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Excerpt from Wikipedia:
Chairman and CEO Kerry Killinger had pledged in 2003 "We hope to do to this industry what Wal-Mart did to theirs, Starbucks did to theirs, Costco did to theirs and Lowe's-Home Depot did to their industry. And I think if we've done our job, five years from now you're not going to call us a bank."
Killinger was the CEO of what used to be Washington Mutual. It's been five years, and yes, we cannot call them a bank anymore, now can we? No, we call them a total trainwreck, upside down, smoking just off the rails of finance. And they are not alone.... Long years ago, Merle Travis penned a song that became a hit for Tennessee Ernie Ford, the clasic Sixteen Tons. In the song, it details life in the pre-union coal mining era:
You load sixteen tons, what do you get
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store.
Well, guess what? We all do.....now. Well, well and well. As a follow-up to my little nasty about our beloved gubnor Mark Sanford, I now present the following follow-up on our contiuing saga that we might well entitle...As The Republicans Burn...
It's sad as well as funny, yes... End of election, yes; end of Palin, no. There's a certain mindset out there in the la-la land segment of America that Ms. Palin is the be-all, end-all, know-all, save-us-all of the future. Take John Jr. and Patsy. Got to hand it to El Oxycondo: He's consistant about certain things...about being totally wrong, and in this case, oh, yes, someone lend him some tin foil....he sure needs it!
More after the break... As the New Year approaches, most of us get some degree of nostalgia, or mild regret masquerading as nostalgia. And I started thinking, Whatever Happened to....the Project for the New American Century (PNAC)? For a group of well funded heavyweights dedicated to creating something very like an American empire, the Project for the New American Century has been MIA for a few years now. So what's up, PNAC? Why the lack of swagger and propaganda power? How do you make religious attendance (going to formal religious services) sound more important to the well being of children than it might actually be? Try discussing the religious factor in combination with family stability, underemphasizing some info while overemphasizing other info, and comparing detailed statistics on religious attendance in general terms to unrevealed data on other factors like poverty. Put it all together and you have a statistical study of the role of religion and family stability in child behavior released just last week. Ah, yes, our beloved idiot governor, Mark Sanford(Fascist) is against the idea of SC borrowing funds from somewhere else. In fact, he's against about any kind of help imaginable.
Makes one wonder: Will these lead to an impeachment, we hope, we hope? Just like I said, what, how many times in the past, here? Seems I'm not the only one who is calling this "economic downturn"....the beginnings of Great Depression Rev 2..
More after the break... Absent Second Life, I would not know Eshi Otawara. But here I am, using the immersive virtual world that bundles all our Web 2.0 tools. While Second Life doesn't exactly allow me to see the world, certainly I get to know people -- and there endlessly interesting internal landscapes -- from around the planet. Which is how I come to know Eshi. Eshi would rather be known as an artist than one of too many casualties of the cruel, absurd and antiquated U.S. immigration policy known as the "widow's penalty." Increasingly, though, she is known as both. Friends and admirers of her wide range of graphic art (costumes, artifacts and temporary installations) are rallying 'round. |
