LORDS OF APATHY

September 21, 2009

"Cuomo Out For Blood, Kind Of" by Nicky Vecki

New York attorney-general Andrew Cuomo subpoenaed Bank of America board members this week in an attempt to solve the mystery of the bonus scandal at Merrill Lynch. The attorney-general’s office is trying to figure out exactly why Bank of America rushed to acquire Merrill Lynch last year, and why Merrill tried to sneak bonus payments to its top executives while its merger with BOA was being finalized. One of the individuals Cuomo subpoenaed is BOA board member and retired four-star Army general Tommy Franks. Yo Andy, as a general rule it’s probably not a good idea to subpoena someone who likely still has access to Hellfire missiles. A goddamn Predator drone can creep through the Upper East Side and light your ass up with the quickness, homie. Besides, what is the deal with higher-ups from the Defense department having second careers in the world of finance? Former Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara served as president of the World Bank from ‘68-’81. And Iraqi War architect and former Secretary of Defense Paul D. Wolfowitz recently served as president of the World Bank from ‘05-’07. What’s the line of thinking here? I can’t believe that the pool of candidates who are actually qualified to fill the top posts at the leading financial institutions in the Western world is so small that they have to opt for retired military brass. These guys’ core competency is blowing up shit in foreign countries. They don’t have CPAs or MBAs or any of that shit—they’re lucky if they’ve got a college accounting class under their belt and they’re virtually running our financial institutions. I’m probably just missing something, but I digress, back to Cuomo. This guy better keep his nose cleaner than a whistle for the next 10 years, or so. And he better not even THINK of running for New York governor, which I guarantee he’s got his eye on. Remember how those Neo-Con attack dogs retaliated against former New York attorney-general and governor Eliot Spitzer over fining Wall Street banks a measly $1.4 billion in 2002 as punishment for bilking investors out of a reported $8 trillion in 2001. They investigated the shit out of Spitzer and couldn’t come up with any actual malfeasance, so they got him for partying with a $1000-an-hour prostitute. As I understood it having extra-marital affair was the God-given right of every elected official, and was an accepted practice in nearly every country spanning the globe. Imagine Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi being ousted over having an extra-marital affair—not going to happen. Think about it. How are men this ambitious supposed to be satisfied with just one woman (or one man as the case may be for some)? When they first started accusing Spitzer of the prostitution stuff he should have been like, “Hey goddamnit, I’m running the state! If I can’t keep a little thousand-dollar-an-hour prune around for when I’m feeling frisky then what the fuck is the point of this shit? I don’t know, man. All I know is that Cuomo is going after small potatoes with this bonus payout stuff. These banksters robbed the U.S. in broad daylight and blamed it on market malfunction—they’re guilty of felonies of the highest degree, and our reformers are going after them for misdemeanors. No one is going to see jail time, and none of these financial institutions are going to pay fines anywhere near commensurate to the amount they’ve stolen. And in another seven or eight years they’re going to rob us again and they’re going to get away with it again, too, because the Federal Reserve, the U.S. Congress, and lapdog regulators are going to let them get away with it just like they always do.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

All's I heard was,"blah-blah . . . hellfire missles . . . blah-blah . . . thousand dollar hoes . . . blah-blah . . . trillions of dollars . . ." Hand's down, politicians and big bankers are the realest thugs. Gangland should do a special on these fuckers. And they get away with it in broad daylight!

Anonymous said...

he should go after the US govt for pumping money into boa and thereby aiding and abetting a criminal exercise.

Anonymous said...

very well said.

Snickerdoodles McPoppycock said...

Funny how Republicans like to use the term "redistribution of wealth" if someone dare bring up the notion of raising taxes on the ridiculously wealthy, but when it comes to the 'bailouts' aka the CEO bonus feeding frenzy, this is somehow a perfectly acceptable component of capitalism.

Anonymous said...

now I stay tuned..