A Round Of Applause For Ms Fleischmann, I Think.

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

.

Alayne Fleischmann was someone who I though did not exist.

Yes, it’s a slightly odd name, but that’s not what I mean.

She’s a real person, she does exist, although many on Wall Street and in the government wish she did not.

You see Alayne Fleischmann is a an honest lawyer.

Not only an honest lawyer, but an honest securities lawyer.

And not only an honest securities lawyer, but an honest securities lawyer who worked for a bank.

I know, it’s hard to believe isn’t it?

But it’s true.

Eight years ago Ms Fleischmann was employed by J P Morgan Chase Bank as a deal manager, a position that allowed her to see the crooked activity, fraud in other words, that was going on at the bank, particularly in regard to mortgage securities.

She has been effectively ‘gagged’ for many years by confidentiality agreements, hordes of lawyers acting for the banks, and by government organizations that were supposedly investigating the fraud but which were in fact just trying to get it pushed under the carpet as soon and as quietly as possible.

Now Alayne Fleischmann is blowing the whistle, not just on the fraudulent activity of the banks but on the massive cover-up that followed it.

In doing so she is just confirming what anyone who has been paying attention already knew to be true, namely that the government has allowed the banks to buy their way out of criminal charges and jail time by paying multi-billion and multi-million dollar fines, fines that may sound large to you and I but which to them are a small fraction of the money they stole.

The Department of Justice, Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, SEC, and more have been pretending to investigate and bring the culprits to book. In effect they have done very little.

So I think a round of applause is in order for Ms Fleischmann. She won’t make much of a dent in the corrupt system, the corruption is so ingrained that I doubt if anyone could do that. But at least she came through with her honesty intact and that is a hell of a lot more than can be said of the banksters or the politicians and political appointees who were supposed to be going to make things right.

 

===============================================

Oh Bits!

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

.

One would imagine that cemeteries would be rather sad and sullen places, and at the time of a bereavement I suppose they are for the relatives concerned. 

But with the passage of time or if you aren’t personally involved they can also be places of great historical interest. 

And they can be places where one can find a great deal of humor. 

Nowadays people seem to be less and less emotionally prepared and equipped to handle and understand death.

In the past this was not the case. 

If proof of the latter were needed all one has to do is to look at the inscriptions on some of the headstones found in old cemeteries. 

Here are a few examples of what I mean. 

Enjoy.

. 

..

Ann Mann 

Here lies Ann Mann, 

Who lived an old maid 

But died an old Mann. 

Dec. 8, 1767

.

.

Here lies my wife:

Here let her lie! 

Now she’s at rest

And so am I.

.

.

He was young

He was fair

But the Injuns

Raised his hair

.

.

Here lies the body

Of Margaret Bent

She kicked up her heels

And away she went.

.

. 

Rebecca Freeland

1741

She drank good ale,

good punch and wine

And lived to the age of 99.

.

. 

Stranger tread

This ground with gravity.

Dentist Brown

Is filling his last cavity.

.

. 

Here lies the father of 29.

He would have had more

But he didn’t have time.

.

. 

Here lies the body of poor Aunt Charlotte.

Born a virgin, died a harlot.

For 16 years she kept her virginity

A damn’d long time for this vicinity.

.

. 

Here lies the body of Mary Ann Lowder

She burst while drinking a Seidlitz powder.

Called from this world to her heavenly rest,

She should have waited till it effervesced.

.

. 

Blown upward

out of sight:

He sought the leak

by candlelight

.

. 

His foot it slipt

and he did fall.

“Help; Help” he cried

and that was all.

.

. 

Sir John Strange 

Here lies an honest lawyer, 

And that is Strange.

.

.

She lived with her husband fifty years

And died in the confident hope of a better life.

.

.

Here Lies Mary Smith 

Silent At Last

.

. 

Here lies

Johnny Yeast

Pardon me

For not rising.

.

.

Memory of an accident in a Uniontown, Pennsylvania cemetery:

Here lies the body

of Jonathan Blake

Stepped on the gas

Instead of the brake.

.

.

In a Silver City, Nevada, cemetery:

Here lays Butch,

We planted him raw.

He was quick on the trigger,

But slow on the draw.

.

.

Lester Moore was a Wells, Fargo Co. station agent for Naco, Arizona in the cowboy days of the 1880’s.

He is buried in the Boot Hill Cemetery in Tombstone, Arizona:

.

. 

On Margaret Daniels grave at Hollywood Cemetery Richmond, Virginia:

She always said her feet were killing her

but nobody believed her.

.

.

Owen Moore

Gone away

Owin’ more

Than he could pay.

Battersea, London, England

.

.

In a North Carolina cemetery on the headstone of a spinster postmistress:

Returned–Unopened

.

.

==================================

.