how many times can I say “I was right”…

Now folks who know me understand I have a GREAT distaste for Wall Street. I’ve been at several mismanaged companies, all with leaders from various top schools that churn out, IMHO, unqualified MBA’s (UPenn, Harvard, Yale… etc.) Reading this, after this years long line of failing bank and finance news, just has me shaking my head as to how the royal fuck can these people ever be trusted again. 

As I can say, and Dan may dispute, I’ve run a company for about 10 years now. While not fantastically, but it’s still around and still generating money, and, luck willing, finally with a net zero (to plus) balance sheet by the end of the year. We’ve (read: “I”) have made some shit financing choices, as I’m sure to agree to that, for various things, but the two principals have agreed that, in principle, it’s worked out somewhat. We both haven’t drawn a salary, but we’ve had some perk otherwise not usually afforded. I’ve been slow with the business paperwork, but it eventually gets done (it’s not my day job, so thtppppt!).

Anyhow, I didn’t go to business school, nor did I get any training. My dad has  side business raising tropical fish (which is pretty much another way to fiddle with income taxes) and my grandfather has had his cabinetry business going on almost 70 years now. My grandmother, who’d never really done business work before, did the books while my grandfather did the work. They’ve done well for themselves, enough so to send both of their sons to college, and for me, heh…, to become a spoiled grandson when I was younger.

Still, what I can’t understand, which is that these supposedly bright and brilliant people can singlehandedly utilize all the greed and lack of common sense to bring down the world’s largest and most prosperous economy without anybody 1) caring, and 2) noticing. Shit, isn’t this what we have the government for? WTF are we paying Congressmen and the rest of the government for doing, taking martini lunches and kanoodling with special interest groups. My uncle and father wonder why I’ve abandoned my party this year for alternates (read: independent), and I think of the two largest powerbrokering groups in the government, who’ve lauded over control of this fair land for 100+ years in their current form, only to see it fall into a morass that we see today.

Suffice it say, I’m not done bitching about politics, and I think the story cited above will truly get me running my “critique” blog in the next few days. As Paddy Chayefsky’s Howard Beale said in Network, “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore…” And, for me, that’s the exact sentiment I’m trying to express.

Tags: democrat, Politics, republican, SoundtrackNet