Beauty how they initially spelled f*cker wrong, eh?

I love it

That's horrible!

Ha ha ha. Suicide is funny!

i reckon

NICE!

Just had a friend kill himself over this mess. Funny indeed.

the gov't gave 85 MMMMMMMillion to AIG to avoid bankruptcy and their execs head off to a 440K pleasure retreat...nice.

always nice to know what our money's really paying for.

Apparently someone decked the CEO of Lehman Bros. the other day. As one of the few conservatives here, I must say I'm appalled that someone would do that.

He should have beaten the fucker to death.

Not to be to picky but that's 85 BBBBBBBilllion to AIG for the bailout. It makes me feel better since the 440K seems a lot smaller in comparison.

On a less sarcastic note, do people really kill themselves over events in their life or is depression the most common underlying cause? I have been fortunate to never experience that level of desperation so it makes me wonder.

Decades ago I worked two years for a financial company that became part of the Shearson Lehman American Express conglomerate. Ha ha, great corporate economic wizard businessmen, this old hippie is still around and you're not.

I think depression is a much more understandable cause of suicide than money. I can't fathom someone being so caught up in money that they consider it a determining factor in whether to live or not, but I suppose that's why I've never pursued it in the first place.

That's the great part about having little. Little to loose. Financially that is.

Lack of money often causes depression, based upon the false assumption that money creates stability, which is tied to our false sense of an impregnable ego.

Money can create stability, but it can also go away in an instant. If our sense of self is so wrapped up in the identification that "I am my money" and nothing more, then that shifting paradigm can be difficult, to say the least, to accept.

This is where the depression and hopelessness creeps in.

Common responses include things like: "I just don't understand this world anymore." "It's like the world I grew up in just ceased to exist."

If the world as you know it ceases to exist, then it follows that you probably can't find a safe place in it, possibly leading to annihilation anxiety, which leads to thoughts of suicide.

It's a real paradox--a necessary paradox, perhaps--that our culture places so much emphasis on stability, not just in markets, but also in humans in positions of leadership, when the reality is, quite possibly, exactly the opposite: impermanent and ever changing.

If we were better equipped psychologically to accept an ever changing, unstable environment, perhaps these swings wouldn't cause folks to make rash decisions based upon paradigms that fundamentally remain in flux.

My whole point, I guess, is that you can really exchange the concept of MONEY in the original, for anything. If we are so wedded to the idea that dogs define who I AM, and then dogs go away, a great deal of suffering usually follows.

(a funny thing, when typing dog, i mistakenly inverted it not once, but twice! seriously...)

I'm going to drink beer and have some laughs.

No way, Danny's taking the side of the Wall Street fucks. You could knock me over with a feather. Personally if a some regular Joe Six-Pack, as Sarah Palin would so charmingly refer to them as, killed themselves over losing their job or their retirement. I would definitely feel badly in that instance. If we're talking about the top CEO's and CFO's that ran these companies and this country's economy into the ground. All while divesting their companies of $450 million for their own cushy retirement. Than in that case I would love to see them as grease spots on Wall Street. Problem being this would only come as an act of desperation of them being afraid of losing their money or going to jail. I can't imagine a single one of them would do it over not being able to handle any feelings of guilt. And I would imagine that the maker of the sign was referring to the Richard Fuld's of the world and not some poor low level schlep working at Lehman Brothers or AIG.

chad...i got that about two seconds after i hit enter. meh. it was early and i hadn't had my coffee...

ANYhoo...even though the jokers involved weren't technically a "part" of the "section" or "branch" of AIG, it's still despicable.

Face it, the "free market" certainly isn't "free" as far as the vast majority of us are concerned for the simple fact that we are left to pay for the mess left behind...and as a result we're rapidly moving toward a situation that no democracy loving conservative would wish upon his enemy: Socialism.

Yeah chris. I really took a side there. Read into much?

And of course the Fuckers in Congress ask, "how high?"

And on financial crisis-related suicides...

Sick. We live in a sick, sick system. And zra, what, exactly, is so horrible about a system based on compassion, equality and real social and economic democracy?

ig, keith olbermann brought the 90 year old woman's story up before railing on Sarah "The heels are off and the gloves are on" Palin for about 10 minutes in a recent op-ed.

checked it on youtube

umm...i did say democracy lovingconservative, didn't i? i have no problem with Socialism.

my point was that blind faith in and abuse of the "free" market and an overzealous need for deregulation have forced us into government intervention of private finance.

