What the bankers are doing to Detroit is criminal

Go read No Banker Left Behind at the NYTimes.  Let us recap, shall we?

The bankers, who had all of their bonuses protected and bailed out with our federal tax dollars when they blew up the world because people like Larry Summers argued that it was unfair to violate their compensation contracts, are bearing down on Detroit to pay outrageous sums of money on ill-advised derivatives transactions that will result in innocent Detroit municipal employees forfeiting up to 90% of their pensions.

I blame Obama.  Yes, I do.  If he had come into office committed to holding responsible the people who lied, conned and irresponsibly gambled away our money, we might well be on the road to real recovery right now.  Instead, he had people like Larry Summers and Tim Geithner advising him to go easy on the bankers because shoring up the banks was THE most important thing.

Screw everyone else.

What I really regret is that so many former Democrats went off in a rabid frenzy over some stupid birth certificate issue instead of focussing on the real offenses of this White House.  So much time and energy wasted over citizenship red herrings and vacations.  I’m not sure which is worse.  Stupid conservative leaning Democrats or banker lackeys in the Oval Office.

Whichever it is, Detroit’s employees shouldn’t have their lives ruined over it and I have yet to see Obama step up and prevent this unfolding tragedy from taking place.  Which only means one thing to the rest of us: if our own pension plans go belly up because of some stupid merger or incompetent pension fund manager or predatory bankers, we’re all equally screwed.  No one is going to step up and protect your deferred compensation for all your years of work.

The White House is just going to let the bankers drink your milk shake.

What’s wrong with these people, er, this picture?

Oo! Oo!  I know how to fix this!  Maybe we can take the fines from the banks like Chase, who now consider fines just protection money they have to pay so they can keep doing what they want, and use it to make Detroit solvent.  Or would we hear whining from Wall Street that it is unfaaaaair to redistribute our country’s tax dollars to the unworthy?

Assholes

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In another story of bad deed doing, Glaxo Smith Kline (GSK) is creating an international incident in China where it has been accused of bribing government officials and doctors with about $500 million in order to raise the price of their prescription drugs.  Note that it was probably the testosterone and amphetamine soaked sales department that came up with this brilliant idea.  Now, China is forbidding GSK’s finance director from leaving the country.  What a splendid idea!  Maybe we should send all of our misbehaving finance directors to China.  Derek Lowe has more on the story.

If I recall correctly, the GSK research site in Shanghai was also accused of some falsification of data that lead to publications being pulled from Nature.  Hey, the management in China wanted to show it could get publications in Nature so it did- by lying.  For a brief time there, the Shanghai site was probably held up as a model of research brilliance by the executive class to all of the other global, loser “centers of excellence” at GSK.  That ought to give the King of Prussia, PA site a nice warm and fuzzy feeling.  We shouldn’t be surprised by the China syndrome.  One of my Chinese colleagues told me that China wasn’t like the US in terms of business infrastructure and relatively low levels of corruption but that only time would prove to the executive class that China wasn’t ready for a world class research industry.

It’s also GSK that proposed to pay their scientists million dollar bonuses if a drug candidate goes blockbuster.  Read Derek Lowe’s post on the topic for a run down of why this is a phenomenally bad idea.

GSK, this week’s poster child.

America

I’ve been kind of depressed for the past few days. I think it is just the weight of the ugliness I have experienced during this endless presidential campaign. I’m sure a lot of you feel the same way. I love America with all my heart. I’ve lived in a number of places in this great country and have traveled to many others. Since I was a child, I have loved to travel by car. Now as an adult, I always drive everywhere–even if I’m going a long distance. I love to look at the countryside and to interact with other Americans along the way. I’ve driven from Boston to Albuquerque, to LA and San Francisco. I’ve driven all over the Midwest, up to North Dakota, Minnesota, across Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, New York, and Pennsylvania. I’ve driven down south to Florida, and made stops in Georgia, North Carolina. And of course I’ve driven all over the Northeast, from Maine down to NYC. America is a beautiful country.

Today while I was driving home and listening to NPR, a story came on about Jose Feliciano and his performance of the national anthem at the 1968 world series in Detroit. It was an amazing rendition of the anthem–probably the first time many heard it sung in a more informal, idiosyncratic style. It was beautiful, but many people thought that Feliciano was trying to make some kind of political statement. He wasn’t. He was just singing for his beloved country. When I heard him sing, I started to sob. His voice and the words struck a cord in me. I felt the deep love for America and Americans that has always been there. I also remembered another rendition of the National Anthem that affected me similarly.