"Money for nothing, and the crooks go free..."

“To give is to receive, they say, and I don't doubt it. For example, every time I give money to an organization, I receive a note thanking me for my donation and asking me to give more money, in the convenient pre-stamped envelope. Is there an echo in here? Or is this desperation?

Everywhere you look, people are in need. Among the neediest are the ones who have been "giving" the most to people who say they're needy but are not, if that makes any sense — if anything makes sense about America's economic priorities at present. As New York magazine reports, Dick Fuld, CEO of Lehman Brothers, "earned" $480 million in bonuses in recent years and lives in a 20-room Greenwich (Conn.) mansion, one of his five houses. This even as Lehman went belly up, the largest bankruptcy in history. As our own billions are shoveled to Wall Street sharks like Fuld — who don't even thank us for our donations — we are asked to give still more. That's the crap shoot on which this fragile economy has been based since the 1990s. When the inevitable collapse occurred, despite ample warnings, it was as if no one was responsible, that it was all a big unforeseeable mystery. And THAT is the greatest con of all.

I'm reminded of when I worked in a D.C. bookshop. Earlier in the day, before I was held up at gunpoint and a robber made off with the princely sum of $77, I had been on the phone to a publisher and a magazine, both of which owed me far more than $77 for work I'd already done. The robber was caught, sent back to prison (on the public's tab), the $77 returned to the shop, yet I never heard back from either of my creditors — not even a thank you for my hard unremunerated work. Outside of the threat of violence, I saw no difference in the two robberies. The robbers of my work were never held accountable; they in fact went on to start new business ventures.

There's nothing good to be said about the bailouts to AIG, Citibank and Bear Stearns, and the hoped-for cash infusion to Lehman. We have been shoveling our money at entities that collectively flip us the middle finger while we are still required to pay our own bills. Nor can anything good be said about the drain on our economy, the Iraq War, for which no Bush regime official will be held accountable, a war that could have been avoided had they heeded the myriad warnings about bin Laden. I can still hear Condi Rice saying, after having been presented a month before the 9/11 attacks with a memo entitled "'Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States": "No one could have anticipated these attacks." There's that ultimate con again. Money for nothing. That appears to have been the operative philosophy of our economy these past two decades.”

- Alan Bisbort http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/19149