Suicide would be funny if Danny did it. First time ever he'd be funny.

Suicide would be funny if Danny did it. First time ever he'd be funny.

Ouch. In my face.

Ouch. In my face.

The scene with the suicide squad in "Life of Brian" was funny.

Suicide is a long term solution to a short term problem.

Ve are the Judean People's Front. Crack suicide squad. Suicide squad! Attack!

"He who owns little is little owned." — Henry David Thoreau
Seems relevant.

Great quote, Bev. When I was a backpacker/hitchhiker/drifter/slacker, I definitely "felt" the most free. A state to be missed, for sure. Maybe again, someday.

Actually, FOR SURE, again, someday. Wind in my face confirms...

For better or worse, we own much more than we realize.

How many people have killed themselves because their needs have not been met in this cut-throat economic system? The stock market is a casino, and anyone who kills himself after a bad day at the casino is competing with a lot of non-gamblers for our pity. Millions of starving people around the world is not a crisis. Global warming is not a crisis. Now that the parasites on Wall St. and the richest 10% of Americans are losing money we have a crisis. Cry me a polluted,privatized river.

three words:

Privatized Social Security.

As In: Bush's fervent push to "privatize" social security to make it available for stock market play...

I'm thinking that there could be any number of conspiracy theories to come out of his (Dumbya's) attempt to privatize.

Subject to consider:

Would now we be any better or worse off had SS been privatized, and people allowed to invest that money in a manner of their choosing?

zra,

I think you forget whose money it was before it was stolen from your and my paycheck. Who worked to earn that money?

If you should wish to smoke it, wipe your ass with it, or gamble it in either the casino or stock market, that is fine because it is your money.

Every decision you make has consequences. You can't legislate away stupidity. You can't regulate away greed or foolishness. They are inherent to humans.

Please don't tell me you are counting on Social Security for your retirement income? That Ponzi scheme is likely to collapse long before you retire. And when it does, you'll be last in line to collect any of it.

not quite, AJP, though I see where you're going...
However, you completely missed the point of what I was getting at.

Would we be better or worse off if Bush had been allowed to place our Social Security into individual private trusts to allow us to invest that money as we wish? Meaning...could the economic collapse have been averted because of this, or would we all have lost what little money we would be entitled to as a result of it?

basically: to what effect?

My point is that it doesn't really matter. You have already lost that money. The government has stolen that money before it even got to your hand.

I wish they wouldn't steal it in the first place. But if Unca Sam is going to fuck me no matter what, I'd at least like a choice in how. You know, maybe I could negotiate a reacharound or some lube or at least not take it in the face.

Privatizing social security would result in the following:
1) a sense of ownership which would mean more people would act responsibly toward their own retirement accounts.

2) honesty. The government couldn't hide the money as easily. What rate of return are you getting from SS? Don't know do you.

3) Your contribution would go to YOUR account instead of into a pyramid scheme that pays the current elderly.

You ask: "to what effect?" Even with the latest stock market crash, if you had a DIVERSIFIED retirement portfolio, your account would be doing OK. Not great, OK. But when the economy turns around, your account could be doing better than OK. Even with the various cycles and crashes, you would do better with a privatized account compared to the current system.

Again I don't like that they steal it in the first place. Fucking FDR

AJP: If you hate govt. and taxes sooooo much, why don't you put your money where your mouth is. Quit paying your taxes. And, while you are at it, quit using ALL public services. If you need to go somewhere, don't use our roads. If you are the victim of a crime, get a gun and settle it yourself. If your house catches on fire, I hope your garden hose is long enough. Oh, unless you are hooked up to municipal water, because that'd be cheating. And I hope you went to a private K-12 school, because I don't relish the thought of having paid MY share of YOUR education.

Timmy,

Your theremin is out of tune and your strawman lacks vigor.

What a complacent punk rocker you have become!

I'd rather have 5% of my social security put into AIG when it was $85 dollars a share. Even now when it is $2.00 a share I would still have more money than social security will pay me. I find it funny how baby boomers have raided the coffers of Social Security since JFK and now they expect full benefits and are not willing to compromise on lower benefits or partial privatization so younger generations can get even a fraction of their benefit. I think it is time to put that generation out to pasture before their greed and arrogance completely destroy the country (If its not too late already). It's amazing that a generation that still feels that it is so great is mostly responsible for taking down the greatest country in history in the short span of a few decades. I hope they had fun.