Holiday Recipe for a Corporate Bailout
How Bear Stearns, Fannie, AIG & Citigroup Received Taxpayer Handouts
Nov 25, 2008
The American people have had to supplement Thanksgiving turkey, Christmas ham, Hanukkah latkes and Kwanzaa sausage gumbo with rice, with a foul tasting dish made up of corporate bailouts, gluttony and a side plate of avarice. Here is the recipe.
Ingredients
- 1 healthy American corporation
- 9-15 Board of Directors (preferably members of the same country club)
- Financial Regulations
- Politicians (if possible, non-regulatory demagogues - but any standard politician will do)
- A national or international bubble (housing, credit, stock crises or consumer confidence is fine)
- 1 arrogant CEO (self aggrandizing and incompetent if available)
- Several ingratiating managers (the more the better)
- Employees (disgruntled are best)
- Seasoning (hysteria, political fodder, golden parachutes, fear and mega bonuses)
Directions
Preheat the national economic oven to a bubble level.
Place 1 pre-made multi billion dollar healthy company into a thriving American community and press down along the bottom and all sides until firmly lodged into the surroundings. Sprinkle with the dysfunctional Board of Directors devoid of strategic plans. Make sure these are seasoned Directors capable of expanding, yet holding firm under pressure. Pinch and crimp the edges together to make a pretty pattern. Put the corporation back into the community to season.
Meanwhile, in a separate location, allow a generous helping of financial regulations to expire. Add political demagogues (found on right and left wing specialty store shelves everywhere) and cover tightly. Germinate until all barriers to rational regulations have been absorbed - set aside until needed.
Gather the corporate mixture and introduce one arrogant, yet incompetent CEO. Shake vigorously until all proficient managers have been removed. It is possible to separate those supervisors that remain stuck to the sides of the corporation, by using intimidation, forced retirement and redundancies until all have been expunged. Combine several helpings of sycophantic management teams while stirring with corporate losses. Gingerly blend in disgruntled employees, out of touch regulators, golden parachutes and mega bonuses until the mixture is completely rancid.
Place a small portion of the bubbles around the corporation mixture and put it into the preheated oven. Having removed fiscal regulations it is possible for the stove to easily reach bubble bursting temperatures. Be sure to keep the oven door to regulation tightly closed while propagating national hype about the bubble’s benefits. Wait until a bubble bursts. Remove from heat!
Slowly sprinkle the remaining economic bubbles onto the smoldering corporate mixture. Place a dash of hysteria over the concoction along with a healthy portion of political fodder. Bake until pieces of the sludge spill over the sides. Fiscal irresponsibility, greed and self-indulgence along with toxic assets and bankruptcies should rise rapidly – remove from heat and set aside!
Permit the CEO to escape the heat by piercing holes into the now case-hardened crust. It is mandatory that expanding unemployment be allowed to permeate the community, boiling out job security while tolerating only corporate graft. Place the mixture in a political environment and top with a vigorous dose of fear. Reheat and delay removal until economic, taxpayer funded handouts are poured into the waiting corporate shell.
Repeat often until the size of the help is maximized, the citizenry is numbed to the economic and human impact and a wonderful American style corporate bailout is attained!
Cooking Tips
It is possible to speed up the process by rapidly adding international interests into the economic oven; thereby, reducing the time needed to receive the future bailout. While international concerns will add flavor to the fear it is not necessary for a final tasty bailout.
- Cooking Time: a few months to several decades
- Difficulty: easy
- Serving size: feeds one large nation
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