Greedy Person of the Year (2008)

I nominate Obama for his greedy grab for power, which circumvented the democratic process this election year.

I second your motion.

Michelle Obama is greedy person of the year 2008.

michelle is the most obvious with being greedy. “give us something” is rather famous plus those diamond studs. let’s not forget room service either. and the cost of that home they rented????????????? or was it donated?

Yep, his deal with the devil of do anything for his prize. I third it.

Caroline wants us to vote. Not for her, silly, for what she should answer in interviews
http://edgeoforever.wordpress.com/2008/12/27/caroline-people-can-vote-for-my-answers-not-for-me/

My nomination might be (it is difficult to choose)
George Soros. He underwrote Obama and apparently
has been instrumental in the Minnesota Al Franken
win. He has a God complex.

How much can you spend in one lifetime?

How much does it take to keep a billionaire happy?
I am curious: what would a billionaire do if all the money disappeared? Would he/she jump off the
Brooklyn Bridge? What do billionaires talk about
at parties? My imagination runs wild.

first is MADE-OFF Madoff.
Second is Nancy Pelosi.
She’s getting something out of this and I can only guess.

Oh yeah. Obama wins hands down.

hey troll. get lost. you aren’t fooling anyone here with a little Michelle knock. Go kiss you master’s ass somewhere else.

I second the nomination. I wouldn’t want to restrict it to one year though. He has undermined whole economies to enrich himself. Most greedy in the last quarter century would be more like it.

I like Obama for greediest. But I sure agree with your vote for Pelosi as number 2.

I third your motion.

I nominate the entire political machine from my favorite pay to play town – Chicagoland.

Theft and graft are a real artform up there and I just cannot be forced to pick one.

Just by way of example, who was that DoT employee up there who stole millions in quarters from toll booths, went to jail for approximately 10 mins, then got his job back? This stuff is so good you cannot make it up.

Here’s a postscript on the Madoff story–even experts can get taken bigtime by these leeches.

Today the National Post of Canada placed an article on its web site: “The expert on gullibility who got suckered by Bernard
Madoff” by Robert Fulford.

Here are some excerpts:

It was the year of the unwise, the swindled, the innocent and the terminally stupid. But the financial catastrophe of 2008 brought a
peculiar kind of pain and embarrassment to one self-designated expert, a University of Colorado developmental psychologist named Stephen Greenspan.

He’s written an authoritative, 224-page book, Annals of Gullibility: Why We Get Duped and How to Avoid It.

Unfortunately, he can’t take much authorial pleasure from the publishing of his work this month.

Something truly mortifying happened between the checking of the page proofs and the appearance of the book: Greenspan discovered that he had
allowed Bernard Madoff, the now infamous Wall Street broker, to steal a good-sized chunk of Greenspan’s retirement savings.

If Annals of Gullibility ever goes to a second edition, it will also have to include a preface describing the author’s firsthand experience….

Greenspan’s research shows that schemes depending upon gullibility need the help of what he calls a “social feedback loop,” what others call
“word of mouth.” If many investors make profits from a fund and tell others, the investment seems safe and desirable.

That’s what happened to Greenspan. Visiting his sister in Florida, he met a close friend of hers who was recruiting customers for the Rye Prime Bond Fund. Greenspan learned it was part of the Tremont family of funds, itself a subsidiary of Mass Mutual Life, an insurance giant. He liked and trusted this agent. Apparently, the agent had put all of his
own assets in the fund…
Greenspan’s sister and brother-in-law were investors, along with many of their friends. They happily reported they had seen their money grow
over several years. Their experience “convinced me that I would be foolish not to take advantage of this opportunity.” His belief was so firm that when a skeptical and financially knowledgeable friend back in Colorado warned him against the investment, Greenspan put it down to knee-jerk cynicism. He was truly suckered.

His decision, he says now, “reflected both my profound ignorance of finance, and my somewhat lazy unwillingness to remedy that ignorance.”

The complete article is online at:
.

Whoops…

The article is online at: http://tinyurl.com/886pb6.

Great Cartoon, since it points out that uncontrolled or un-regulated greed takes lives. It is not just about money. I think for me the Leader or leaders of the Tailbone and groups like them would be my choice for they want Money, Lives, Land, and control of EVERYTHING.

Rich

All good questions. Maybe greed is going to become socially unacceptable again. Maybe it’ll go out of style in 2009. Greed is defined as “excessive desire for getting or having, esp. wealth; desire for more than one needs or deserves; avarice; cupidity.”

Correction, I meant Taliban, not Tailbone

Rich

Greenspan discovered that he had allowed Bernard Madoff, the now infamous Wall Street broker, to steal a good-sized chunk of Greenspan’s retirement savings.

ROFLMAO! That’s rich. I was going to nominate Greenspan.

Considering how many people claim to be religious, what happened to religion that they allow their people to practice “greed,” which I am sure is a sin? Maybe we need to force religious institution, if they want to keep their tax free statues, to hold their people accountable if they practice the greed sin. I wonder if the religious organizations tax free statues is a form of greed or a sin that needs to be stopped?

Rich

If you’re defining greed to be the excessive accumulation of converts by groups like the Taliban then I’ll nominate Satan, he wants ALL of our souls.

