We love our family and friends. But there are those who deliberately or by consequence enable the destruction of ourselves, our family and our friends. They may be many things but I call them villains.
Villains, ya gotta lovem. They give life contrast. They are the deadly frigid night sky against which the Savior's halo shines
Villains deserve a happy holiday too. Where would we be without the Scrooges and Grinches? Its not as satisfying to make our appeal for good will to 'persons' and peace on Earth, to people who already unselfishly work and sacrifice to improve conditions for more than just themselves.
So I sincerely wish a happy holiday to specific villains and generalized groups who spend their time trying to make this world a worse place but a better bank account and gated community for themselves;
First but in no particular order, Ben Bernenke, Time magazine's man of the year. Man of the year has been their gimmick for over 80 years. After all, Adolf Hitler was also TIme's man of the year.
The Fed under Bernenke and Alan Greenspan, Hank Paulson, Franklin Raines, James Cayne, Angelo Mozilo, Christopher Cox, Richard Pulo, Joe Cassano, Neal Kashkari, ...(the bankers who refused to go to the White House when President Obama summoned them to meet with the Banking CEOs who got TARP $ , but phoned it in instead... Phil Gramm - Phil said: "When I am on Wall Street and I realise that that's the very nerve centre of American capitalism and I realise what capitalism has done for the working people of America, to me that's a holy place.",
Merry Christmas to Bill Clinton, George Bush, "Hank" Greenberg of AIG, More on Alan Greenspan, chairman of US Federal Reserve 1987- 2006 Only a couple of years ago the long-serving chairman of the Fed, a committed free marketeer who had steered the US economy through crises ranging from the 1987 stockmarket collapse through to the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, was lauded with star status, named the "oracle" and "the maestro". Now he is viewed as one of those most culpable for the crisis. He is blamed for allowing the housing bubble to develop as a result of his low interest rates and lack of regulation in mortgage lending. He backed sub-prime lending and urged homebuyers to swap fixed-rate mortgages for variable rate deals, which left borrowers unable to pay when interest rates rose.
Billionaires George Soros and Warren Buffett might have been extremely worried about these complex products - Soros avoided them because he didn't "really understand how they work" and Buffett famously described them as "financial weapons of mass destruction" - but Greenspan did all he could to protect the market from what he believed was unnecessary regulation. In 2003 he told the Senate banking committee: "Derivatives have been an extraordinarily useful vehicle to transfer risk from those who shouldn't be taking it to those who are willing to and are capable of doing so".
Mervyn King, governor of the Bank of England Gordon Brown, prime minister
Abby Cohen, Goldman Sachs chief US strategist, Kathleen Corbet, former CEO, Standard & Poor's
The credit-rating agencies were widely attacked for failing to warn of the risks posed by mortgage-backed securities. Kathleen Corbet ran the largest of the big three agencies, Standard & Poor's, and quit in August 2007, amid a hail of criticism. The agencies have been accused of acting as cheerleaders, assigning the top AAA rating to collateralised debt obligations, the often incomprehensible mortgage-backed securities that turned toxic. The industry argues it did its best with the information available.
Corbet said her decision to leave the agency had been "long planned" and denied that she had been put under any pressure to quit. She kept a relatively low profile and had been hired to run S&P in 2004 from the investment firm Alliance Capital Management.
Investigations by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the New York attorney general among others have focused on whether the agencies are compromised by earning fees from the banks that issue the debt they rate. The reputation of the industry was savaged by a blistering report by the SEC that contained dozens of internal emails that suggested they had betrayed investors' trust. "Let's hope we are all wealthy and retired by the time this house of cards falters," one unnamed S&P analyst wrote. In another, an S&P employee wrote: "It could be structured by cows and we would rate it."
"Hank" Greenberg, AIG insurance group Now aged 83, Hank - AKA Maurice - was the boss of AIG. He built the business into the world's biggest insurer. AIG had a vast business in credit default swaps and therefore a huge exposure to a residential mortgage crisis. When AIG's own credit-rating was cut, it faced a liquidity crisis and needed an $85bn (£47bn then) bail out from the US government to avoid collapse and avert the crisis its collapse would have caused. It later needed many more billions from the US treasury and the Fed, but that did not stop senior AIG executives taking themselves off for a few lavish trips, including a $444,000 golf and spa retreat in California and an $86,000 hunting expedition to England. "Have you heard of anything more outrageous?" said Elijah Cummings, a Democratic congressman from Maryland. "They were getting their manicures, their facials, pedicures, massages while the American people were footing the bill." Andy Hornby, Sir Fred Goodwin Steve Crawshaw
etc to the 3 rd power...
Now all these and a hundred more of these Ultimate GOOD OL BOYS CLUB have collusion at the core of their crimes but then there are those who were private pirates and secret Rogues like Bernie Madoff and a couple other ponzi kings who the Good Ol BOys love to point and yell "Look at the REAL crooks! And they are Jewish to boot!"
Merry Christmas to tea bagging Palinites and foot dragging Republicans with no ideas but no.
Happy holidays to democrates who aspire to be mammals but remain intelligent invertabrates.
Happy holidays to the weapon importers and terrorists who kill at random in marketplaces or by design at a upscale western hotels.
Happy Holidays to Blackwater who became so infamous that they chganged their name to Z systems. It has now come to light that they trained their operatives by sending them out at night to murder innocent Iraqis as payback for 9-11 and to get a feel for the kill.
Season's Greetings to 2 mudcat contributors who go out of their way to hurt or slander well intentioned mudcat writers.
To all the talking heads who lie for cash and/or incite people to violence in the best interests of corporate executives and bank owning families.
Happy Holy Christ mass TO The whole wide eyed fear mongering evangelists at FOX like Glen Beck and the rest... Have a wonderful holiday at your resort or by your hearth and home / homes.
To all our favorite villains motivated by wealth or ego or both, may you get the world and happiness you deserve this holiday season and for years to come. If you're happy, we are happy for you. Suffering teraches valuable lessons (...see Judaism, Christianity and Islam) Exquisit suffering to come will not be possible without you.
In the spirit of new begginings and forgiveness, Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.
This rant was fun but don't you have a villain or two of your own??????????????????????????