We Are The 1%: Part Three

(John Paulson, hedge fund manager)

- made a fortune by deliberately setting up bundles of crappy mortgages, selling them to unsuspecting investors, and betting against them at the same time.

- way smarter than you.

- did nothing illegal, which is maybe the most amazing part.

- estimated worth: $15.5 billion

- do not deserve to be vilified for my success.

I am the 1%. Deal with it.

~~~

We Are The 1%: Part Two

(Herman Cain, Republican candidate for president. And look, he's black!)

I come from humble beginnings. I owned a couple of pizza joints and managed to make a bazillion dollars. Easy peasy. Anybody could do it. Racism never held me back.

If something is holding 99% of the people back, it's the complexity of the world we live in. So let's simplify things.

9-9-9.

What does it mean? Nobody knows.
Will it work? Nobody cares.
Listen. It's simple. We can all repeat it over and over.

9-9-9.

Stop whining, pathetic losers. Get off the streets, open a pizza joint, and move up in the world.

And in conclusion:
9-9-9.

I am the 1%.

~~~

We Are The 1%: Part One

(Stephen Hemsley, CEO of UnitedHealth)

I am 58 years old.

Made nearly $102 million last year, but only $1.3 million of that was salary. Could you live on a measly $1.3 million? Me neither.

If Obama increases my taxes, I may not be able to afford my $37 million corporate jet. I'll need to scrimp in order to pay the property taxes on my $6.6 million home.

Oh wait. What am I thinking? My company has a virtual monopoly in at least 12 states. We'll simply raise the health insurance premiums for all of the little people.

Problem solved.

Quit blaming others.

I am the 1%.

~~~

Worth 1000 words

From a union solidarity protest in Chicago, today ... (Democratic Underground)

Tired of overpaid teachers?

(typical teacher)

Note: I think the following post originated on Facebook. I took it from Democratic Underground.

~~~

Teachers' hefty salaries are driving up taxes, and they only work nine or ten months a year! It's time we put things in perspective and pay them for what they do -- babysit!

We can get that for less than minimum wage.

That's right. Let's give them $3.00 an hour and only the hours they worked; not any of that silly planning time, or any time they spend before or after school. That would be $19.50 a day (7:45 to 3:00 PM with 45 min. off for lunch and planning -- that equals 6-1/2 hours).

So each parent should pay $19.50 a day for these teachers to baby-sit their children. Now how many students do they teach in a day...maybe 30? So that's $19.50 x 30 = $585 a day.

However, remember they only work 180 days a year!!! I am not going to pay them for any vacations.

LET'S SEE....

That's $585 X 180= $105,300 per year. (Hold on! My calculator needs new batteries).

What about those special education teachers and the ones with Master's degrees? Well, we could pay them minimum wage ($7.75), and just to be fair, round it off to $8.00 an hour. That would be $8 X 6-1/2 hours X 30 children X 180 days = $280,800 per year.

Wait a minute -- there's something wrong here! There sure is!

The average teacher's salary (nationwide) is $50,000.

$50,000/180 days = $277.77 per day / 30 students = $9.25 / 6.5 hours = $1.42 per hour per student -- a very inexpensive baby-sitter and they even EDUCATE your kids!)

WHAT A DEAL!!!!

Make a teacher smile; repost this to show appreciation for all educators.

Meredith Menden

~~~

What's another word for amnesia? I forget.

(five thirty is extremely early. which may explain why i am always late.)

I am SO sad that I haven't had time to blog lately! But of course, I am one of the lucky ones. I have a job.

Not that I didn't have a job before, but it was a self-employed job, which doesn't really count as a job because if you are foolish enough to be self-employed then you deserve to pay double taxes and outrageous health insurance premiums even though you are the embodiment of the supposed American Dream of self sufficient entrepreneur based small business ideal which unfortunately when you boil it right down means diddly squat.

Not that I'm bitter.

Anyway.

I've missed a lot, including the opportunity to rail against the Republicans who are now suddenly dead set against any deficit spending even though the current deficit can clearly be traced back to the Bush administration.Which, as I recall, was proudly Republican at the time.

Not to mention the Republicans who are now totally outraged about the push-back against the Arizona immigration bill, claiming that the federal government's inaction is to blame even though the Republicans are by any definition the inactive portion of the federal government.

Plus of course let's not forget the Republicans who are totally upset about the Gulf oil "spill" even though if we cared to connect the rapidly gushing dots, which they would rather not, those dots would form a straight line leading to some Republican leaders who shall remain nameless but whose names would rhyme with Mush and Brainy. Which is quite apt.

I wish I had time to elaborate. But I need to get up at 5:30 so I won't be late for work.

Let's just leave it at that.

~~~

Seriously hilarious news

(there's not a lot to laugh about these days)

Have you heard the news??

A gigantic underground volcano of oil is erupting, threatening at the very least the Gulf of Mexico and at the very worst our entire planet. Including me. This is not good.

Europe is in a financial crisis. Today, riots in Greece or a technical glitch caused by a Wall Street trader who was distracted by downloading the John Edwards video, nobody seems to know which, caused a 1000-point drop in the Dow Jones Industrial Index in just one hour. Yikes.

But I did find one headline that gave me quite a chuckle.

Here it is:

Fox Defends Michael Brown Interview: 'He's An Expert On Botched Responses.'

Yes, Fox News had Michael "Heckuvajob" Brown on TV the other night, explaining his theory that President Obama reacted "slowly" to the oil spill for political reasons. Brown is a credible spokesperson for incompetence, apparently. Hard to deny that.

Perhaps Fox News should consider some other guest appearances:

- They could have Joe Lieberman host a special show on How To Be A Loyal Friend.

- They could have John McCain explain How To Be A Maverick While Not Being A Maverick Who Ever Said I Was A Maverick?? Not Me.

- They could invite Sarah Palin to discuss job longevity.

- They could ask Dick Cheney to talk about the sneering, snarling secrecy, deception, and blatantly anti-constitutional actions of the Obama administration. Oh wait. They already did.

- I could go on and on.

Any other ideas?

~~~