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I think I am a bad person
Posted by Stillthinking • 4/23/09 • Subscribe to this Discussion [RSS] • Report This Topic
Topics: economic anger, economic meltdown, freddie mac, personal responsibility
I think I am a bad person. When I heard that the CFO of Freddie Mac hung himself, my first reaction was "OMG" then my second reaction was "Good riddance."
I am pretty vocal about my flaming hatred of CFO's and CEO's who deny responsibility for our current economic meltdown. I firmly believe that though they may claim that it was a few rogue traders and brokers that created this mess, they are lying to us to protect their own interests. For years, they padded their pockets and pursued lives of unparalleled decadence and material wealth by defrauding millions of Americans and the government.
Ultimately, it is the corporate officers that determine the practices and direction of any company and therefore, the corporate officers should be held directly responsible for any misdeeds and abuse practiced by anyone in their employ.
So, as terrible as it may be, I think that the unscrupulous financial managers, CEO's, CFO's, mortgage brokers, mortgage corporations, and insurance corporations that engaged in fraudulent and risky financial behavior (I am pointing my finger at you AIG) need to take a cue from the CFO of Freddie Mac and search their consciences.
How did you feel when you heard the news? Did you have the tiniest bit of satisfaction deep inside the darkest part of your soul?
User Comments
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Not being sad that someone is dead doesn't make you a bad person. Wishing someone would kill themselves or come to harm is slightly questionable...but still doesn't make you a bad person...People have bad thoughts, it's recognising that they are bad thoughts that makes you a-ok!-
There is something more there though. I think feeling satisfied that someone was in such despair over their part in this mess that they hung themselves, shows a lack of empathy on my part and more than streak of vindictiveness. That makes me feel a little dirty.
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Everyone is like that...it's animal instinct.
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Unless it was murder, there were an awful lot of convenient "suicides" after the Enron debacle. -
Ah yes, Enron's CEO conveniently died before sentencing. What really bothers me about that instance, is all the money the government spent prosecuting him only to have the conviction vacated due to his "death".
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Yeah and this guy "killed himself" before he could even be interviewed
archives.cnn.com/2002/US/01/25/enron.suicide/index.html
I think with scandals of this magnitude that are also quite political you have to keep an open mind.
When men who have shown themselves to be have no discernible morals suddenly acquire them and decide to kill themselves. -
Then again, you can see their suicides as their ultimate selfish act. Abandoning their families and refusing to accept responsibility for their actions.
What they did was cop out. -
Yeah that's very true.
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Now why would an Enron executive be committed to suicide if the majority of Enron’s Securities and Exchange Commission filings were destroyed when World Trade Center building 7 came down on 911?
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OMG. Enron was the corporation behind 9/11. Enron was in cahoots with Al Queda. I so get it now.
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Really? I admit I tend to have more of a "coincidence theory" mindset, but I'll try to keep an open mind on this one
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejjySUVOGKA -
This is your theory Harvey.
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Well,I'll admit, I tend to see coincidences everywhere. I'm working on it...
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coincidence... right O_o... Bin Laden... Oil... Energy Companies... Haliburton...
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I feel sorry for the guy's wife and especially for his six year old child.
You're not a bad person. These guys destroyed a lot of lives, and it's natural to feel intense anger.
www.charliehiphop.com/credit-card-reform-obama-
I do feel sorry for them, but then again I don't. My father went to prison when I was eight years old, completely shattering our family. My mother lost everything she had and was forced to send my infant brother (and myself) to live with grandparents while she lived out of her car. She had a nervous breakdown and subsequently, my grandfather had a stroke as a result of stress.
I can pretty much guarantee you that his family will survive this better than my family survived our catastrophe.
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To quote the Bard, "If you prick us, do we not bleed...if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?"
Your reaction is quite human - it is difficult to relate to the CFO as an individual human being. As an abstraction, the role he represents, he did terrible damage to a lot of people - so it's not terrible to identify the man with the job he did.
Before you beat yourself up - think about how many people have lost their jobs and are losing their jobs, and how many of them are hungry, homeless, cold, and perhaps even committed suicide - partially because of his incompetence and greed. While he no doubt had a family and people who cared for him, at least we have some idea that he had a conscience. Perhaps that actually makes him better than most of his ilk.-
See that's what bothers me. I don't feel sorry for him and I am not REALLY beating myself up. I feel like I should be more empathetic, but I just don't have it in me.
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Perhaps you ought to reflect on what on an empathetic person you are because you deride yourself on lacking empathy in a situation you logically feel requires it. Not everyone gets to that stage.
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I think what bothers me about this whole thing is that this kind of thought contradicts my own vision of what kind of person I want to be. I want to be kind. I want to be empathetic, but clearly, I have a ways to go.
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Empathy at all times can be harmful, just as bitterness at all times can be harmful.
Everything has a balance. The fact that you're discussing it now indicates you have somewhat of a balance, and are working on it.
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You also need to remember that the news reporting has a big impact on the way you feel about these people. They've been demonised by the press and as far as everyone is concerned they are just 2-dimensional hate figures. After reading about how evil they are for ages you're not going to suddenly feel deeply sorry for one of them when he does what everyone has been saying (jokingly or not) that they should do... don't worry about it.
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Hmmm. Maybe. I'm not really worried about feeling sorry about them. I am a little concerned about what that says about my character, but I will get over it.
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Well, if you find yourself day dreaming about how he met his demise, or about helping others of his ilk to meet theirs, you might have a problem to work on.
I think it's both sad and telling that he committed suicide. Although we can't actually pin point any particular trigger as the cause of such an act (Who knows, he could have had other problems that we don't know about). But perhaps, it's the stress of knowing and being responsible for what happened, and what has been happening for ages that finally broke him.
