http://www.blables.com/comics/?id=25

There ya go. Keep your sunnyside up.

Thanks for the article. Copied it and will read it tonight.

Welcome.

I’m not, but I’m getting over it.

Thanks for the article. Copied it and will read it tonight.

In many ways, I am. And it is.

Recipe for Disaster: The Formula That Killed Wall Street

Good point. Then why if you don’t appreciate that do you just automatically condone it from Democrats?

Actually, i wasn’t speaking of Northern Trust specifically. Thinking more BofA, Morgan Stanley, AIG, etc. You know, the masterminds of this whole mess. Northern Trust is small potatoes. Even I know that.

Fair enough, except that small potatoes bank is the one Oliver decided to make an example of. What some of those investment bank CEO’s did was bad, but this story isn’t. ANd again, if you read the story linked to above at 7:16, NT didn’t use TARP money for this event.

Duros, you want to read something fascinating about the masterminds of this mess, read this.

In Geithner We Trust Eludes Treasury as Market Fails to Recover

Long, but startlingly amazing. $5 trillion in credit default swaps- everyone knew about them, but how to turn around the Titanic. I just wish these times weren’t so goddamn painful because if you were just a casual observer, you’d have to say they were incredibly fascinating.

Read it again. He invested the $3mm after he got the mortgage loan. The rep made that statement to let public know that he had other business and they were going for that too. So the preferential rate worked. Did the bank where you got your mortgage ask you if you had any other money to invest before you locked in your mortgage rate? I’ve done it six or seven times, and not one did. Same with my friends, at least not that anyone told me, and believe me, they would.

It is hypocrisy, brif. Obama didn’t single out Northern Trust, to my knowledge. But Barney Frank has, as has Sen. John Heinz. And Obama made a definitive statement last night about bank frivolous spending, because he knows there are a lot of people out there who will cheer it and bloggers who blindly back him up on it. They call that being ‘Reaganesque’.

And? Isn’t that how republicans roll? Train from Vegas to Disneyland anyone?

As for this tournament, it’s not so much the bank brass living large as it is spending a lot of money on things for customers at a golf tournament.

Actually, i wasn’t speaking of Northern Trust specifically. Thinking more BofA, Morgan Stanley, AIG, etc. You know, the masterminds of this whole mess. Northern Trust is small potatoes. Even I know that.

How ’bout you make it, then?

Read the link way above that Ipstnue post at 7:16. I think a better case for hypocrisy could be made for Barney Frank than what I’ve made about Obama. These guys know how the business world works. If they want to totally rework it, that’s one thing. But it’s not like they haven’t been involved in how it’s conducted themselves, it’s just that crapping on banks now is the popular and populist thing to do right now. As for this tournament, it’s not so much the bank brass living large as it is spending a lot of money on things for customers at a golf tournament. But when they do those things, yes, a lot of money is wasted, but then, the bank brass looks at the bottom line to determine it it was worth it. Those details never make it into the press.

I don’t know the ins and outs of the TARP money or the bank bailouts. I doubt anyone here does, including you. I just think it’s a little disengenuous to call hypocrisy and shenanigans when the country is in a mess and the bank brass are still living large, like they’re just doing what they should be doing.

Did you not see the guy that Obama spoke about handing out his retirement bonus to everyone at his bank?

Yeah, I know what you’ll proably say about him: Frakkin’ Socialist wealth distributor.

Trying to help you a little bit in seeing the business aspect of it. If you worked for a bank or any financial firm this would be very easy to understand, but for some reason it’s not getting through to you. Yours and oliver’s logic is that if a bank receives Aid from the government, all the expenses of that bank are de facto public money. They haven’t been nationalized, yet. And the money they spent was on a prior commitment before they received the money- it wasn’t just dreamed up in the last couple of months. If you don’t see the hypocrisy of public officials berating banks and car company executives for behavior they have been feeding at the same trough of, then I’m not sure you ever will no matter how much I write here.

Tiffany bags? It’s customer entertainment. Not something I’d do, but they must have done some homework and thought it would pay off for them in the long run. If that expense paid off in ten times the business generated from those customers, would you have a problem with that? ‘Your money and mine’, as you say, just got a 1000% return on it’s investment.

You see, Obama knows this very well. I’m guessing the author of this blog post does also. But that doesn’t sound so great to throw that qualifier in there as it does to chastise them for ‘lavish spending’, does it? The clueless to business public has a foil to express their anger at when they hear these kinds of stories, and politicians know this. ‘Shocked, shocked to find gambling going on in this establishment’.

Again, Duros, only trying to help you. Try to understand that.

For another thing, it’s TMZ and Oliver smacking Northern Trust about this, not Obama nor the White House.

So I fail to see the hypocrisy, yes. I also fail to see why you bring up Obama’s mortgage as if it is relevent.

Didn’t say it was nothing either, Duros. But you can’t make a big deal out of one if you’re Barack Obama and conveniently dismiss the fact that he got favorable treatment. Sweetheart deals aren’t necessarily illegal, either, but he did get one.

And btw, the title to this blog post is WRONG. Because Northern Trust got TARP money, it’s incorrect to say they used that money to spend it on a big party. You guys never question the bullshit, you just lap it up and argue with anyone for doing you the favor of pointing it out to you. Why is that?

Nothin’ to see here, folks. Move along.
And then you follow up and say it was a “sweetheart deal.”
Whatever, Dennis.

What would you do differently? Nothing?

P.S. I don’t give a shit what Rick Santelli thinks or says.

Read what I wrote, Duros. Or don’t, that’s fine too. But please don’t just read what you want to and misrepresent what I said. 3/8 of a point is something the loan office had to get approved. The approval came from someone who assessed that a lower rate to get his business was worth doing. Happens every day. Cost of doing business with the hopes of getting more of his business. Same thing with the golf tournament. Incidentally, cancelling the sponsorship, the concerts, everything already committed to and in many cases paid for upfront before the TARP money came, would have involved a lot of money to. And that not only results in no business, it pisses people off. So run the total rate of return on on entertainment expenses for that if you’d like.

Again, Obama got a sweetheart deal, and now he has to go before the public and berate the banks to put on a populist show that people like you can go ‘Yeah, no more is f’ing right, Barack, baby! You tell ‘em’!’

Kinda pathetic, really. But don’t let anyone like Rick Santelli ask about the people who lied to get loans they couldn’t afford getting mortgage bailout funds and how they will conduct their financial affairs going forward. That’s just Reagan’s welfare queen canard. You guys slay me, you really do.