About ready to riot!

[mnn2300]

Its carp like this that people protest about. We have to bail them out because of their poor business practices, yet the top execs are getting multi-million dollar bonuses. These guys should be in jail, instead they're taking even more taxpayer money for themselves!

Fannie, Freddie executives score $100M payday post bailout

Mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac received the biggest federal bailout of the financial crisis. And nearly $100 million of those tax dollars went to lucrative pay packages for top executives, filings show.

The top five executives at Fannie Mae received $33.3 million in 2009 and 2010, while the top five at Freddie Mac received $28.1 million. And each company has set pay targets of as much as $17 million for its top managers for 2011.

That's a total of $95.4 million, which will essentially be coming from taxpayers, who have been keeping the mortgage finance giants alive with regular quarterly cash infusions since the Federal Home Finance Agency (FHFA) took control of the companies in September 2008.

When does the insanity end?

finance.yahoo.com/news/fannie-freddie-executives-score-100m-105300790.html

[rvm45]

Are the people ready to riot?

I don't dispute it, but I just don't know.

If the passage of GCA '68, or more recently, The Hughes Amendment, didn't inspire the Folk to rise up in Armed Insurrection, its hard to see how this Trivial Bullspritz about the Economy will.

But then again, we live in interesting times...

.....RVM45

[patience]

I doubt if anyone around our neck of the woods is ready to do any rioting. They seem to be pretty solid sorts. But I wouldn't bet against trouble in the cities. A lot of people are being squeezed pretty hard by the economy.

If the Food Stamps ever stop, or Unemployment, or SS stop, it WILL hit the fan--no doubt in my mind. Makes me glad we live 'way out in the sticks. Hopefully, far enough to NOT hear the noise.

[rvm45]

Seriously, riots seldom happen when its cold.

Jobless loiterers are reluctant to get too far from the fire barrel when its in the twenties.

(Not making fun of Jobless, but when jobless, many do tend to hang out--why not?--and historically, folks have tended to hang out around fire barrels in winter, in the big cities.)

They used to talk about "A Long Hot Summer" meaning a good hot Summer mixed with riots.

Before Air Conditioning became so common, people slept poorly in the hottest months. Think about the old Summer Rooms, screened in Porches in the back of the house, where folks moved their beds in Summer; and the big old heavy-duty exhaust fans that used to be common.

Poor people often had neither Summer Porches, nor much money to spend on fans.

People tend to be more irritable in the Summer--particularly in the "Dog Days" of August (the very hottest days of Summer--once thought to drive Dogs Rabid). Not only was August the hottest, but the Weeks of poor sleeping tended to be cumulative.

Nowadays, even most poor people have Air Conditioning and the hottest days seem to come in July, with August being somewhat milder--but then Summer seems to hang in through September, even a week or two into October (Weather wise, they haven't changed the Equinoxes, obviously.)

As things get tighter, folks will probably be doing without AC much of the time. As they get worked up.....

If the Economy continues to stall until May or June--start looking for riots then. Of course, if it gets worse--which it may very well.....

Another thing--If OWS continues to have a Nominal Presence through Winter, they could serve to Jump-Start Insurrection.....

Or they could act as a Pressure Release Valve, making it harder to build to critical Pressure.

This doesn't fully apply to warm areas like California and Florida--but it might keep a bad uprising from spreading.

.....RVM45