Wednesday, May 05, 2010

Wall Street Douchebags are ready to tear up Main Street

The election of Barack Obama in 2008 has really led to an explosion in chain e-mails, one that might suggest the wise investor buy stocks in a company like Cisco whose products are part of the infrastructure of the Internet that keeps our inboxes stuffed with gems about 'Obama is a Secret Muslim, the Angel Of Death Is Nigh', or 'Obamacare mandates taking over kids' summer camps to turn them into death camps for Grandmas', or 'ACORN is going to take your gun and give it to a Mexican with syphilis'.

In this tradition, we have the hate mail (this article refers to it as an 'Angry Class-Warfare Email') from an anonymous trader who is NOT going to be made a scapegoat for the economic meltdown.

Some excerpts:

'Go ahead and continue to take us down, but you're only going to hurt yourselves. What's going to happen when we can't find jobs on the Street anymore? Guess what: We're going to take yours. We get up at 5am & work till 10pm or later. We're used to not getting up to pee when we have a position. We don't take an hour or more for a lunch break. We don't demand a union. We don't retire at 50 with a pension. We eat what we kill, and when the only thing left to eat is on your dinner plates, we'll eat that.'

This is pretty funny, because around the time of the election, these Libertarian triumph-of-the-will masters of the Universe were threatening to 'go Galt', and withhold their God-given talents from an ungrateful society. Anybody who actually heard this bullshit or bothered to pay attention to it laughed with scorn and derision. 'Oh dear! Who will package toxic loans into opaque instruments to sell to suckers? Whatever will those of us without the Right Stuff for Wall Street do?'

Having been deservedly ignored, now the traders threaten to take our jobs and get up at 5am and work until 10pm or later when most of the people who currently hold these positions can take care of business in 40 hour/week time frames. Of course, management will notice the ex-traders' amazing powers of bladder control when he is able to stay in tedious meetings about new HR policies for hours without demanding a bio break, and he'll end up on top and dominate THE FUCK out of the office supply business in the tri-state area!

Having shorter work hours might mean the trader will have more time to spend with his family, assuming he has one. I am sure he will then parent the shit out of his kids and take the rest of us parents to school. Parenting is, of course, an easy job for women and Nancy-boys, he will tell us.

Which segues nicely into...

'For years teachers and other unionized labor have had us fooled. We were too busy working to notice. Do you really think that we are incapable of teaching 3rd graders and doing landscaping? We're going to take your cushy jobs with tenure and 4 months off a year and whine just like you that we are so-o-o-o underpaid for building the youth of America.'
I'm sure writing this stuff was cathartic for the guy, but a better forum may have been a personal journal. To be fair, writing this post was fun, too. It's possible the letter is even a hoax, but it touches a nerve because there are most definitely people with attitudes like this out there. I sometimes have to talk to and pretend to not be disgusted by some of them. I've seen them in the wild.

For now, I can say with complete confidence that on my things to worry about list, Joe Douchebag here doesn't even rate an honorable mention. Try harder, Joe. Looks like you're going to have to get up earlier than 5am and work later than 10pm at scaring me.

Also:

A fun smackdown at Wonkette

At Salon: Wall Street Rage

At the Daily Bail: a response to the email, perhaps, in cardboard sign form