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Jesse's Description of the Kleptocrats Nails It On the Head!

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  • Jesse's Description of the Kleptocrats Nails It On the Head!

    From Jesse's Cafe American, a very telling and succinct description of the sociopaths who have led us to where we are today.

    SP Futures Reach Apex of Fraud As Earnings Season Arrives and Bank Accounting Dodgy as Ever, Doing God's Work


    In this posting, Jesse has this poignant observation:
    "Misrepresentation of the facts and figures abounds. Through the years I noticed a common denominator amongst the kleptocracy and slippery sons of privilege: when the going gets tough, they cheat, even more than usual. And they become righteously indignant if you call them on it. As one pampered son said to me, "If the professors are not smart enough to stop me, why should you care?"

    That is how they got through university, and how they get through life. They cheat on their taxes, on their wives, their community, their civic obligations, their business dealings, their friends, and even themselves. And they spend a lot of time and money stuffing the hole in their being with possessions, both things and people, to create the illusion of substance and self-worth. And so often they have learned this from their parents either through abuse or example. There must surely be a special place in hell for anyone who twists such a pathetic half-life out of the gift of a child.

    Someone sent me the series currently playing on HBO, "The Pacific." They knew I would be interested because my father was one of those kids who, right after high school graduation, took their first trip away from home, from Cherry Point to Tokyo via hell. Its a brutal series, but worth watching if you want a less romanticized version of what war is like, without the self-indulgence excess of the anti-war movies. I enjoyed the exposure they give to John Basilone, the only NCO to win both the Medal of Honor, and the Navy Cross posthumously, in WWII. I used to attend the church in his hometown of Raritan, NJ where they still have a parade in his memory every year.

    That experience and the Great Depression made all our fathers and uncles as tough as nails, reminiscent of the character in the movie Gran Torino. My father wasn't pretty. He was rather rough around the edges with a hard shell, did not suffer fools gladly, and had a truly remarkable command of rough language, as I understand is the custom among Marine Corps sergeants. But he always stood his ground, and did the right thing even when it hurt, out of a sense of duty, honor and pride. And he made sure that I knew that being honest, and honorable and truthful was the right thing, the only thing, to do. And I thank him for it. I am glad he is no longer around to see this triumph of the privileged, and the submission of the many, in a country that he loved. Semper Fi, dad."
    If my kids ever turn out like one of the "Sons of Privilege" described above, I will disown them. :mad:

  • #2
    Re: Jesse's Description of the Kleptocrats Nails It On the Head!

    Thanks for posting. Close to home. My daughter just married a TBTF guy, whose dad is a senior VP. He has many daddy issues, etc. My wife and I are coping.

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    • #3
      Re: Jesse's Description of the Kleptocrats Nails It On the Head!

      Originally posted by bcassill View Post
      I am glad he is no longer around to see this triumph of the privileged, and the submission of the many, in a country that he loved. Semper Fi, dad."
      All too true. My dad, my father-in-law, and my uncle were all WW2 vets (B-17 crew, Patton's artillery including Bastogne, and Patton’s' anti-aircraft including Bastogne, respectively).

      They all lived to see this mess (economically and politically) and all 3 told me the same thing on different occasions -"This isn't the America I fought for”.

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      • #4
        Re: Jesse's Description of the Kleptocrats Nails It On the Head!

        Originally posted by bcassill View Post
        That is how they got through university, and how they get through life. They cheat on their taxes, on their wives, their community, their civic obligations, their business dealings, their friends, and even themselves.


        Great post. Thanks for that.

        Where I would amend Jesse's description is as follows. These sociopaths don't see their behavior as "cheating," they see it as acceptable Darwinianism. Instead, they view humanity's morals and ethics as simplistic, naive, and refer to humanity collectively as "children." They answer only to power, at least what they perceive as power, and will only stop this behavior if stopped by forces more powerful than them.

        The pressures on your child to adopt sociopathic traits are immense. Our entire culture industry, education system and workplace ecosystems have been designed to promote this type of behavior. We have "experts" writing books and giving lectures at multi-national companies who promote what they call "emotional intelligence," which is nothing more than suppressing the natural responses of a healthy brain, which include emotional reactions in the core of our brain that we employ to assess threats and protect us from them.
        The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance - it is the illusion of knowledge ~D Boorstin

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        • #5
          Re: Jesse's Description of the Kleptocrats Nails It On the Head!

          My parents started saying they were 1) happy they had experienced America's best years and 2) glad they wouldn't be around much longer to see things get ever-worse. They're WW-2 generation. Depression childhood, the War, Happy 50s, etc.

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          • #6
            Re: Jesse's Description of the Kleptocrats Nails It On the Head!

            Originally posted by don View Post
            My parents started saying they were 1) happy they had experienced America's best years and 2) glad they wouldn't be around much longer to see things get ever-worse. They're WW-2 generation. Depression childhood, the War, Happy 50s, etc.
            Ah - my doomer instincts to the fore. I'm happy I have experienced America's best years and hope I can remain healthy long enough to see how this unfolding train wreck turns out :eek:.
            Most folks are good; a few aren't.

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            • #7
              Re: Jesse's Description of the Kleptocrats Nails It On the Head!