I saw Satan singing “It’s Christmas Time in Hell” on “South Park” the other night. I may never be the same. My abs still hurt from laughing so hard!

Aren’t you Rich?

I agree with the nomination, but I think his greed can be summed up in the fact that he never, ever quits nagging his poor donors for money. $700,000,000 isn’t enough. He couldn’t spare a dime to help down ticket democrats (except as a bribe) and he never stopped sending e-mails demanding more, mpre, more. He made a committment to accept public funding, but he saw mmore money to be made. He is still doing it. He will never give his poor donors a rest.

There are so many greedy people out there, it is hard to pick a winner. As PT. Barnum allegedly said, “There’s a sucker born every minute”. History is replete with stories of people who have been scammed out of their fortunes by unscrupulous fast-talking salesmen. It happens all the time and it seems some people never learn. Although Madoff is in the news as a failed scheme that allegedly robbed the fortunes of the rich and famous, his methods are probably being used by many others who have not yet been caught.

For a good discussion of illegal and questionable money making schemes (from pyramid to Ponzi to MLM) check out this link:

http://members.impulse.net/~thebob/Pyramid.html.

These schemes go under the names of chain letters, pyramid schemes, Ponzi schemes, gifting clubs, straight-line matrices, elevator schemes, etc. Multilevel marketing schemes, thought not illegal, also play on people’s gullability and desire for easy money.

They all are used to entice the unsuspecting into putting money into a plan or scheme to make quick and easy money.

There is also an abundance of stock and investment-promoting gurus who offer newsletters for a few bucks and then set about to promote a way to make quick money if you subscribe to their services which may mean ~ $2,500 upfront money and the promise that if you take their investment tips you will make money regardless of whether the market is moving up or down. These are not illegal, but they also play on people’s instinctive greed.

Madoff might have been able to keep his illegal scheme going for many more years if the stock market hadn’t taken a nose dive. Investors were making amazing returns on their money from a man who seemed to be a genius money manager. They didn’t have a clue that he was taking money from new investors to pay off the old ones. Sophisticated investors got caught in the trap, even though there was a well known history of collapsing Ponzi schemes. They didn’t seem to pay attention to the old adage, “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.”

I think Madoff is the current prime example of greed gone wild. At least, the most notable one in the limelight at the moment. I think we all have to be on guard not to get caught in the greed trap.

apishapa, you’re so right!

Ogimme-more . . . .

1980s fashion is back, so why not the 80s zeitgeist of greed.

Poor little guy, just asking for another bowl of gruel during Christmas week–just a few dollars more–you won’t miss it–such a small price to pay for hope–just a little bit of CHANGE!

i saw a picture of madoff smirking for the camera. he struck me as a man with no soul. false false false!

Great question, Rich!

notroll, put your comments where the sun doesn’t shine. stalking is frowned on here. of course on kos other obot blogs where you hang out that crap is fine. stuff it.

Ditto. He couldn’t wait until he earned it. It’s All Obama, All the Time.

Speaking of Obama’s greed, even die-hard Obama supporters like Frank Rich of the NY Times are starting to notice the similarities between Bush & Obama…

Barack Obama has little in common with George W. Bush, thank God, his obsessive workouts and message control notwithstanding. At a time when very few Americans feel very good about very much, Obama is generating huge hopes even before he takes office. So much so that his name and face, affixed to any product, may be the last commodity left in the marketplace that can still move Americans to shop.

I share these high hopes. But for the first time a faint tinge of Bush crept into my Obama reveries this month.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/28/opinion/28rich.html

Great drawing Pat. I have a hard time imagining the scope of Madoff’s greed. Obama’s has been playing out for us publicly for a year. He seems to have been on the take from everyone. I have been thinking of him in terms of the Faust legend. A man sells his soul to the devil for gain the drama comes when the devil comes to claim his soul. It seems to me that O. has sold his soul so many times that there would be devils duelling for it.

I fourth your motion. And fifth it.

Two things that Obama and Bush have in common are that a. both are comsumate bullshit artists (both will tell you anything in order to get what they want) and b. both act as though they believe that laws are for other people but not for them.

Obama is the greediest. And the sleeziest, And the most corrupt.

NO more drama. Impeach Obama. (yeah, I stole that from somewhere) The sooner we get started, the sooner we can get our country back.

Michelle Obama is the greediest.

Now, who are the biggest fools of the year? THose stupid Obamabots who believed his hype and who kept giving more, more, more. How could they not just look at this one aspect of his personalioty and not know he is completely devoid of empathy for his followers. He knows these are hard times, he has plenty, but he wants more.

He is going to disappoint every one of those fools, unless they were aware that he is a morally bankrupt crook and a liar, an empty suit, and just thought that is what the country needs.

Great comment–Thanks Don X!

Once you get everything you want and are surrounded by all of your grinning toadies and toys, sooner or later you begin to notice an empty feeling inside, and notice that the lights are flickering for some strange reason . . .

If we leave Wall Street, I nominate Franklin Raines, for grabbing 90 million in ‘bonuses” while he tanked Fannie Mae……and then for complaining that he only got to keep 50 million of it. The thief.

Greedy Person of the Year only works when perched atop the top ten. Then again, maybe the top 100 . . .

makes me glad that i have nothing to lose,
freedom is great