Purgatory

You know, I had planned a serious, high-intensity, foaming-at-the-mouth rant for this evening. I was raging mad at AIG executives, raging mad at the murder of three Oakland police officers, raging mad the former vice president blathering on unchallenged and unintelligently in a CNN interview, raging mad at the fact that in a country that sells a spreadable blend of bacon and mayonnaise in a squeeze bottle, I can’t get a Cadbury creme-filled chocolate bar for Easter. But then the time came to commit all this rage to the ether and the desire just... fizzled. I think I’m suffering from rage fatigue. Being angry, all the time, and every single little thing to come across my metaphorical desk, is difficult. Takes too much work. The muscle-twitching, shallow-breathing, eyebrow-furrowing, fist-clenching, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week - it’s just not worth it. It’s a lot to put up with just to get another day older and high blood pressure. So, tonight, I’m going to make it (almost) all the way through this post rage free. This will probably be pretty short.

After seven days of hysterical “populist outrage” at all things AIG, it seems cooler heads will prevail in figuring out how to recoup unwarranted bonus money from employees of the company’s financial services division. Upon discovering early last week that AIG was using taxpayer bailout money to pay over $100 million bonuses to the very same geniuses who ran the company into the ground, both Congress and the media went into overdrive, each trying to prove they were more outraged than the other. At one point certain senators indicated executives should apologize to the public and either resign or commit suicide. The public roast of AIG made the automotive CEOs flying to Washington on private jets to beg for money look like girl scouts selling cookies. To hear the cable news talking heads tell the story one might be forgiven for thinking the Republic was about to grind to a halt. However, like most things in the nation’s capital, there was much more smoke here than fire. So, let’s get a few things straight.

First, there is a culture of excess on Wall Street that is difficult for most other people with jobs to understand. The very idea that someone should receive a multi-million dollar bonus for complete and utter failure is absolutely absurd. Unimaginable - everywhere but Wall Street. These jokers have an unlimited sense of entitlement. They believe it’s their world, and their money, and the rest of us just get in the way. And if you think a little hiccup like losing a trillion dollars on a bad gamble is going to change that attitude, you simply aren’t living in the real world.

Second, this idea being perpetrated by certain pundits that contracts are sacred and must be honored come hell or high water is ridiculous. Ask any United Auto Worker how untouchable a contract is. I’m sure they’ll be able to offer some enlightenment. The fact is that a contract is only a contract until the party with the most leverage decides that it isn't. When you receive a Citibank credit card, you agree to a contract that stipulated you will be granted the use of Citibank’s credit on the condition that you agree to repay the money you borrow on their schedule and on their terms. Citibank can - at any time - alter the terms of that contract, increasing the late payment fee, or adjusting the interest rate or changing the payment schedule. Once they do this, you have two choices. Sign the agreement accepting the new terms, or close the account and try to get credit somewhere else. Thanks to the incompetence of the very employees receiving bonuses for non-performance, the federal government now owns a controlling 80% interest in AIG. They hold all the leverage. The government is perfectly within its right to say to these idiots, we are not going to allow you to send the global economy into free-fall while you laugh all the way to whatever’s left of the bank.

Finally, we spent an entire week raging over $100 million in bonus money, when we should have been focusing on the hundreds of BILLIONS of dollars these vampires sucked out of the retirement savings of millions of people! I know that as Americans we love to pick out insignificant details and beat them to death in the news cycle while ignoring the big picture, but a little perspective on this matter wouldn’t hurt. Instead of wasting time trying to figure out how to recapture breadcrumbs, let’s figure out how to prevent people from stealing the loaf in the first place.

Four Oakland police officers were shot and killed as a result of a traffic stop gone horribly wrong over the weekend. Two motorcycle officers pulled over some jackass for what the police chief termed a “routine traffic stop.” The suspect shot both officers and fled the scene. He was later found hiding at a local apartment complex where he killed two more officers before being killed in a shootout with the SWAT team. It’s another in a long line of fatally violent incidents to rock Oakland in the past couple months. Turns out the shooter had an extensive criminal history and was in violation of of his parole for assault with a deadly weapon. Obviously this guy should never have been on the street. I know there’s a budget crisis in California, but maybe the state needs to concentrate a little harder on keeping actual menaces to society away from the public.

Mount Redoubt in Alaska erupted six times on Monday, sending plumes of ash 9 miles into the sky. Note to Governor Jindal; this is why we monitor volcanoes.

The University of Notre Dame extended an invitation to President Obama to give the commencement speech at graduation this coming year. Apparently, that upsets some Catholics. Seems they don’t like the fact that the President is pro-choice. They are so upset that several bishops have promised to boycott the ceremony while others have founded a website (when did the ultimate expression of outrage become starting a website?) demanding the invitation be rescinded. I like Notre Dame. My wife is a graduate of Notre Dame Law School, several of my friends either work there or obtained graduate degrees from various departments, and 75% of the office I work at is comprised of ND grads. But I won’t pretend to get it. Several years back, the school extended the commencement invitation to then President Bush, architect of two wars in which tens - if not hundreds of thousands of real lives have been extinguished. The aforementioned groups did not protest that invitation. Why are the lives of the born less valuable than the lives of the unborn?

Finally, in a tragically bizarre story, FAA officials are investigating the crash of a single engine aircraft that crashed into a cemetery 500 ft. short of the airport runway in Butte, Montana, killing all 14 people on board. This is just creepy. Who builds an airport right next to a cemetery.