Always funny

Will Rogers talks to the bankers: keynote roast from 1924:
[Via Boing Boing]

On a tip from Boing Boing reader JayHavvic, I checked out this 1924 recording of Will Rogers keynoting at an annual bankers’ convention, giving them the gears with as much gusto as, say, Colbert gave GW Bush. It’s a must-listen.

The audio comes from 78Records, an excellent site with serious bandwidth problems. So I’ve uploaded a copy to the Internet Archive for easier downloading.

MP3: Will Rogers Talks to the Bankers, VICTOR_45374-A (1924)

(Thanks, JayHavvic!)

Some things do not change.

Technorati Tags: General

Credit default swaps are the devil

I wrote a long post about credit default swaps and their evil effect on this whole mess. But it is just too disgusting to put up. Just read these articles. They tell you who are the greedy bastards who may very well bring down the world’s economy.

Dallas News
CNN
NYT
Houston Chronicle
CFO

Here is one thing that staggers me, from American Public Media’s Marketplace:

BOB MOON: OK, I’m about to unload some numbers on you here, so I’ll speak slowly so you can follow this.
The value of the entire U.S. Treasuries market: $4.5 trillion.
The value of the entire mortgage market: $7 trillion.
The size of the U.S. stock market: $22 trillion.
OK, you ready?
The size of the credit default swap market last year: $45 trillion.
KAI RYSSDAL: That’s a lot of money, Bob.

The big article is from 60 minutes which looked at this debacle. If it had just been mortgages, we could have dealt with it. But these idiots made side bets and their loss will harm us all. Every one of those guys should be forced into a perp walk.

Technorati Tags: Economy, Government, Politics

Splling would be good

great moments in instant messaging:
[Via WWdN: In Exile]

Any geek can tell you what superpower they’d want to have. We rarely have to think about it, because most of us gave the question a lot of time and careful consideration when we weren’t talking to girls during our youth.
Earlier tonight, the subject came up in an IM conversation with my friend Ryan.

Wil: So what superpower would you want?

Ryan: I think I’d like the ability to shapeshift

Ryan: Or intagibility

Ryan: Or spelling

Wil: OMG that’s going on my blog right now.

Funny because its true.

Technorati Tags: General