Monday, February 2, 2009

Sup Internet

It's been a while since we just, you know, talked. There are things happening in the world. Important things. Like TARP. And the Dollhouse premier next week. The remaining episodes of Battlestar. Bush (not the president) making a huge late winter comeback. There's probably other stuff in the world too but it doesn't directly pertain to me and is thus bad and stupid, so let's move on.

First, TARP. So like, wall street bonus + salary (total compensation) cannot exceed that of the president's compensation. That is to say that they cannot 400k per year. However, this is ignoring the perks and benefits of being president, as many of these are synthetically part of his "real" compensation. I thus present courtesy of DB:

Cash Compensation:
Salary: $400,000

Cash Subtotal: $400,000

Room and Board:
55,000 square foot mansion, in historic Washington, D.C.: @ $100/sqft: $5,500,000/yr
Personal Chef / Kitchen Staff: $300,000 / year
Other Servants / Attendants: $500,000 / year

Subtotal: $6,300,000

Discretionary Use Of Private Aircraft:
One of 2 Boeing 747-200Bs "Air Force One":
Annual Costs: 120 hours @ $65,000/hr: $7,800,000
Annual Costs: 700 hours @ $65,000/hr: $45,500,000

Helicopter Fleet:
Annual Costs: 50 hours @ $5200/hr: $260,000

Aircraft Subtotal: $8,060,000
Aircraft Subtotal: $45,760,000

Other Personnel:
Personal Driver On Retainer (Defensive Tactical Driving Trained) @ $300/day $109,500
Personal Body Guards 35 @ $500/day $6,387,500
Use Of Personal Car 60 days @ $2000/day $120,000

Personnel Subtotal: $6,617,000

Annual Benefits Total: $59,077,000

Four Years of Same: $236,308,000

Pension And Related Benefits:
Present value of Pension Benefits ($200,000 per year): $2,251,556

Total Benefits: $238,559,556

Average Annual Benefits: $59,639,889

I think this is quite a reasonable cap and I understand entirely if the American public is upset with compensation packages over 60M. I'm a man of the people after all. (This doesn't apply to you if you're fat, ugly, or not slutty)

Apparently, for some reason, people are mad that bankers and traders are getting, sometimes, large bonuses even if their companies redefine the idea of "devouring penis." Just because your company devours to the point of losing trillions of dollars, and just because tax payers have to bear the loss, does not mean you shouldn't get paid seven digits. Should that be "bear" or "bare"? I really don't know in this context. Although, in some sense, I feel both apply just fine.

Moving on from the glory that is rescuing bad companies so that bad bankers can still get laid, Dollhouse starts next week. This isn't terribly interesting except that I've wanted inside Faith since I was a young lad and never have been so jealous in my life as when she and Xander got it on. Pre-pirate Xander. The show looks increasingly bad/gay but I remain, something like hopeful.

There's also the new Battlestar. I don't know what to say. It's been gay until this most recent episode. I mean really really gay. Every episode has been a mix of guys crying and old people having sex -- two things I really can't stomach. Plus Starbuck has been basically all Emobuck and no Ragebuck and Helo has become a gay male blowup doll fit with like fifteen holes to accommodate the tentacles rape of cocks that his gayness now enjoys. If he doesn't start kicking ass again, I'm going to have to find a new imaginary 2guy-1girl threeway partner. Oh like you don't have one, fags.

And lastly bush. Has anyone else noticed this? Well, if you're reading my blog, probably not, but is this like a delayed Vanessa Hudgens effect? Racing stripes are cool, but aznbush is terrifying. Having to rinse and repeat twice has got to waste lots of extra time too -- I'm not sold. Bush seems like the new Uggs to me. =\

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

edit to ^: lol nvm.

i love dix

just like styx

Anonymous said...

Would it decreptify your site to say "first"




?

Don't say it just yet, think about the word.

kzn said...

i love you so much

Corey said...

It's bear. As in, bearing a load. Not bareing all for an audience to see.

Anonymous said...

Sure, episodes from 3.5 to the end of 4.0 have been tepid and lost all direction the show used to have. But can you honestly complain that the Oath (the lastest) wasn't bad ass? You got Kara going straight Chow Yun Fat while capping marines and saying, "I can do this all day." And Helo might have gone luke-hard recently, but it still took two rifle butts to the temple to put him down. I have faith that if his little girl catches a stray he'll bring the chrome anger.

Raddy said...

pretty is pretty what can I say

Anonymous said...

moar wow stuff plz

Anonymous said...

Wow nice last line. A bullshit fashion line? huge KY on that one.

Oppo said...

It's "bear."

As in "Bear Stearns"

Raddy, your leftist leanings are showing! Some peeps are gonna post a loss, period. But it's worth it to pay a $20m bonus to someone who can turn a $1b loss into a $400m loss. Minimizing the red is just as reward-worthy as producing the green.
Obviously not all these execs are the 80+-hours-a-week raging-boner-for-fixer-uppers that some companies have (rightly) paid high bonuses to, but at the same time, do we really expect to attract the best and brightest economic minds to come man the helms of our sinking giants for little to no compensation compared to what people of their qualifications can earn at non-bailedout companies?

