I used to have a guilty pleasure show on HGTV (whose title will come back to me the minute I post this) about replicating some room that cost, oh, $50,000 for say $3-4,000. And it would have been one thing if the originals had been Ming vases, or Louis XIV beds, but they mostly seemed just expensive. I'd wonder what kind of idiot would pay $6,000 for the depression era mirror that you could find a lovely substitute for, at just $25.00. Now I know.

It has been no surprise that TARP has been a failure. The actions of the banksters receiving TARP money has been completely predictable and sickening to the most cynical of us. In India, these jackasses would be arrested. In China, they would be executed. In the United States, they get to buy fancy office furniture and corporate planes before the final blow that takes everything down.

I think that historians will one day describe the United States as a country that defeated fascism and communism and then, shortly after, self-destructed because of a blind faith in the reliability of unbridled capitalism.

Teddy Roosevelt busted the excesses of the robber barons; let's see what Obama can do.

And if I told you that the ex-Goldman Sachs CEO distributed hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars to his industry cronies without even asking for a receipt, would it seem more ludicrous than Thain's bonuses and decoration? The corruption piles so high that we may never smell again.

This is unbelievable. There is nothing normal about this. It reminds me of what happens in countries that are corrupt. You have the very rich... and then you have the poor.

When Wall Street is out to get some thing or some one they refer to it or them in slanderous conotations . a la liberal ! Social programs as "ENTITLEMENTS" . "lIBERAL PROGRAMS" . Take S.S. The GOP did not like that program when it was introduced and they have not changed their minds . The song they play is "it is in serious trouble" . In the 1860 the population of our country was around 40Mil . Today we are approaching 400Mil . An ever growing working population . an ever growing amount of money going in to S.S. . A growing population means that more people are born and immigrate to the USA than the amount of deaths . As long the USA has job increases to accomodate the new people S.S. can never be in trouble . Since R.R. laid hands on the S.S. money and included it in his budget to hide his deficit the GOP has lied and missled in their attempts to reduce the out flow of S.S. to hide over spending .

The repugs think it's fine to fund a bailout for Wall Street, so the CEOs can do this, but they're spluttering and splitting hairs over effing PELL GRANTS????

Puhleeze.

Show these losers the door.

Seriously, what the hell is wrong with our society today?

Tax these people! Tax them with a sliding scale so bigger earners still earn bigger buck and so the "capitalist incentive" remains, but if the top 0.01% paid, say, 70% income tax, how many schools could be built and properly funded? How many children could be properly housed and fed?

This crap is a crime, and so is the system that allows it.

"It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven."

- Tell it, brother. Jesus was the first Commie.

Look closer and possibly you will find he had a half-million dollar high-quality Bernard Baruch-style replica park bench installed in the office anteroom to promote his humility-cred.

John Thain, the recently fired CEO of Merrill Lynch, has been getting his ass handed to him here, there and everywhere around the blogosphere this past week, in the wake of revelations that, during a quarter in which the investment bank ended up registering a $15 billion loss, he accelerated the ahead-of-schedule granting of millions of dollars worth of bonuses to Merrill employees.

The accelerated bonuses were actually billions, with a b, from 2-4 billion as I understand. That's 2-4 million each for a thousand employees. I don't know if that was included in the $15 billion loss for the third quarter or not.

But the really incredible part about this is his explanation for those bonuses: In his business it is necessary to reward your best people, or they will soon leave for other employment. It was those "best people" who ran the company to the ground, so why was it necessary to reward them? If they were able to find other employment in the mess Thain and others created, let them; they could then ruin the other companies.

A more logical explanation is that it was really hush money.

The buyer, Bank of America, was aware of those bonus payments, made a day or two before the sale became final. But they did refuse Thain's request for a $35 million bonus for himself.

First, for anyone to tag this as a republican device in light of the fact that Obama is planning on running the printing presses at the speed of light, is a very mypoic view, I believe frogger wrote it.

A point worth making, though, is the hardship of students with loans and obtaining grants. How many students could have been helped as they try to better themselves? PLENTY just from Thains's office spruce-up.

As our leaders snuggle up with those who abuse the money system leaving more and more hard working Americans near poverty with over taxation and declining wages, it should be clear there will be a breaking point. When it comes, watch out.

I would not be surprised to see some pretty radical push back in the future from those who become completely disenfranchised and marginalized.

We can't go on this way. I could care less what they do with money legitimately earned, but this high-end entitlement better end up becoming a criminal act. I can't imagine an economically starving public accepting much more of this without terrible backlash.