9 Responses to “Take a Bat to the M-F-ers!”

1. Martin Breen | October 24, 2009 at 6:36 pm

   This guy has one hell of nice swing. If the MLB players channeled this type of anger they may not have had to resort to steroids. It is kind of weird that there’s no outrage out there– people get more upset when their internet goes down.

   BTW — I am pretty sure I saw this guy on the “Cops” Bakersfield edition last year.

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2. RT Carpenter | October 24, 2009 at 11:26 pm

   Matt–Thanks for your hard work! The conspiracy of Wall Street/Treasury/Fed has been going on in our faces for over a year. Yet the strongest condemnation is “Greed”. Please! These are massive swindles. The cash gifts are only the beginning. Americans are now cosigners for trillions in potential derivative debt.

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3. Martin Breen | October 25, 2009 at 5:50 pm

   No bat but here’s my rant — 2 paragraphs at a time:

   Money for Nothing

   I remember when I was twelve and I got my first newspaper route. I worked something like 20 hours a week and got paid $10 – 12 bucks a week (not much even by those standards) if the tips were good. But to me that $10 bucks was everything. I quickly realized that the more I worked, the more I made. The nicer I was, the more tips I received. The more efficient I was in assembling the paper and the faster that I pedaled, the less time I spent on my route and the more time that I could devote to my real love, baseball. What a great lesson in capitalism. I remember one particular rainy day when I was bemoaning the fact that I had 46 papers to deliver in the pouring rain, and my Father would not drive me, he told me that you don’t get “money for nothing.” My Father went on to say that “in America, we work hard for our money, and we’re proud of that fact.” This sense of pride, the American work ethic, would serve me well as I entered college and ultimately, the workforce.

   But I am afraid that it is this sense of pride, the American work ethic, that is missing today. Quite frankly, I do not believe that many Americans want to work hard for their money. Instead, I would suggest that a certain level of entitlement has crept into our psyche that is completely contrary to the origins of this great country. I call it the “money for nothing” economy. Americans that expect to make a certain level of living, regardless of the value that they provide. It is this mindset, whether it is demonstrated by a Wall Street Banker or the Octomom, that makes me believe we’re headed in the wrong direction.

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4. Martin Breen | October 25, 2009 at 5:52 pm

   Rant (continued)

   Some examples are in order. The Wall Street banker who wants to make millions even if they have not made you or me one cent. As the AIG bonus fiasco so clearly demonstrates, paying people huge sums of money to lose money is completely absurd. You could also make a strong argument that while Wall Street plays an important role in lending and raising capital in our society, it does not actually create the jobs or the things that we produce. In other words, Wall Street is only the means, not the ends. Real businesses, like Ford, Caterpillar or a local manufacturing business — those that create jobs — truly provide value to America. Yet, Wall Street pays itself so handsomely that you would think their all 3rd baseman’s for the New York Yankees. To make matters worse, in the last ten years, they have done nothing but shuffle papers around, selling the same crummy mortgages, over and over again. In fact, the derivate market grew to $68 trillion, which is two times the size of the U.S. Stock Market. You do not need a Nobel Prize in Economics to know that this defies common sense.

   Adam Smith once said, “The real price of every thing, what every thing really costs to man who wants to acquire it is the toil and trouble of acquiring it.” Put simply, Mr. Smith espoused that the value of an exchangeable good or service is equal to the amount of labor required to produce it. Classical economic theory is that you should get paid a day’s wages for a day’s worth of work (I am simplifying). And, in America, this worked for employer and employee alike (with a little help from the Unions) as the middle class grew to epic proportions.

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5. Martin Breen | October 25, 2009 at 5:56 pm

   More rant:

   I mean do you remember when sales folks used to take pride in saving you money? Now, it seems like everyone just wants to rip you off and they don’t care if you know it. Clearly, something happened between the Chia Pet (if your under age 35, google it) and Youtube and profit became a drug. Instead of CEO’s making ten times the average worker (in the 70’s), they started making four-hundred times (in the 90’s) that same worker. The profit drug became an addiction and not only did they want millions when they were making money but even when they weren’t.

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6. Martin Breen | October 26, 2009 at 3:21 pm

   Final rant:

   Moreover, company after company began raising prices despite the fact that they did not provide any more value to the customer. Consider the Airlines, now they charge you a baggage fee, meal charges, pillow fees, all, made-up fees that used to be part of something called your airfare. Did they provide you any more value? And, other industries are not much better. If UPS and FedEx and the cell phone companies want more money (and they always do), they create phony fees, like a fuel surcharge, or an environmental fee, an administration fee or even a cancellation fee. None of these charges were real or provided you and me any more value. And, this mindset even trickled down to the working class, as mechanics and laborers started demanding fees in excess of their value. I mean how many times do you go to an auto repair shop and these guys just seem like they charge you whatever they want. We truly became a money for nothing society.
   This must change if we’re going to turn things around. Value must be restored to its rightful place – as a foundation of capitalism. Look around your neighborhood and see what we manufacture or produce? We haven’t made anything in quite a while; we seem content to be a “service” economy – where we just push papers around — where we all just feed on ourselves. It’s like a giant ponzi scheme with no one actually creating anything. And, thanks to Madoff, we all know how ponzi schemes turn out: One guy gets rich and everyone else loses they’re life’s earnings.

   So how do we fix it? We let capitalism punish those that took excessive risk. We ask questions. We stand up in boardrooms and say that CEO’s don’t need to make $50 million a year. We become politically active. We refuse to pay a fifty dollar baggage fee. I know you think you don’t have any power but you actually have all the power – you just haven’t exercised it yet. Indeed, our greatest weakness, consumerism, may also be our greatest strength. Remember, you vote every day with your dollars — Just like every vote counts so does every dollar.

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7. Kevin | October 27, 2009 at 10:20 am

   Matt,

   Just discovered your blog, but read your articles on the financial crisis in RS awhile ago. Great, great stuff!!!

   A note to Martin… it’s not the CEOs we need to impact, it’s the sheeple. If the sheeple would act – rather than whine – we could change things in a week.

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8. David | October 27, 2009 at 12:24 pm

   Matt,

   You will LOVE this:

   The Greatest Theft in History – Wall Street Economic Death Squad – Part II (Video)
   http://ampedstatus.com/the-greatest-theft-in-history-wall-street-economic-death-squad-part-ii-video

   Reply
9. The Most Awesome Financial Commentary Ever | Awkward Press | November 2, 2009 at 7:29 pm

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