We don't know that, and I would actually feel very bad if his responsibility in all this was the cause, because that indicates to me that he figured it out, and felt terribly bad. I wish more of them would figure it out, and initiate changes rather than kill themselves. Do you understand what I mean?-
Perhaps the most maddening thing about the entire credit crunch is that a lot of the "mistrust" which is gumming up the financial system would disappear if people would speak to each other and be honest. Because of the competitive nature of the system, and the dog eat dog ethos of the exchanges, they won't.
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See, that is the proper reaction. Not feeling vaguely satisfied. It would be nice if they suddenly all had a change of heart about their culpability in all this, but that won't happen.
I firmly believe that he killed himself not of guilt over what he had done, but out of the knowledge that he had no way of rescuing himself from this mess. He didn't feel guilty for his part because he probably doesn't feel any responsibility for what has happened. I really truly believe that people who were rewarded for greedy fraudulent behavior are never really sorry for what they did. They are sorry they got caught doing it. -
@ Green I agree.
@Still - I don't feel satisfied, but then again, I don't really feel anything. SO I dunno, is it better?
If he did kill himself as the easyway out of the mess, I'd feel a little bitter. -
I don't dream about their demise, but I have had fantasies of leading an angry mob in pelting stones at their limousines.
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Oh I've absolutely had day dreams about holding them accountable. But so long as you're not dreaming about physically hurting them or killing them, I think you're in the clear
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Doesn't this fall into the same populist mob anger as the AIG bonus brouhaha and the tea party protests? Anger over the financial bail outs? -
Yes, and I am thoroughly ashamed of falling into the same bucket of BS as the libertarians and Republicans.
Now, that was genuine remorse. -
Yes and no.
Everyone is rightfully angry about the economic situation right now. Most people are quite unhappy about the bailouts - but many of those who are unhappy about it understand why it's being done the way it's being done.
There are loads of people who are (and always have been) mad about taxes - and you have a new group now who are just now mad about taxes.
Then you have groups just jumping on the bandwagon 'coz they're just mad, and they don't know why, or who to be mad at - so they just join in. -
Ah see, I fall into the category of it's patriotic to pay your taxes. I think it's unfair I pay a higher percentage of my lowly salary in taxes than Donald Trump, but I don't object to the overall concept of taxes in that I also believe that there are certain services that we pay for.
Anok, don't get your panties in bunch over this. I know you see all sorts of issues with that statement. -
I am for the bailouts for the purely selfish reason that we came damn near a total systemic meltdown of our economy that would have dwarfed the Great Depression and because I don't want my businesses to fail. It's completely based on self-interest.
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I feel the same way about the bailouts. My industry (construction) is paralyzed right now due to the frozen credit markets. If banks would start lending again, I may have a possibility of getting another job.
I admit, purely selfish reasons. -
Nothing wrong with that! But I also think that selfishness is driving the general populist anger against taxes/the bailout. It's hard for people to understand something this complex, abstract and esoteric. All they see is higher taxes down the road and their hard earned money going towards something that feels like pounding sand into a hole. The quid pro quo relationship that comes with investing into the public commons is a tough thing to sell.
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You're not a bad person. I, personnally, feel nothing for him or his wife. I feel bad for the child. The child is the only innocent and won't understand why daddy did this thing.-
I think my sense of "justice served" is coming from having been unemployed for 4 months. I need something to focus my anger and frustration on.
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Here you can at least giggle your frusteration away. Takes time to load up though. dance.michaeljackson.com/
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AWESOME! Hilarious! Though, I am not quite sure how to get any points in this game. Is it like dance dance revolution?
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the direction of the arrows on screen is the button you need to hit. You need to be fast though. I've never played dance revolution.
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I don't get it. I did that, I still didn't get any points.
*looks ashamed* -
I think when the arrow is close to his waist I just got 550 but I was pushing buttons like a maniac.
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No, that doesn't make you a bad person; while I don't go around wishing certain people would commit suicide, I think it's natural to feel relieved that someone who has ruined so many lives is gone.
I know that in most states the death penalty has been abolished but when a criminal goes under the needle, the families of that criminal's victims don't have to feel guilty for being satisfied that that person is gone; at least by committing suicide before sentencing, the man stops costing the state money for being kept in jail.-
I don't feel guilty about it. I wish I felt guilty about being vaguely satisfied over this outcome, but I don't.
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we are all bad-
How so? Please clarify.
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I don't think it makes you a bad person at all. I think it makes you human. -
It sounds crazy but I only really looked at it to see how it would affect Fannie Mae the sister company to Freddie Mac. I have been following the stock since it was at it's low. -
From everything I've read about David Kellerman, it seems like he was one of the good ones. He worked his way up in the company and worked hard for the company. He killed himself because he really cared about Freddie Mac and just couldn't handle what happened. -
Did he skillfully commit suicide by shooting himself twice, like Gary Webb?
projectcamelot.org/webb.html-
How on earth can a ruling of suicide stand if he needed to re-cock the gun to shoot himself a second time in the head?!
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Admittedly, it takes some skill.
Could Freddie Macs CFO also have been quite skillfull?
rattube.com/2009/04/22/freddie-mac-cfo-suicide-by-hanging-or-gunshot-wound/-
Maybe it's like 'Murder on the Orient Express'...
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I hear that Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, and AIG are going to be rolled up into one big banking/insurance conglomerate known as Nannie State
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Okay, yes, you're a bad person. -
Yup.. U R right
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hmm lets see... you're not bad... I day dream of the day my life hits rock bottom so i can purchase a rifle, and put a few slugs into each and everyone of those CEOs CFOs
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