Obama, however, knows the solution to the problem of finding willing CEO's for such a low price in a capitalistic market.

SOCIALIZE THE ENTIRE MARKET!

Yay for 'change.'

Illexial said...

High Water Jeans

White Reeboks

Wolf on my Shirt

Bright White Socks

Watch on my Arm

Strap for my Glasses

Kids better know that I"m noble like gases.

theo said...

faith is very hot

Oppo said...

Capitalism is self-correcting, man.

We should just reinstate waterboarding and torture specifically for use on Barney Frank and let the system fix itself.

Anonymous said...

"But it's worth it to pay a $20m bonus to someone who can turn a $1b loss into a $400m loss."

If it's "worth it" then why are these companies having to come crying to the taxpayer in the first place? Apparently it's not worth it in their business models.

"do we really expect to attract the best and brightest economic minds to come man the helms of our sinking giants for little to no compensation compared to what people of their qualifications can earn at non-bailedout companies?"

That depends, when were the boards of these companies planning on firing those who ran their company into the ground to the point at which they needed taxpayer cheese? Interlocking board of directors hmmmmmmm.

"Obama, however, knows the solution to the problem of finding willing CEO's for such a low price in a capitalistic market."

You mean investment concepts of getting in on the ground floor? Which company would be easier for an aspiring businessman to get the CEO position at, an already highly successful company or a company in the tank? If the businessman is already the CEO of a highly successful company, there is no motive for him to leave his position to go run the bailed out company. If the businessman is not, he'd recognize that if he's as smart as he thinks he is he could easily turn around the bailed out company, thereby no longer needing to accept bail out money, thereby no longer needing to accept a salary cap and making mad $$$.

Oppo said...

"If it's "worth it" then why are these companies having to come crying to the taxpayer in the first place? Apparently it's not worth it in their business models."

The trouble now is because of artificially imposed factors on the economy. People who had no business getting loans were getting them because the government decided house ownership was a right all people deserved, even those with no hope of ever paying back these loans. Many of the companies were FORCED to take bailout money. I repeat, FORCED. By the government. Forced to fail via artificial impositions and then forced to be bailed out.


"That depends, when were the boards of these companies planning on firing those who ran their company into the ground to the point at which they needed taxpayer cheese? Interlocking board of directors hmmmmmmm."

Boards shuffle execs all the time. Generally if someone is good enough to earn the spot, they are there because they produce results. The problem with the best damage control is that it is never seen.


"You mean investment concepts of getting in on the ground floor? Which company would be easier for an aspiring businessman to get the CEO position at, an already highly successful company or a company in the tank? If the businessman is already the CEO of a highly successful company, there is no motive for him to leave his position to go run the bailed out company. If the businessman is not, he'd recognize that if he's as smart as he thinks he is he could easily turn around the bailed out company, thereby no longer needing to accept bail out money, thereby no longer needing to accept a salary cap and making mad $$$."

This is why your reasoning fails:
We don't want "aspiring businessmen" at the head of our national giants. We want experienced, well-established businessmen. This isn't a test-run gauntlet for greenhorns with big dreams. The fact that you seem to want to attract some wet-behind-the-ears exec-hopefuls to these positions is scary. When Obama said he wanted to create jobs, CEO openings in the Forbes500 were NOT the intended area.

Anonymous said...

"Capitalism is self-correcting, man."

Capitalism tends toward monopolies and rampant, ever growing booms and crashes.

Oppo said...

"Capitalism tends toward monopolies and rampant, ever growing booms and crashes."

Those booms and crashes are actually correctors, but in most cases of free-market capitalism, it never gets that far. However, you shouldn't be expected to know that, as I doubt you've ever actually SEEN true capitalism in your lifetime. The government has it's hands in every cookie jar, and it's scary.

The crash we are experiencing right now, for instance, is a direct result of external government intervention a-la Barney Frank and artificially imposed(and compulsory) mortgage lending rates. A free market would never, under any circumstances, lend out to people who obviously didn't meet even the lowest credit checks. Any businesses that did would fail (and rightly so) for poor economic practices.

What Darwin didn't count on, though, when he wrote the origin of species, was unnatural interferance. What we have is the equivalent of aliens coming out of space, finding a prime predator and then cutting off it's claws and teeth.

An invisible hand is far more effective than an open hand full of bailout dollars ramming further deficit down the throat of a struggling economy.

AND MAKE NO MISTAKE:
In the economy Obama is setting up, there *WILL* be monopoly. It will, however, be government monopoly. VASTLY more scary than a corporate monopoly, and far less efficient.

Anonymous said...

JO OPPO ure like pretty smart bro!