*
As seen on Atrios, Scott Simon's "friend from the business world, Joe Nocera," clearly demonstrates the odious nature of celebrity journalists with some intervention by a blogger named Matt Browner Hamlin. Nocera believes it is right and proper that there should be two different kinds of contracts for each of the nation's two principal social castes (i.e., Masters Of The Universe and All The Rest Of Us Slobs) --- one type that is sacrosanct versus another type that is merely a short-term serving suggestion to trick the rubes.
What a trashy little whore a man must be to write such things for open consideration by the general public. When celebrity journalists and pundits are not held accountable by their publishers for spreading lies or demonstrably ridiculous opinions, they need no credibility in order to earn a giant payday. It makes a guy wonder why the New York Times keeps people like that on salary.
I'll bet Joe Nocera is the type of person who thinks he's too important to wash his hands before returning to work. Absent gloves or hand sanitizer, never shake hands with a trashy little whore of a man. And if he touches you anyway, consider chopping off his hands. Thus Sprach StuporMundi.
Showing posts with label fuct check. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fuct check. Show all posts
Friday, October 23, 2009
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
The sanctity of contracts [updated]
*
Today on All Things Considered I heard some New York Times reporter named "Andrew Ross Sorkin" try packaging a lame apologia for criminally incompetent executives as good old American contrarian horse-sense. His point seems to be that the government can't just "rip up contracts" because we have laws, and therefore AIGFP retention bonuses (for example) "must" be paid if we (we-who, he didn't say) are to retain the fabric of trust in society. Or something.
To her credit, ATC co-host Melissa Block quizzed this fool about the difference between ripping up AIGFP executive bonus contracts and ripping up union contracts as part of the in-progress auto industry bailout. But I wish she would have told him that nobody is literally expecting the government to "rip up contracts." By failing to follow up insistently to question Sorkin's premise, she allowed him to waste 3 minutes of my time in the car that I could have been listening to "Playground Psychotics." Meanwhile, Sorkin explained to all us rubes that "we" really need to keep these AIGFP execs on board because they're the only ones how know how to "unwind" the exotic derivative securities that they conjured. Yes: they need to be paid excessive bonuses in addition to their salaries so they will continue to do the jobs they are contractually obligated to perform.
See, the way I process this in my cinder of a brain, I am convinced that both parties to an emploment contract need to honor said contract. Therefore, before we hear any more horseshit like this from reporter Sorkin, he needs to employ the Google, Nexis and Lexis, his telephone, and his Outlook address book to find out for the American public (who is an 80 percent majority shareholder in AIG) whether the AIGFP bonus recipients did in fact fulfill the terms of their contract. If he's too frightened, lazy, or unskilled to do that, then he could at least check TPM a few times a day to keep up with the facts of the story... just for appearances.
When it's time to unwind" the AIGFP mystery securities portfolio for real, we AIG majority shareholders won't need to pamper and coax reporter Sorkin's smarmy MBA pals to do that job. We will go to the real experts: auditors, bank examiners, criminal investigators, and federal prosecutors.
Update: that cute little Ezra Klein addressed a similar topic today, referencing Sorkin's NYT column as source material. There's a bit of ambiguity in his point, however, possibly due to the lack of vetting his text through a simple country editor. To make up for the ambiguity, there are a number of interesting remarks in the comments thread below the post. No, we can't confiscate money from a small, specific group of people without any valid legal framework. Yes, there are many possible ways to approach the quashing of the AIGFP bonuses, such as legislation about executive bonuses working in corporations that have accepted TARP funds or giving AIG a friendly reminder that they're fucking bankrupt and must settle up with a long line of customers and shareholders before making good on contracts that rewarded gross mismanagement or worse. One commenter suggests freezing the accounts out of which executive bonuses are to be paid pending the outcome of a fraud investigation; I like that one.
Today on All Things Considered I heard some New York Times reporter named "Andrew Ross Sorkin" try packaging a lame apologia for criminally incompetent executives as good old American contrarian horse-sense. His point seems to be that the government can't just "rip up contracts" because we have laws, and therefore AIGFP retention bonuses (for example) "must" be paid if we (we-who, he didn't say) are to retain the fabric of trust in society. Or something.
To her credit, ATC co-host Melissa Block quizzed this fool about the difference between ripping up AIGFP executive bonus contracts and ripping up union contracts as part of the in-progress auto industry bailout. But I wish she would have told him that nobody is literally expecting the government to "rip up contracts." By failing to follow up insistently to question Sorkin's premise, she allowed him to waste 3 minutes of my time in the car that I could have been listening to "Playground Psychotics." Meanwhile, Sorkin explained to all us rubes that "we" really need to keep these AIGFP execs on board because they're the only ones how know how to "unwind" the exotic derivative securities that they conjured. Yes: they need to be paid excessive bonuses in addition to their salaries so they will continue to do the jobs they are contractually obligated to perform.
