Special Report -- Here's why I should start my own bank:
I appear very trustworthy and can project an image of calm reassurance that I combine with the illusion of giving a rat's ass.
You should see me when I'm wearing a suit jacket and without my body jewelry. Seriously, you won't know whether or not I mean what I say! If the bank venture doesn't work out I can apply my faux social skills to the restaurant or hotel industries.
Anyone who believes looks don't matter is a moron. Let's use Bernie Madoff as an example of public image eye candy. The guy is the financial investment market equivalent of a mass-murderer but he closely resembles George Washington. No wonder his clients never saw it coming. I wish I looked like someone popular or famous or printed on currency.
Commerce is not that hard to figure out. You scratch my back, I'll scratch my back.
If I "borrow" something from you, at the time I receive it I really, really intend to give it back. It's still yours -- you'll simply never see it again. When I ask my next-door neighbor if I can use his Husqvarna chainsaw, I always, well, almost never, return it. "Stealing" denotes acquisition through violence or sneakiness; "borrowing" is defined by unreasonable expectations of repatriation.
Listen, if I'm accumulating assets like cash and lawn care tools, I'm the guy who is hustling. It's not a passive enterprise! I should be compensated for my efforts. No one ever got rich sitting around in their jammies doing nothing, except for rich people sitting around in their jammies.
Why shouldn't I be paid money for acquiring money? Once it's my money I'll do any damned thing I want with it. What a robber baron I'll make. It'll be great.
Look at AIG. Paying bonuses to the account executives partly responsible for the company's distress is ballsy, but it's just so right. Television meteorologists, for example, earn a comfortable living making lame predictions that don't pan out very often.
Think of AIG Financial Products sales associates as weatherguys who failed to forecast Hurricane Katrina and yet were rewarded like the progeny of kings. Hey, they showed up for work and everything, right? They don't sound like losers at all.
I can't believe you loaned me a chainsaw with an empty fuel tank.
