The Huffington Post provided audio of James Gorman, co-president of Morgan Stanley, in a conference call saying
"There will be a retention award. Please do not call it a bonus. It is not a bonus. It is an award. And it recognizes the importance of keeping our team in place as we go through this integration."
The payments being calculated based on performance numbers from 2008, to ensure an increase in the size of the awards.
"I think I can hear you clapping from here in New York," Gorman snarked, oblivious to the disservice occuring to you and I. Meanwhile, taking our tax dollars to provide these awards to people who make more money in one year than many of us will make in our lifetimes. "You should be clapping because frankly that is a very generous and thoughtful decision that we have made. We spent a lot of time kicking this around. We could easily have done it from the point of closing, which is obviously going to be somewhere in the latter half of this year or around the middle of the year. But we just decided... that it was right thing to do, to give you that certainty that it would be based off '08. '09 is a very difficult year... So that degree of anxiety, which many, many of you have emailed me about... is now off the table."
While I'm cuting corners and clipping coupons. Saving all I can because I keep watching my once healthy 401K dwindle and diminish, like a cancer patient in his last few days...gasping for air.
I don't want to end up like Henrietta Hughes. I mean, sure it seems to have worked out ok for her now, but jeez! She lived in her car...with her son.
That's not supposed to be my country. But the other day when Wifester's cousin was here visiting us from Ohio, as we drove home from a trip downtown, we drove through an underpass and there were men sleeping under the bridge. In the winter, in Nashville. I felt bad. Not that I've never seen them before. Nashville's had homeless for a long time. But there's more now than ever before, and they are in areas that you never saw them in before.
I was almost one of them. Seriously. Almost one of them once. Its so easy for it to happen to you before you even realize it. One day I'm living my life, paying my rent, stretching my dollars to make ends meet when all of a sudden I wake up to my partner gone, my transportation -gone, my savings - gone. An explanation that she's in love with my boss. My boss... consider how difficult that work situation became. It didn't last long. And neither did my funds nor my ability to support myself. I found myself at the mercy of friends who graciously took me in and helped me out until I could get back on my feet. But I know that not everyone has that luxury. In fact, had I not been able to travel the 2,800 miles to reach those friends, I would have been on the streets within another 2 days. That's no lie and no exaggeration.
How did I get out of that ditch? Help from friends. Rehab. Detoxing from that smorgasbord of chemical substances really helped a lot. And therapy. I became very introspective and studied my life, my patterns and my behaviors.
I wonder how many of these people could get a home and possibly even some help for their problems, to rehabilitate them and help them become productive citizens again on just one of those "awards?"
I don't really care what they call it.
Bonus.
Award.
Corporate Greed.
A rose by any other name? That ain't no rose, let me tell you... and sweet is NOT how I'd describe what I'm smelling...
Which all has me playing Ani Difranco's Serpentine over and over and over again in my mind.
If you don't know the song, here's the lyrics, and you can listen to it here:
pavlov hits me with more bad news
every time i answer the phone
so i play and i sing and i just let it ring
all day when i'm at home
a defacto choice of macro
or microcosmic melancholy
but, baby, any way you slice it
i'm thinkin i could just as soon use
the time alone
yes, the goons have gone global
and the CEOs are shredding files
and the democrins and the republicrats
are flashing their toothy smiles
and uncle tom is posing for a photo op
with the oval office clan
and uncle sam is rigging cockfights
in the promised land
and that knife you stuck in my back is still there
it pinches a little when i sigh and moan
and these days i'm thinkin i could just as soon use
the time alone
cuz all the wrong people have the power
of suggestion
and the freedom of the press is meaningless
if nobody asks a question
i mean, causation by definition
is such a complex compilation of factors
that to even try to say why
is to oversimplifly
but that's a far cry, isn't it dear?
from acting like you're the only one there
unrepentantly self-centered and unfair
enter all suckers scrambling for the scoop
exit mr. eye contact
who took his flirt and flew the coop
but whatever
no matter
no fishin trips
no fishin
cuz mamma's officially out of commission
and did i mention
in there
somewhere
did i mention
somewhere
in there
that i traded babe ruth?
yes, i traded the only player that was bigger than the game
and i can't even tell you why
cuz you'd think i'm insane
and that's the truth
and the music industry mafia is pimping girl power
sniping off their sharpshooter singles from their styrofoam towers
and hip hop is tied up in the back room
with a logo stuffed in its mouth
cuz the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house
but then
i'm getting away from myself
as i get closer and closer to home
and these days i'm thinkin
i could just as soon use
the time alone
an i must admit
today my inner pessimist
seems to have got the best of me
we start out sugared up on kool-aid and manifest destiny
and we memorize all the president's names
like little trained monkeys
and then we're spit into the world
so many spinny-eyed t.v. junkies
incapable of unravelling the military industrial mystery
preemptively pacified with history book history
an i've been around the world now
and i can see this about america
the mind control is steep here, man
the myopia is deep here
and behold
those that try to expose the reality
who really try to realize democracy
are shot with rubber bullets and gassed off the streets
while the global power brokers are kept clean and discreet
behind a wall
behind a moat
and that is all
that's all she wrote
an my heart beats an sss o o o sss
cuz folks just couldn't care care care less less less
as long as every day is superbowl sunday
and larger than life women in lingerie
are pouting at us from every bus stop
shelovesme shelovesmenot shelovesme shelovesmenot...
and "big government should not stand between a man and his money"
cuz "what's good for business is good for the country"
our children still take that lie like communion
the same old line the confederacy used on the union
conjugate liberty
into libertarian
and medicate it
associate it
with deregulation
privatization
we won't even know we're slaves
on a corporate plantation
somebody say hallelujah!
somebody say damnation!
cuz the profit system follows the path of least resistance
and the path of least resistance is what makes the river crooked
makes it serpentine
capitalism is the devil's wet dream
so just give me my judy garland drugs
and let me get back to work
cuz the empire state building
is the tallest building in new york
and i always got the feeling
you just liked to hear it fall
off your tongue
but i remember my name
in your mouth
and i don't think i was done
hearing it close to my ear
on a whisper's way to a moan
but pavlov hits me with more bad news every time i answer the phone
so i play and i sing and i just let it ring all day when i'm at home
a defacto choice of macro
or microcosmic melancholy
but baby, any way you slice it
i'm thinkin i could just as soon use
the time alone
© 2003 ani difranco / righteous babe music
Photo by Wifester
This is her new batch. These are whole wheat, spinach and herb. She LOVES them. They were supposed to have bacon, but well, lets just say that didn't quite work the way I wanted it to.
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