See, the way I process this in my cinder of a brain, I am convinced that both parties to an emploment contract need to honor said contract. Therefore, before we hear any more horseshit like this from reporter Sorkin, he needs to employ the Google, Nexis and Lexis, his telephone, and his Outlook address book to find out for the American public (who is an 80 percent majority shareholder in AIG) whether the AIGFP bonus recipients did in fact fulfill the terms of their contract. If he's too frightened, lazy, or unskilled to do that, then he could at least check TPM a few times a day to keep up with the facts of the story... just for appearances.
When it's time to unwind" the AIGFP mystery securities portfolio for real, we AIG majority shareholders won't need to pamper and coax reporter Sorkin's smarmy MBA pals to do that job. We will go to the real experts: auditors, bank examiners, criminal investigators, and federal prosecutors.
Update: that cute little Ezra Klein addressed a similar topic today, referencing Sorkin's NYT column as source material. There's a bit of ambiguity in his point, however, possibly due to the lack of vetting his text through a simple country editor. To make up for the ambiguity, there are a number of interesting remarks in the comments thread below the post. No, we can't confiscate money from a small, specific group of people without any valid legal framework. Yes, there are many possible ways to approach the quashing of the AIGFP bonuses, such as legislation about executive bonuses working in corporations that have accepted TARP funds or giving AIG a friendly reminder that they're fucking bankrupt and must settle up with a long line of customers and shareholders before making good on contracts that rewarded gross mismanagement or worse. One commenter suggests freezing the accounts out of which executive bonuses are to be paid pending the outcome of a fraud investigation; I like that one.
Monday, March 3, 2008
"I heard it on NPR"
*
Back-to-back stories on All Things Considered this afternoon:
First, a strangely objective update on an under-reported story about a "loner," found comatose in a Las Vegas motel room, in possession of (1) firearms, (2) undisclosed amounts of the neurotoxin Ricin, (3) castor beans, from which Ricin is synthesized, and (4) an "anarchist-type textbook." Although the man's ethnicity was not reported, we can be fairly certain that he does not come from any brown-skinned, funny-accented region of the world. Why? Because, according to ATC co-host Melissa Block, Vegas police have stated that "it doesn't make you a terrorist to have an anarchist-type textbook." No word from John Law on whether it makes you a criminal to possess a deadly illegal poison previously used in terrorist attacks.
The frame for this first NPR story was something to the effect that, 'well this is certainly an interesting mystery, isn't it?' The report does represent an admirable presumption of innocence by an often-hysterical press in This Time Of War. They give us this tale of a simple country pizza delivery guy, living in his cousin's basement, taking his anarchist's cookbook and his castor beans and his guns along with undisclosed amounts of illegal neurotoxin on a road trip to Vegas, just minding his own business and living there with no visible means of support, when he mysteriously goes into a coma. Maybe he was "just trying to do harm to himself," one reporter mused. There are probably easier ways to do that, but who knows?
Second, a strangely sanctimonious story about a New York cabbie, briefly hailed as a hero for having rescued an infant abandoned in his taxi, until it was discovered that he was indirectly acquainted with the baby's father. NPR calls the story "Taxi Driver Arrested for Helping Girlfriend Ditch Kid." Nice. ATC co-host Robert Siegel clumsily walks the listener through the convoluted facts by asking the New York Daily News police reporter he's interviewing questions such as, "Is he from Ecuador, is that what I read?" Ah-HA! (How the hell should the police reporter know what Siegel read?)
As near as I can tell, here's the story. The father of an "angelic" 5-month-old baby girl tells his sister he can't care for the baby himself because he works construction and the underage mother has left him. This guy's sister tells her boyfriend, the Ecuadoran taxi driver, that they must bring the baby to a city fire station, which is reasonably in sync with the intent of the city's safe harbor law if not the letter of it. The immigrant does this, but he fabricates a story about how the baby was abandoned in his taxi, presumably to protect the brother of his girlfriend. Bad call, of course. But before the cabbie confesses to his fib, the heartwarming story hits the press: Ecuadoran Samaritan Toast O' Town --- Read All About It! But then the fairy tale is spoiled by an inconvenient detail, and everybody feels chumped. So the cabbie loses his livery license and faces prosecution for filing a false police report. Forget about the fact that this guy actually did take charge of an abandoned baby and did the right thing --- he made an error doing it. Let's pile on and strip him of his livelihood, then send him back where he belongs. Unless he has an apartment full of guns, castor beans, and an anarchist-type textbook.
Back-to-back stories on All Things Considered this afternoon:
First, a strangely objective update on an under-reported story about a "loner," found comatose in a Las Vegas motel room, in possession of (1) firearms, (2) undisclosed amounts of the neurotoxin Ricin, (3) castor beans, from which Ricin is synthesized, and (4) an "anarchist-type textbook." Although the man's ethnicity was not reported, we can be fairly certain that he does not come from any brown-skinned, funny-accented region of the world. Why? Because, according to ATC co-host Melissa Block, Vegas police have stated that "it doesn't make you a terrorist to have an anarchist-type textbook." No word from John Law on whether it makes you a criminal to possess a deadly illegal poison previously used in terrorist attacks.
