should be paid an equivalent salary.
Kinda makes you wonder why .guv is so worried about "homegrown terrorists."
nice taxpayer funded gin blossom! Why should we listen, it is his way of asking for more largesse for the banks and indirectly himself.
Just wanted to say this was one of your better ones Aziz. While I have really nothing to add, my suspicion is that people like Benmosche are secretly worshiped by a portion of the US population.
This guy is just total brain out off facetard..
Climbed corporate ladder by sukn alls'diks ispouse..
Got nth more tosay
Battle for Zion early part
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5q5rsQJpGV0
This is only technically true because taxpayers should not be bailing out private enterprise. But the idea of limited liability is a boon to entrepreneurship. People won't take large risks if they could starve their family as a result. I think what you actually want is for limited liability to not shelter fraud or criminal activity. In other words, AIG just fails and stops paying people salaries/bonuses/etc. MF Global has management paying out of personal wealth to fund the lost customer funds.
As far as I can tell MF global hasn't paid shit out. These paper-pushers don't want to be held accountable. fine, possesion will be the law. fucking bring it.
That's my point. What is happening there is the problem. Management stole. They should not be able to hide behind limitations of liability. They shouldn't be able to point fingers across the table at each other. They should just start selling their houses, their stocks, their bonds, their gold...until the theft is repaid in full.
they are only doing what our bot politicians, who We voted in, allowed them to do. Ethics is so yesterday.
I wrote in Ron Paul, so no.
I think the problem is even deeper, because what has essentially happened is the theft was essentially a "leveraged" theft. I mean, does anyone believe that there really is over a quadrillion dollars in "wealth" on the planet. This is essentially what is on balance sheets. Bull fucking shit.
Got .89 on the 1.00 from MFGlobal. Signed away right to go after any more to get it.... Decided it was time to "f*ck the cheese and just get out of the trap".
I worked for a Big Eight accounting firm first job out of college (Ernst&Whinney). They were huge, prosering, and growing. After they got whacked with a big fine for their role in the S&L scandal, they changed to a "Limited Liability Partnership." They had no lack of "ambition" prior to the "limited liability" makeover. Are we (taxpayers) benefitting greatly now from their "entrepreneurship"?
Are there alot of sharks in the Adriatic?
pods
There's one in the foreground of the picture. His prey is senior citizens and tax payer bail outs.
They stay out at open sea, the Croatian coastline is mostly shielded by a vast archipelago.
Luckily, Croatia has ustashi and those guys are not so fond of BenFuckers...
So when this ponzi collapses who has the boats and planes so we can go get these fuckers?
You might ask yourself why this guy chooses to live in a Croation Budoir with ten toilets on each floor.
Let's see? Cause his life is so shitty?
Because he is so sick of himself he has to vomit every 15 seconds?
I know, just the opposite. He vomits if he can't find a mirror in 15 seconds. Can't get enough of his own nose.
The tanned Mozilla look immediately raises my hackles whenever I see it...
I thought that was a picture of Jerry Sandusky...mostly because I could see his dinghy in the photo.
OFF TOPIC: Just finished voting for Dr. Paul in the California Primary.
Now I'm going to (sigh) put the Romney bumper sticker on my car.
Why not this one instead?
http://www.zazzle.com/people_should_not_be_afraid_of_their_government_bumper_sticker-128385723565042693
Should probably put one on top of your vehicle as well; nice optics on those drones but they can't see 'round corners.
Speaking of United States of fear, Obama is now a High Priest, according to liberal critics:
http://www.nationofchange.org/praying-church-st-drone-1338909597
You're a brave person putting a Romney bumper sticker on your car in California , a bit misguided, but brave.
Fuck these fucking fucks... (use of verb, adjective & noun in the same sentence ~ additions welcome)...
That's the spirit. Now go get'em boy!
For fuck's sake someone please fuck these fuckless fucking fucks and post it to their Fuckberg page so I can "like" it.
cougar_w... answers the bell!
