the banksters

This may be the year when we finally come face to face with ourselves; finally just lay back and say it – that we are really just a nation of 220 million used car salesmen with all the money we need to buy guns, and no qualms at all about killing anybody else in the world who tries to make us uncomfortable. - Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail, 1972

The Good Doctor was a prescient s-o-b. While not many understood the above thought in 1972, almost forty years later, it might as well be inscribed on the flag. If you watched the Financial Commission yesterday, you couldn't escape the feeling you had walked onto a not very reputable used-car lot. Lloyd Blankfein is one of those guys who look you in the eye, by no means squarely, to see how much of his bs you are buying. Lloyd's a used-car salesman in a nicer suit.

Little old lady, "Well Mr. Blankfein it seems like its a very nice car, but I've never heard a clanking coming out of an engine like that."

Lloyd: "Oh, that was a feature on this model. That clanking let's you know the engine's running well, when you don't hear it anymore, then you know you're in trouble. And, we have this little insurance policy, fifty bucks a week, we'll come pick you up wherever you are when...err I mean if, the clanking stops.

Lloyd was feeling his oats so thoroughly by the end, he had this to say, "The derivatives market worked better then we had a right to expect, it was lucky." Yeah Lloyd, you could even say it was god damn fortunate that your predecessor at Goldman, Hank Paulson, was Treasury Secretary and could shovel 13 billion of taxpayer money to Goldman to pay-off AIG's derivatives. Lucky indeed!

Oh Bubba, ain't we better than this? Football season is almost over, and that marks five years since the Good Doctor quit making rounds. He his missed. If you paid too much attention to the political class over the last few decades, the Doctor was a great reality check. He never averted his eyes from the maladies and diseases gone hyper-malignant in the American body politic, and that's dark dark stuff. Self-medication, humor, and action were the Doctor's prescriptions. He was an increasingly rare breed. He was a remnant of the old republic and I can count on one hand the others I've met over the years. He was a citizen. Back when the hippies were turning on, tuning in, and dropping out, he ran for sheriff of Pitkin county Colorado. The incumbent sported a crew-cut, so Hunter shaved his head so he could refer to him as, "my long haired opponent."

"Don't be greedy." Those were the words scratched on the pad on his desk. In his last piece, Shot-gun Golf with Bill Murray, he talked about taking in a round of his new game -- shot-gun golf. You're opponent tries to pitch onto the green, while with a shot-gun you try blasting it off. Ho, Ho, Ho Bubba, remember the Good Doctor's prescience. Do as he did, look straight into the darkness, and rage, and act!

If you can't think of anything else, run for office, any office.