via Elizabeth Warren Talks Toxic Assets On MSNBC (VIDEO).

Really?

Who hands out $350 billion (that’s billion with a “B”) without usage and reporting requirements?

The population of the US is estimated to be 305 million. So that’s $1,150 per person being given to banks with no strings attached?

What am I missing? Surely governments don’t work that way. No government department I’ve ever worked with gave away money without usage and reporting requirements.

If I were Frank DiPascale, Jr., and I saw what was happening in the summer of 2008, I would have put aside perhaps ten or twenty million dollars very quietly and gotten the hell out of dodge. Same goes for Madoff, as far as I’m concerned. I mean, look at it this way: you’ve been a dirtbag for more than 25 years, a total, stone-cold crook taking the life savings from the wallets of the elderly, the charitable, your best friends and their families. Suddenly you don’t have the moxie to make a clean getaway? What gives? Why didn’t these guys run away? I sure would have. If I were Frank DiPascale, Jr., I’d be sunning myself someplace where the extradition laws were modulated by the friendly local constabulary, and all my new friends were calling me Pablo or Francois or Mr. Wemberly. But they all stuck around to face their victims and the wrath of a righteous public that now hates anybody that has money, even if it was legally obtained.

From the Huffington Post: Fortune’s Stanley Bing: One Big Question for the Madoff Gang.

Many companies that have gone bust didn’t die because of the recession. They failed for one reason: They treated customers poorly

I found the Circuit City salesperson to be so aggressively unknowledgeable and remarkably useless that I fled to Best Buy, where I was helped by a cheerful, 20-year-old twerp who knew everything. I later learned that in 2007, Circuit City had fired the chain’s 3,400 most experienced salespeople and replaced them with generic, untrained, near-minimum-wage workers.

The article contains a lot of other really good stuff, stuff we should all learn about, and ends with

Even as competitors like Circuit City go bust, B&H remains packed with loyal customers. And that makes me very happy. For a business owner, there’s nothing more satisfying than watching honest dealers expand their operations while the schmucks, with their going-out-of-business markups, go down the drain. It’s inspiring to know that starting with the premise of treating your customers well really does pay off.

via Why Circuit City Failed, and Why B&H Thrives, Managing Technology Article – Inc. Article.
(beware the obnoxious popunder – it doesn’t grok Firefox and messes with your keystrokes until you close it. Consider it a computer game, a little mid-day pastime. You have to close it quick before the javascript gets control and pops it under again)

The root cause of the world economic collapse was a socioethical malaise rooted in greed. Now it appears that this wasn’t limited to the financial sector.

via Elsevier published 6 fake journals :The Scientist [7th May 2009].

Suppliers may go bankrupt because of the bankruptcy filings above. Suppliers may hold off on shipping parts without assurances they aren’t going to lose money in the bankruptcy. Either action idles assembly plants, cutting off the cash flow the car company needs to emerge from bankruptcy.

Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal wrote:

Troubled U.S. auto-parts suppliers were dealt a new blow Thursday when Chrysler LLC said it will temporarily idle most of its manufacturing during the bankruptcy process starting Monday.

Along with lost production, suppliers are at risk of having their payments from Chrysler disrupted as the auto maker’s finances are managed in bankruptcy court.

Two suppliers on Thursday refused to ship parts to Chrysler, forcing the auto maker to close a Warren, Mich., factory ahead of the planned shutdown, Vice Chairman Tom LaSorda said in a conference call with reporters.

Chrysler’s move threatens to push many suppliers closer to bankruptcy, and could ultimately lead to disruption in the flow of parts to healthier auto makers

I’m glad someone is paying attention to this danger.

Links: Chrysler Shutdown Could Push Parts Makers to the Brink – WSJ.com.