"It will be the average American who has done nothing wrong other than believing the words of politicians."
But isn't that the point? We the People voted for all these lying sacks of shit just as our Euopean bretheren did.
Trick me once, shame on you, trick me 100 times, I must be a freaking idiot moron.
"trick me 100 times, I must be a freaking idiot moron."
No, just a product of some illequipt public school system. Maybe...Wisconsin?
I hope some lady of the night (or day) takes her penknife and slices off the end of his...
I hope she has dizzyfingers as well...
Benmosche: How long 'till someone "sanctions" this cocksucker?
(with apologies to gays....just a term...given to old ex-marines),
Our society has all the resources to care for the older and sick people. Yet the system as is is so flawed that in a way helping them is not done and a few lucky once control so many resources that millions could live ion their income.
I realize this is veering way off the topic, but even Time Magazine - gulp - can have an outstanding (IMHO) feature article once in a while. Quite poignant having gone through this with my wifes's mom two years ago...thanks for lead.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2116137,00.html
You have to be a subscriber to read the full articel, btu the gist of it is that there are establishents - Geisinger in PA is the subject, but appareanlty Mayo as well - that have a more sane (and cost effective) approach to end of life decisions while mainitaining everyone's dignity.
Aside from the obvious one other take away is that the current system can evolve and needs to evolve and it does not have to be by goverment intervention. The Geisinger "model" exsits quite well within the larger (broken) current market based paradigm including a more effective use fo Medicare (and Medicaid) rescources.
Pete
Wonder how many pensions he has been involved in personally looting. The financialization of everything since going from a fixed rate exchange(where leverage is limited by hard assets beginning with gold) to a floating rate(which is only limited by your ability to take on more debt and re-invest in the Ponzi) has enabled the Benmosche's of the world to be in a position of power to pontificate upon such matters.
Didn't he resign because he had/has cancer?...
Why not cancel all income tax for one year and instead borrow at close to zero interest rate like the US government can do now...it will fund all programs and give a huge boost to the economy....than go back to income taxes.......
The same reason they can't just distribute the trillions in bailout money to the masses like they can to the chosen few. It would cause inflation to the moon--which is going to happen anyway once the dominoes start falling when a G10 nation defaults. They think that all those 100's of trillions in paper isn't deflationary as long as it is sitting in digital central bank vaults for safe keeping. What happens when a crisis unfolds and all of that flight to "safety" needs to be utilized, you know because it was safely kept for a rainy day and everybody needs to redeem their safe assets at the same time as is what eventually happens when bankers issue extreme amounts of paper against the redeemable hard assets in their vaults.
The current floating exchange rate has only been around since 1971 as a result of a crisis where there was a run on the dollar because the previos global economic model of a fixed exchange rate of a dollar based on $38 dollars per ounce of gold which was established at the Bretton Woods agreement after WWII was no longer sustainable.
The U.S. government had a need to grow beyond the limits of $38 per ounce gold and the limits of U.S. production so the infinite globalized economic model was born. We have reached the limits of global production and now the current economic model is failing. (has failed)
The global floating exchange rate economic model has been failed for 5 years now, it is just no one knows how and what to replace it with. We are in limbo waiting for someone to blink.
http://youtu.be/M1WFA0liN1o
Evil prevails.......my sperm is waving a white flag, they dont want to come out in this world.
my sperm is waving a white flag, they dont want to come out in this world
+1000000
AWESMOE Sir Great Quote!!!!!
It was certainly interesting sentence structure...
if the greeks wanted to solve their financial problems, they should raid bendouche's seaside villa......
He looks like L. Ron Hubbard, only creepier somehow.
Benmosche isn't living in a tax payer funded anything. He came out of retirement and took over at AIG after they imploded because the govt begged him to.
He's right on the retirement age of course. The only way the current promises of benefits can be paid out to everyone is to rise the age to 80 or maybe even higher. What that presupposes is that the current system is kep in place and we know that it should not be. It's a clusterfuck of epic proportions.