              That's the best post I've seen here ever I think. Love the emotional intelligence part. Hope I'm not taking this too far but I do think about it from time to time. There seems to be some studies that suggest that some autistic traits seem to be associated with people that actually are highly emotionally sensitive and the autistic traits come out as a self protection mechanism. I was wondering if a growing societal expectation of a kind of mechanistic operation of people causes many people who are more emotionally wired to actually shut down into autistic type traits coz they just can't operate along these lines, and this could part explain the explosion in autism rates.

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              • #8
                Re: Jesse's Description of the Kleptocrats Nails It On the Head!

                In business school they called us "talented". ;)



                I remember talking to the old people who used to live around my neighborhood when I was younger, many were war veterans of WW2. Even in old age they exuded their values and taught the youth about history. God bless them all.


                Originally posted by thriftyandboringinohio View Post
                all 3 told me the same thing on different occasions -"This isn't the America I fought for”.
                I have heard that more than once.

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                • #9
                  Re: Jesse's Description of the Kleptocrats Nails It On the Head!

                  More greatest generation nonsense.

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                  • #10
                    Re: Jesse's Description of the Kleptocrats Nails It On the Head!

                    You don't have to take it as meaning greatest generation, you could just use it to help distinguish behaviour of the entitlement type compared to one where there's a sense of responsibility and interconnectedness(not in parasite way). There are many other examples.

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                    • #11
                      Re: Jesse's Description of the Kleptocrats Nails It On the Head!

                      Originally posted by marvenger View Post
                      You don't have to take it as meaning greatest generation, you could just use it to help distinguish behaviour of the entitlement type compared to one where there's a sense of responsibility and interconnectedness(not in parasite way). There are many other examples.
                      True. I did not intend to glorify that generation. I intended to support the point that today's unbounded avarice and political climate are considered un-american by people both alive and recently deceased who have widely accepted standing as good americans.

                      “When facism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.”
                      -Sinclair Lewis

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                      • #12
                        Re: Jesse's Description of the Kleptocrats Nails It On the Head!

                        Originally posted by Serge_Tomiko View Post
                        More greatest generation nonsense.
                        Another soul-less urbanite. I feel for your loss.
                        "...the western financial system has already failed. The failure has just not yet been realized, while the system remains confident that it is still alive." Jesse

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                        • #13
                          Re: Jesse's Description of the Kleptocrats Nails It On the Head!

                          There are all types in every generation. There are all types in every country.

                          Each country, each generation, each cultural subset, adopts a set of 'mores' or acceptable behaviour.

                          There were plenty of soulless SOBs in my dad's generation. Joe Kennedy Sr. was a good example of the type. And yet, in each, there are the many, the simple honorable men and women.

                          I had the chance to speak about this with some interesting people, including Pierre Rinfret just before he passed on. He was an economist and wrote quite a few vignettes of famous people.

                          He told me essentially the same thing I said above. He just said that at times and places people encourage and accept different things. He said people today are no different, its just that its more acceptable, and so more people do it, and do it openly.

                          Lately the popular thing to is tear everyone and everything down, to dwell on the flaws, rather than the heroic. Our view of what is is to be human is very low indeed. Its a kind of grim iconoclasm, a nihilistic view of people, Hobbesian. Greedy, stupid, lazy, venal, hey we're only human. Let's set the bar really low. I get tired of it, I really do. A generation of wiseguys, lounge lizards, flim flam artists and frivolous self-centered boneheads. Or at least they seem to have a prominent profile and are too often greatly admired.

                          Its a cultural thing, but its so subtle that we don't see it unless we go to another place, or look at another time, and see the different assumptions that are made. Japan was an eye-opener for me. The closer I got into it, I realized they were just like us, but operating from a different set of mores, a different set of assumptions. Subtle, but profound. But yet I found all types. Its just in the averages, the expectations.

                          If you read the diaries of some of the Civil War soldiers, or listen to them in Ken Burns series, you just wonder, these guys seem like giants. There are people who do rise to greatness despite being very flawed and weak.

                          We have that greatness in us. We are just in a cultural phase now where we are tearing down, and shunning morality, wallowing in the mud. But our time to face history will come, and we will rise to the occasion, or go down with a whimper.

                          The kind of behaviour on Wall Street, for example, would have been done by fewer people and more secretly, because they would have been shamed and shunned. They would have taken more pains to disguise it, and people would not seek to emulate them so much.

                          We're riding the tail end of the 'greed is good' revolution from the 1980's which was a carryover from the 60's. I think our children will rebel against us at some point, maybe their children, and then America will get a spine again, or at least make a pretense of honor. There are plenty of brave men walking the line for us even now. We just do not regard them, respect them, as we once did, as a whole. This is all about averages and norms. Plenty of exceptions.

                          I mean really. We are such slobs sometimes. And we want to think that everyone else is really a slob too.

                          Show me a culture's heroes, and I will tell you what they are, and why they do what they do.
                          Last edited by Jesse; April 14, 2010, 10:45 PM.

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                          • #14
                            Re: Jesse's Description of the Kleptocrats Nails It On the Head!

                            Originally posted by Serge_Tomiko View Post
                            More greatest generation nonsense.

                            Coming from New York City...............................

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                            • #15
                              Re: Jesse's Description of the Kleptocrats Nails It On the Head!

                              Originally posted by Jesse View Post

                              Show me a culture's heroes, and I will tell you what they are, and why they do what they do.

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