Working Life

I like a good sense of humor as much as anyone. So, I tip my hat to the people over at Standard and Poor’s — especially the legal department — for giving me a chance to just have a good ‘ole belly laugh. You see, all that stuff about S&P’s culpability in the mortgage scam that robbed millions of people of their jobs and savings is just made-up, and, to boot, the lawsuit filed by the Justice Department is “political retribution.” Seriously. Now, c’mon, did you laugh or not?

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No doubt about it — this Administration has a “boys club” at the highest level. And, if people feel so insistent that appointing Janet Yellen to head the Federal Reserve Board will be important to righting that balance, by all means, pick her. But, do not mistake that calculation with making a choice in policy differences.

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This “garment” comes cheap to billion-dollar corporations like Wal-Mart — a $45 million outlay to cover up safety and health in factories in Bangladesh. Cheap. At the cost of more human life, you can bank on it.

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Desperation clouds judgement so a lot has slipped by on the habits and beliefs of the Washington Post savior, Jeff Bezos. One thing you should know: he hates taxes. With a passion.

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Some of the worst bastards in the free market are coal company operators. I remember, back in the 1980s, the support lots of us gave to the strikers at the Pittston Coal Company and the guys running that operations were scum, too. So, here’s a little news from the mines.

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For a very long time, I’ve pointed out that the little fish get charged with crimes while the big fish get away. Drum roll please…we have another example in the House That Jamie Dimon Rules, JPMorgan Chase.

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What else needs to happen before Jamie Dimon loses his job as CEO of JP Morgan Chase? Forget putting him in jail — I’ve given that up. But, when does the litany of lawsuit and criminal investigations add up to enough reasons to boot the guy? And so here is a new reason.

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Ah, The corporate bag of rhetorical nonsense. The gift that keeps giving. As in, we get to starve people by impoverishing them when they work for us because actually we’re such good people — we give jobs to teenagers. You’ve probably heard of that argument by the fast-food industry…hey, you may have gotten that loud of bullshit yourself when you had one of those jobs. But, it is bullshit.

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It would be a great day if just once — just once — the bankers who caused financial mayhem ended up in jail. That’s not going to happen in the latest charges leveled against Bank of America because the charges are civil, not criminal. But, for now, we can feel a smidgen of glee.

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Here is a good example of making sure the frame of a discussion is pretty narrow. And, in this case, it’s an omission that is worth hundreds of billions of dollars.

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