Dowd on Who Jesus Threw Out of the Temple
Mort Zuckerman
scientifi...@ostp.gov, pkru...@princeton.edu,
Stanle...@fiu.edu, emcsw...@niaid.nih.gov, afa...@niaid.nih.gov,
Spin...@yahoogroups.com, kshe...@calea.org, fit...@gmail.com,
patrick.f...@usdoj.gov, model...@sbcglobal.net,
jdr...@nejm.org, let...@courant.com, Jgerb...@cdc.gov,
michae...@po.state.ct.us, con...@po.state.ct.us, executive-
edi...@nytimes.com, managin...@nytimes.com, news-
ti...@nytimes.com, biz...@nytimes.com, for...@nytimes.com,
nati...@nytimes.com, dv...@cdc.gov, brigidc...@optonline.net,
tr...@hotmail.com, illino...@aol.com, jle...@courant.com,
tinaj...@yahoo.com, jhorn...@fff.org, thomas...@usdoj.gov,
thoma...@po.state.ct.us, kur...@washpost.com,
georg...@washpost.com, p...@allegorypress.com,
commissi...@po.state.ct.us, brans...@comcast.net,
vts...@comcast.net, o...@po.state.ct.us, freet...@charter.net,
scott....@po.state.ct.us, govern...@po.state.ct.us,
attorney...@po.state.ct.us, randall...@usdoj.gov,
Robert....@yale.edu, edi...@greenwich-post.com,
harol...@yale.edu, sedm...@nswbc.org, rrmcg...@aol.com,
fr...@nytimes.com, dpr...@stmartin.edu
Cc: fra...@ucia.gov, dr-ahma...@president.ir,
eugener...@washpost.com, afa...@niaid.nih.gov,
bmi...@newstimes.com, tr...@hotmail.com, rast...@aol.com,
billc...@gmail.com, amcg...@rms-law.com, rjmu...@aol.com,
paulcrai...@yahoo.com, sidney_b...@yahoo.com,
criminal...@usdoj.gov, karla.d...@usdoj.gov,
christophe...@usdoj.gov, richar...@yale.edu,
harol...@yale.edu, james.p...@yale.edu, inq...@aldf.com,
ly...@idsociety.org, meganm...@theatlantic.com
Subject: Dowd on Who Jesus Threw Out of the Temple
Date: Nov 11, 2009 6:08 AM
ARTICLE BELOW
================================
Yes, Ms. Dowd. And He threw out the CDC:
http://www.actionlyme.org/CDCS_PARTICIPATION_IN_LYME_CRIMES.htm
and the NIH:
http://www.actionlyme.org/MKLEMPNER.htm
and the FDA:
http://www.actionlyme.org/DICKSON_FDA_SUBMISSION_FULL.htm
and Corrupticut's electarded oppressionistas:
http://www.actionlyme.org/MARTIN_NINDS_MS_CHRONIC_LYME.htm
and He threw out the Corrupticut US-Justice
Department:
http://www.actionlyme.org/USDOJ_COMPLAINT_RICO.htm
and He threw out the Whorey-Glory obstructionistas:
http://www.actionlyme.org/CRYME_DISEASE.htm
He threw out anyone who processed and short-sold
a body for a buck:
http://www.actionlyme.org/andersonpenisbiter.htm
This entire country has been thrown out
of the Temple because of hypocrisy. But
particularly, because of our National
Cowardice, which is the source and the
essence of our hypocrisy.
Kathleen M. Dickson
http://www.actionlyme.org
================================================
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/11/opinion/11dowd.html?pagewanted=print
November 11, 2009
Op-Ed Columnist
Virtuous Bankers? Really!?!
By MAUREEN DOWD
WASHINGTON
The Great Vampire Squid has gotten religion.
In an interview with The Sunday Times of London, the cocky chief of
Goldman Sachs said he understands that a lot of people are “mad and
bent out of shape” at blood-sucking banks.
