Hi and Welcome

I've started this blog in response to some of the feedback I received while contributing to several threads on CNN relating to corporate malfeasance, bloated CEO pay, and the general abuse of the middle class by the now well-entrenched plutocracy. I am not sure what to expect from a blog, or what I'll achieve by starting one, but what I would hope to happen is to find that some of those people who had expressed such a profound distaste for what is taking place in America's boardrooms will discover each other here, express themselves, perhaps come up with new ideas with which to attack what has become a plague on middle America - the overpaid, underachieving CEO, and the cronyism that has permitted this creature to grotesquely transform from a relatively manageable beastie earnie 30x what the average worker is paid, to, in this day, a horrid and rather unseemly psuedo aristocrat taking home nearly 500x what the average worker is paid.



Even JP Morgan himself once declared that executives should earn no more than 20x the average worker as it was bad for morale to do so. Certainly JP, Carnegie, duPont, Rockefeller et al became fabulously wealthy robber barons, however they actually created industries. We face today a growing segment of the executive class who create absolutely nothing. They trade paper back and forth, they create derivatives upon derivatives, that, in the end, leave us with absolutely nothing of real value. The public ire isn't directed at the Bill Gates or Larry Ellisons of the world, it is focused on these snake oil salesman who have run amok peddling products such as credit default swaps, and collateralized debt obligations, which, at the end of the day, left us with absolutely nothing. Not a tangible good of any sort. Meanwhile, we watch as unemployment surpasses 10%, and the Dow sheds nearly half its value, as the Dick Fulds of the world smugly walk away with 500 million in compensation, Ken Lewis a 53 million dollar pension, and of course the list goes on.

I've entitled this first entry "Let Them Eat Cake". You probably already know this as a reference attributed to Marie Antoinette. Whether it be apocryphal or not, I really don't know. I do know that the story, true or not, describes pretty well what is going on now, and at the very least, serves as a good tale for what took place shortly before the French Revolution. The people in France were suffering, the elite were living immune to the suffering of the people, and when asked what should be done about the people's suffering, it is said that Marie responded, "let them eat cake". The point being, cake was well beyond the means of the commoner, and Marie already known as a voluptuary, was basically saying, "let them eat shit" for all she cared. I think many of us these days have felt as if we have been told that we too can eat shit for all anyone cares. And we too, would like very much to fit our CEO for a modern day guillotine.

One of the nice things of already having had both a very bloody Revolutionary War here in the States, and a French Revolution, is that we don't necessarily have to run around guillotining anyone. We can organize and mobilize freely, turn back the tide, protest, rally, vote from office those who refuse to represent 'we the people' and instead choose to represent the lobbyists rather than their consituents.

So, the night before Mike Moore's movie comes out everywhere - and whatever you think of Mike Moore, I believe his most recent film will serve as a decent primer for explaining the genesis of the crash and who played a large role in it - I am going to throw this blog online and my hope is to link up eventually with others who I know have similar blogs already out there, attract some of those who expressed interest previously, and perhaps build some interest from there and keep the momentum going.

TST