Thursday run around

A pot pourri of political and financial news today all spells disaster.

B of A is under intense criticism for its sports marketing deals. The bank's CEO says that for every dollar they spend on sports marketing they get back ten dollars in revenue and three in profits. But those are numbers and statistics and the people, all hungry for blood, aren't going to care. They know deep in ther dark places in their hearts that they only reason banks sponsor sports is so the fat cats in the three piece suits can hob-nob with athletes. They know from their own envies and jealousies that the bankers are just like themselves. They envy the wealth of the bankers and they know that the bankers envy the potency and grace of athletes, and love to have them nearby. Since the Caesars starting keeping gladiators around it has ever been thus. So nobody is going to pay attention to the real fact that sports marketing generates revenue. We want blood. We want vengeance. We want the suits to suffer. Sports and arts are frivilous and, in a down economy, are the first thing to go (well, after the rich).

Speaking of the rich, or formerly rich, Blackstone's estimated today that the world lost 45% of its wealth last year. Think of it. Bill Gates lost $18 Billion just by himself. Buffet even more. It doesn't put them in the poor house, but when was the last time you lost $18 Billion dollars? I know a few of you who have lost 40% of your wealth.

And Bernie Madoff got led away in handcuffs and taken straight to jail today, a dark hole from which he is unlikely ever to re-emerge. He is old and facing 150 years. Of course, it is not the deepest or darkest hole into which Bernie will be cast. That one still awaits him, and comes with free heating and a never ending supply of red hot pokers being shoved up his ass.