Sad effects of the sinking economy

These are the kinds of things assholes like Bernie Madoff and his wife never bother to consider:

Aokigahara Forest is known for two things in Japan: breathtaking views of Mount Fuji and suicides. Also called the Sea of Trees, this destination for the desperate is a place where the suicidal disappear, often never to be found in the dense forest.

Taro, a 46-year-old man fired from his job at an iron manufacturing company, hoped to fade into the blackness. "My will to live disappeared," said Taro. "I'd lost my identity, so I didn't want to live on this earth. That's why I went there."…

How sad is it that an average person just trying to live their life ends up feeling such despair. And how infuriating is it that Madoff is whining about wanting to be in his $6million apartment until his official sentencing — as if anyone is stupid enough to believe he wouldn't skip town in a heartbeat. Let him rot, I say.

A.I.G. can bite me

From the NY Times:

The American International Group, which has received more than $170 billion in taxpayer bailout money from the Treasury and Federal Reserve, plans to pay about $165 million in bonuses by Sunday to executives in the same business unit that brought the company to the brink of collapse last year.

Word of the bonuses last week stirred such deep consternation inside the Obama administration that Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner told the firm they were unacceptable and demanded they be renegotiated, a senior administration official said. But the bonuses will go forward because lawyers said the firm was contractually obligated to pay them.

[ … ]

A.I.G., nearly 80 percent of which is now owned by the government, defended its bonuses, arguing that they were promised last year before the crisis and cannot be legally canceled. In a letter to Mr. Geithner, Edward M. Liddy, the government-appointed chairman of A.I.G., said at least some bonuses were needed to keep the most skilled executives.

“We cannot attract and retain the best and the brightest talent to lead and staff the A.I.G. businesses — which are now being operated principally on behalf of American taxpayers — if employees believe their compensation is subject to continued and arbitrary adjustment by the U.S. Treasury,” he wrote Mr. Geithner on Saturday…

Are you people for real? Why were no strings attached to the bail-out money? For crying out loud, politicians live on pork, there is NO WAY they couldn't have tacked on some conditions for how this money was to be used. If these so-called managers and corporate "leaders" had an ounce of dignity or compassion, they would refuse the bonuses.

Anyone think they will? Me neither.