North Korea appears to have a slightly different approach to financial scandals. Rather than handing out billions of dollars of public funds for bonuses and loans, North Korea just shot its top financial official. There appears less of an emphasis on recovery in this plan.
Pak Nam-Ki, 77, was taken to a military gun range and executed. He was charged by the Dear One “with ruining the national economy deliberately as the son of a big landlord who infiltrated the ranks of revolutionaries.”
The execution, if true, was an obvious selection of a scapegoat to deal with rising unrest among people over an economy that is turning into outright chaos.
I love the fact that “big landlords” remain a menace in the People’s Paradise. One would hope for something a bit more menacing than the evil landlord which sounds a lot like the alternative proletarian foes of “Grasping Grocers” and “Leering Librarians.”
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Paging Senator Dodd…………..
Gives new meaning to “the buck stops here” for sure.
Sounds like Just Punishment to me. You can steal a grape from a grocery store and be charged with an Habitual and sentenced to life. You can steal Billion and/or cause people a loss of millions or in my case Hundred’s of thousands and still remain CEO and President of the very same damned bank. Seems like just punishment to me.
Not that I am poor as I could be.
I’d love to see such practices adopted here. They may be “too big to fail”, but they’re not too big to die.
You’d see a lot less shenanigans being played with people’s retirement savings if the potential penalty involved an 7.62 round to the brain stem, I’ll bet.
Repage Dodd, I think I heard he was …..
rcampbell:
are you kidding me? I would have said paging Hank Paulson, but Senator Dodd works as well.
It seems we are agreeing more and more.
The moar you know:
they would be very low risk investments, probably a CD at about 2% or maybe some T-Bills.
Paging K Street. Will all lobbyists report to the front desk. Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em. It should be your last.
I understand that a .22 shot to the head works wonders. It is the weapon of choice for most doing that type of work.
Sounds like a fair approach.
No big loss … either there or, if legalized, here.
I highly recommend Michael Lewis’ “The Big Short” which allows one real insight into the gross stupidity of our financial “geniuses” still cavorting the halls of Wall Street and D.C.
Blouise:
I read a short essay about this a few months ago by an old timer from the 40′s and 50′s. His take on it was that the current crop of Wall St. types were long on ambition but short on ethics. He went on to say that in his day this sort of thing just wasn’t done because you were dealing with peoples lives. It was very interesting but unfortunately I cant remember the name of the guy or the article, it might have even been a TV interview but the gist of it was that Wall St. has lost their way and needs to relearn ethics and decorum.
Although I don’t think a .22 to the head is a good idea. Although supposedly Sun Tzu had remarkable results with that approach.
Byron,
I attended a baby shower a couple of weeks ago and one of the guests, a young woman, in her 30′s, introduced herself and in the course of small talk asked me what I did. I responded and then asked her where she worked. She hesitated for a moment and then, rather sheepishly, said that she was a banker. We continued talking mortgages, etc and I told her that years ago my father had told me that the monthly cost of a mortgage plus property taxes and mortgage insurance should never be more than 1/4 of my gross monthly income. I expected to see her nod in agreement.
Instead, honest to god, she looked at me with amazement and gushed, “My, what a good idea … I’ve never heard that before … that really should be the rule of thumb.”
I smiled, made my excuses, and walked away because I didn’t want her to see how her reaction shocked me.
Here was a banker who dealt with mortgages on a daily basis and the age old advice from my father was something she’d never heard before?
Where are these people getting their educations?
bLOUISE:
That is rather interesting. And your dad was correct. One of the problems is these young people getting “advice” from the young “studs” who just want to earn a buck but don’t think about what they are doing to the people buying the mortgage or as we have seen the economy as a whole. I think ethics in business is gone and no one cares about the consumer anymore. It used to be companies were afraid of bad press but they could care less as long as someone isn’t raped or killed.
I am closely tied to the construction and home building business and the stories I have heard are enough to turn your stomach. Sales people were pushed to put people into houses that they knew they could not afford and greedy purchasers bought these huge homes with the idea of flipping them and making a bundle.
It was a tripod of greed and exploitation from everyone from government to wall st. to main street. And I hate to say it but I think it was all done consciously by the Bush Administration to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And Alan Greenspan was the one allowing it to be done. He also should have known better.
And I don’t say that lightly as a long time former republican.
This was not capitalism and it was irrational as well.
Bryon,
I also worked for a while in the building industry (sold brick and block to masons, builders, and their clients)back in the 80′s and I remember when developers started selling homes by first sending the buyer to a “second mortgage” lender to help fill out the 20% needed to go see the “first mortgage” lender.
I thought people were crazy to go along with such a scheme but as time went on, more and more buyers went that route in order to purchase a more expensive house … and the builders laughed all the way to their next BIA convention in Vegas.
In 2003 I knew four couples who had three second mortgages that were used to help get the first mortgage … but it was no longer the builder making the arrangements … the banks did it.
I don’t see a problem here. Well, OK. There was no mention of a cigarette or a mask.