The whole social safety net is nothing more than a bad twist on too big to fail It's too dumb to fail and, just as too TBTF it causes people to take excess risks and fail. It has created a system the delivers people with no savings, no desire to save and rampant consumerism. End the social safety net and people will start saving, start really working, start building....
What we have created is a country of lazy ass slackers who expect to be taken care of and a corporate structure that is exactly the same.
Im thrilled someone pointed out this fucking trash for who he is.
JEEEEEEEEW
Look folks, capitalists are telling us as plainly as they can that the system we're in cannot afford to pay pensions and/or healthcare. The private schemes have become 401s (more accurately 200.5s) and HMOs ( where you pay the premiums and they figure out how to claim an exclusion). The public schemes are unaffordable; all ZH commentators agree.
So, ok, we get it.
Capitalism cannot afford to pay pensions and healthcare.
Query: Can capitalism afford employees at all?
Just askin'...
Capitalism has been trying for 30 years straight to find some way to reinstitute slavery on a global scale.
That's not even a sarc. That's the goddamned straight deal. They are daily getting closer to their goal.
Oh, you bet that is not sarcasm. That is precisely what the predators-that-be and predator-class have been trying to do ever since the america of ~270 years ago set a small percentage of humans semi-free. That royally pissed off the predators AKA royalty, who have been plotting and scheming ever since to re-institute absolute, complete, utter slavery of the world population.
But the biggest scandal of all is that the majority of the population supports these predators! If not for that, the predators-that-be and predator-class would be toast.
Human beings are clearly a "failed experiment". The minority of humans who are honest and productive are so overwhelmed by the clueless and corrupt masses who feed off them, the situation appears hopeless. The real problem today is the lack of an easy "frontier". In past era, the best, bravest and brightest would leave predatorville and take their chances in the wilderness. We need an equivalent today, but it just ain't happening dispite talk now and then (L5 society, floating cities, etc). One thing is certain, any access to a new frontier will not be aided by government.
Karlmoshe Marx wrote:
Look folks, capitalists are telling us as plainly as they can that the system we're in cannot afford to pay pensions and/or healthcare. The private schemes have become 401s (more accurately 200.5s) and HMOs ( where you pay the premiums and they figure out how to claim an exclusion). The public schemes are unaffordable; all ZH commentators agree.
I agree with you on NOTHING you commie. "Capitalism" didn't kill the free market. The Communist Rosenveldt did. Capitalism didn't promise anyone retirement, some commie like you did, so you keep your Commie-made promise Comrade and pay them yourself
So, ok, we get it.
OK OK the only thing I get is you are a Commie. "we" don't get anything.
Capitalism cannot afford to pay pensions and healthcare.
Capitalism didn't promise to pay such Socialist schemes, they were shoved down Capitalism's throat by your Commie hero Rosenveldt (or some other commie I don't remember)
Capitalism (Capitalism couldn't have invented this idiotic bold feature that fucking doesn't work) Capitalism never got the chance. Fire all your Socialist overlords and watch how the free market works, or get thee hence to North Korea and Cuba, where health care is glorious and free!
Query: Can capitalism afford employees at all?
Just askin'...
Rabbi Marx, Capitalist Henry Ford ran past his competitors by doubling his own employees salary, thus reducing the high-turnover rate and kept the best workers staying on at Ford. He didn't need a Commisar to force him to do this. That is what Soviet Style Socialism (your fav system) does. What kind of retirement did the dead Ukrainian Kulaks get in Stalin's era? Eternal rest and repose, no charge for the bullet in the back of the head.
Soviets were communists, not socialists. And barely even Communists. Henry Ford was quite an exception, which is why you remember him. As for most other non-Ford, US workers pre-Depression, they had to strike, riot, and blow up their oppressors to move out of indentured servitude (company towns, company stores, unsafe mines, working from the age of 10). Most of them were socialists. Toss a thanks their way next time you're enjoying a "weekend".