2008 Bullshit Awards

Multivariate analysis of exit-polls indicate this is a shoe-in to win:

“Collectors actually care about consumers,” said Rozanne Andersen, general counsel of ACA International, the main industry trade group. “They want to teach consumers how to get out of debt. They’re trying to put themselves out of business.”

So the industry is trying to put itself out of business? lol Are the people running the debt collection agencies aware of this? Apparently not, as the next paragraph illustrates:

If so, they are doing a poor job. So many people are in so much debt that the government says bill collecting is one of the fastest-growing businesses. By 2016, employment in it is projected to exceed half a million workers, up 23 percent in a decade.

Instead of making the big loan sharks pay, the US has once again decided to squeeze the middle class yet again. Brilliant strategy.

“Why not set an example of Bear Stearns, the guys who have this record of dog-eat-dog, we’re brass knuckles, we’re tough?” asked William A. Fleckenstein, president of Fleckenstein Capital in Issaquah, Wash., and co-author with Fred Sheehan of “Greenspan’s Bubbles: The Age of Ignorance at the Federal Reserve.” “This is the perfect time to set an example, but they are not interested in setting an example. We are Bailout Nation.”

We are? We bail who out? Not the hardworking people that need it most (unless you work at the Big 3, but that's technically a buyout). You know who's not affected by any of this? The super-rich. I love the false precision here:

“When a yacht is over 328 feet, it’s so big that you lose the intimacy,” says Tork Buckley, editor of The Yacht Report. “On the other hand, you’ve got bragging rights. No question, that’s a very strong part of the motivation.”

Yes, if the yacht is 327 feet, it's extremely intimate (like a twin bed). However, at 329 feet, you lose sight of the bow over the horizon, and so it becomes far less intimate (like a king bed). I am so glad I have 'experts' around to tell me how to judge mega-yachts - I'd feel so lost in my overwhelming debt without such guidance.

So the lesson is: if you are rich or powerful enough, you can make any excuse you want and people will buy it. If you're one of those unfortunate "little people" who have to pay taxes and fend off debt collectors, your excuses fall on deaf ears. Whether its financial markets or the environment, everyone knows there is no reward in leading by example. So people shy away from doing so at every opportunity.