The frame for this first NPR story was something to the effect that, 'well this is certainly an interesting mystery, isn't it?' The report does represent an admirable presumption of innocence by an often-hysterical press in This Time Of War. They give us this tale of a simple country pizza delivery guy, living in his cousin's basement, taking his anarchist's cookbook and his castor beans and his guns along with undisclosed amounts of illegal neurotoxin on a road trip to Vegas, just minding his own business and living there with no visible means of support, when he mysteriously goes into a coma. Maybe he was "just trying to do harm to himself," one reporter mused. There are probably easier ways to do that, but who knows?
Second, a strangely sanctimonious story about a New York cabbie, briefly hailed as a hero for having rescued an infant abandoned in his taxi, until it was discovered that he was indirectly acquainted with the baby's father. NPR calls the story "Taxi Driver Arrested for Helping Girlfriend Ditch Kid." Nice. ATC co-host Robert Siegel clumsily walks the listener through the convoluted facts by asking the New York Daily News police reporter he's interviewing questions such as, "Is he from Ecuador, is that what I read?" Ah-HA! (How the hell should the police reporter know what Siegel read?)
As near as I can tell, here's the story. The father of an "angelic" 5-month-old baby girl tells his sister he can't care for the baby himself because he works construction and the underage mother has left him. This guy's sister tells her boyfriend, the Ecuadoran taxi driver, that they must bring the baby to a city fire station, which is reasonably in sync with the intent of the city's safe harbor law if not the letter of it. The immigrant does this, but he fabricates a story about how the baby was abandoned in his taxi, presumably to protect the brother of his girlfriend. Bad call, of course. But before the cabbie confesses to his fib, the heartwarming story hits the press: Ecuadoran Samaritan Toast O' Town --- Read All About It! But then the fairy tale is spoiled by an inconvenient detail, and everybody feels chumped. So the cabbie loses his livery license and faces prosecution for filing a false police report. Forget about the fact that this guy actually did take charge of an abandoned baby and did the right thing --- he made an error doing it. Let's pile on and strip him of his livelihood, then send him back where he belongs. Unless he has an apartment full of guns, castor beans, and an anarchist-type textbook.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Good riddance...
...to Bill Buckley, whose Cold War-era hallucination of conservatism (e.g., blacks shouldn't have civil rights, government spending is Socialism except when it's an investment in Empire, corporations shouldn't have to follow laws or pay taxes) played a key role in helping to create half a dozen intractable real-world national and international crises. His charming, polysyllabic patrician demeanor and "genius for friendship" was eulogized by David Folkenflik on NPR this afternoon. (Click the "Listen Now" link at the NPR page if you can stomach it, but I don't recommend it.)"He drove the kooks out of the [conservative] movement," said Buckley's son, Chris. "He separated it from the anti-Semites, the isolationists, the John Birchers. He conducted, if you will, a kind of purging of the movement." Well, actually, no he didn't, Chris; he only got rid of the isolationists because they're not good allies when a guy is trying to intellectually justify turning a republic into an empire. And all those other "kooks"? They've been ruling us for 28 years.
I'm not a person who believes we are obligated to be polite about the dead if we strongly feel they were premeditated assholes who left the world a worse place than when they entered it. I will, at least, wish Mr. Buckley luck with his "genius for friendship" as he shakes hands with The Devil.
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Fact checking, NPR style
This morning NPR had a nice 'fact checking' round-table regarding the Democratic debate in Iowa last night. Economics correspondent Adam Davidson was asked to truth-squad a statement on Iran made by Joe Biden. Biden, who was rebutting some Clinton baloney about the recent non-binding Senate resolution demonizing Iran's Revolutionary Guard, said:
This exciting public radio journalism circle-jerk format is so awesome that it deserves its very own special name: let's call it a "fuct check." They do it all the time.
The moment that declaration was made, oil prices jumped over $18 a barrel.Davidson wasn't buying it, being the economics correspondent that he is. Davidson:
I'd say this is the single most obviously untrue statement I heard in the debate.... Never in human history have oil prices spiked that high or anything like that.Then Davidson swiftly supported his assertion by reminding listeners of the date of Republican Guard resolution, and presenting a brief summary of oil price movements immediately after the Senate resolution, deftly sending Biden scuttling for the cover of an MBNA mobile hospitality suite. Oh, wait a minute --- he didn't do that at all. Instead, evidently based mainly on his high respect for his own opinions, Davidson declared that the "generally accepted risk premium" added on top of the market price of oil accounting for "all the political tension in all the world is about 10 or 15 percent." And so, he concluded:
...the idea that one vote having to do with Iran at one moment would cause such a dramatic increase in prices is utterly unjustified.I'm just a simple country editor, but I feel that an NPR fact check should make reference to some facts. This should have been a simple one to put to bed, too. But here I am, cranky as ever before bedtime, and I still don't know whether or not Biden's a big fibber about Iran. And the answer is not insignificant, either, issue-wise: if rattling sabers at Iran can affect oil prices or supplies, Matt and Stacey Merlot should be aware of that before committing to buy a bomb-Iran magnetic yellow ribbon for the Land Cruiser. (They might be able to get one at the NPR Gift Shop.)
This exciting public radio journalism circle-jerk format is so awesome that it deserves its very own special name: let's call it a "fuct check." They do it all the time.
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