Bank of America

[oselle]

I just watched a Bank of America commercial. It was a beautifully shot montage of Americans getting to work. In cities and farms, on ships and trucks, clad in hardhats and suits, all these good Americans doing what they do best, putting in an honest day's work. Over an uplifting musical score, a narrator's voice intoned that no matter what, Americans will always keep moving forward.

Funny then that this is what Bank of America is doing when they're not filming glossy paeans to the heroic American worker:

"Three days after receiving $25 billion in federal bailout funds, Bank of America Corp. hosted a conference call with conservative activists and business officials to organize opposition to the U.S. labor community's top legislative priority.

Participants on the October 17 call -- including at least one representative from another bailout recipient, AIG -- were urged to persuade their clients to send "large contributions" to groups working against the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), as well as to vulnerable Senate Republicans, who could help block passage of the bill.

Keep moving forward, eh, Bank of America? Not if you have anything to do about it. God, I just...how can we bear this? How can we continue to bear this?

Do read the whole article here at Huffington Post.

Actually I think this is my favorite quote, from Bernie Marcus, founder of Home Depot:

"This is the demise of a civilization," said Marcus. "This is how a civilization disappears. I am sitting here as an elder statesman and I'm watching this happen and I don't believe it."

If I'm not mistaken, Home Depot laid off a shitload of people this week (correct me if I'm wrong). That's the demise of a civilization, you asshole -- people out of work and unable to feed their kids or keep a roof over their heads. In what circle of hell does a guy like this deserve to spend eternity?

Comments

[katakanadian.livejournal.com]

Welcome to the Apocalypse. It's going to get much worse (in some ways).

[sixth-queen.livejournal.com]

I get disgusted when a company intones that "people are our best resource." Really? Then why does your stock price go up when you lay people off? The ideal business would have no pesky employees at all. Consumers would be able to buy your products because, you see, they would get their paychecks by working for some other business.

We've come a long way from the early days of Ford, when Henry Ford himself insisted on paying his workers well. His reasoning was that his workers should make enough money to buy his cars, so thus keeping himself in business.

Now that increasing profit (not just profit, but increasing profit), is the motive, America has had to resort playing a perverted form of musical chairs. When the music stops, each business tries to shed their employees onto other businesses. When a business is too heavy with employees (example, GM), it goes down, the game starts up again, and the employees are passed off somewhere else. The logical conclusion of this, of course, is that everyone eventually works for the employer of last resort -- the government.

But, -- o horrors -- now that's socialism!!! **vapors**

Our economy is just one big impossible logical fallacy. And businesses know that well. They just play long enough to cash out. They are begging Obama to please, just play one more verse...