“I know I could slit my wrists and people would cheer,” Lloyd
Blankfein, the C.E.O., told the reporter John Arlidge.
But the little people who are boiling simply don’t understand. And
Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi, who unforgettably labeled Goldman “a
great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly
jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money,”
doesn’t understand.
Banks, Blankfein explained, are really serving the greater good.
“We help companies to grow by helping them to raise capital,” he said.
“Companies that grow create wealth. This, in turn, allows people to
have jobs that create more growth and more wealth. It’s a virtuous
cycle. We have a social purpose.”
When Arlidge asked whether it’s possible to make too much money,
whether Goldman will ignore the people howling at the moon with rage
and go on raking it in, getting richer than God, Blankfein grinned
impishly and said he was “doing God’s work.”
Whether he knows it, he’s referring back to The Protestant Ethic and
The Spirit of Capitalism — except, of course, the Calvinists would
have been outraged by the banks’ vicious — not virtuous — cycle of
greed and concupiscence.
Blankfein’s trickle-down catechism isn’t working. Now we have two
economies. We have recovering banks while we have 10-plus percent
unemployment and 17.5 percent underemployment. The gross thing about
the Wall Street of the last decade is how much its success was not
shared with society.
Goldmine Sachs, as it’s known, is out for Goldmine Sachs.
As many Americans continue to struggle, Goldman, Morgan Stanley and
JPMorgan Chase, banks that took government bailout money after
throwing the entire world into crisis, have said they will dish out
$30 billion in bonuses — up 60 percent from last year.
The saying used to be, whatever happens, the lawyers win. Now, it’s
whatever happens, the bankers win.
Under pressure from regulators, who were trying to ensure that long-
term performance was rewarded, the banks agreed to award more in
stock, deferring cash payments.
But as The Times reported this week, the Goldman executives who got
stock options instead of bonuses last year, at market lows, got a
windfall — so it had nothing to do with bank employees’ performance.
“The company gave its general counsel, for example, 104,868 stock
options and 14,117 shares in December, when the bank’s stock was
around $78,” Louise Story wrote for The Times. “Now the bank’s shares
have more than doubled in value, making that stock and option award
worth nearly $12 million.”
As one former Goldman banker told Arlidge, the culture there is
“completely money-obsessed. ... There’s always room — need — for more.
If you are not getting a bigger house or a bigger boat, you’re falling
behind. It’s an addiction.”
It’s an addiction that Washington has done little to quell. President
Obama has not been strong on the issue, and Timothy Geithner coddles
the wanton bankers whenever they freak out that they might not be able
to put in their new pools next summer.
The bankers try to dismiss calls for regulation as populist ravings,
but the insane inequity of it cannot be dismissed.
No sooner had the Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd
announced his plan to overhaul financial regulation Tuesday than
compensation experts declared it toothless.
The banks and their lobbyists wheedled concession after concession out
of Washington and knocked down proposed inhibition after inhibition.
Now the banks are laughing all the way to the bank.
“Saturday Night Live” was tougher on Goldman Sachs than the
government, giving the firm flak about commandeering 200 doses of the
swine flu vaccine — the same amount as Lenox Hill Hospital got — while
so many at-risk Americans wait.
“Can you not read how mad people are at you?” demanded Amy Poehler.
“When most people saw the headline ‘Goldman Sachs Gets Swine Flu
Vaccine’ they were superhappy until they saw the word ‘vaccine.’ ”
Seth Meyers chimed in: “Also, Centers for Disease Control, you sent
the vaccine to Wall Street before schools and hospitals? Really!?!
Were you worried the swine flu might spread to the Hamptons and St.
Barts? These are the least contagious people in the world. They don’t
even touch their own car-door handles.”
And as far as doing God’s work, I think the bankers who took
government money and then gave out obscene bonuses are the same self-
interested sorts Jesus threw out of the temple.
"[Real] scientists are *fiercely* independent. That's the good
news."-- NIH's Top Fool, Anthony Fauci