Frankie and Johnny

Frank Rich gets hip to the theme of this blog. On the culprits of the economic collapse:

This debt-ridden national binge of greed and irresponsibility washed over our culture not just through the Marie Antoinette antics of a Schwarzman and a Thain but in mass forms of conspicuous consumption and entertainment. Cable networks like Bravo, A&E, TLC and HGTV produced an avalanche of creepy programming catering to the decade’s housing bubble alone — an orgiastic genre that might be called Subprime Pornography. Some of the series — “Flip This House,” “Flip That House,” “Sell This House,” “My House Is Worth What?” — still play on even as more and more house owners are being flipped into destitute homelessness.

When Obama called it a "collective failure" to rein it in, he rather diplomatically attributed responsibility to everyone rather than call out the jovial idiot and the vulture-in-a-wheelchair by name. Yes, there were ten drivers in the pile-up, but you also have to single out the culpability of the dude in the lead car who knowingly hit the road in a car with no brakes.

Some acts of avariciousness are more egregious than others, and there seems to be an inverse proportion between the scale of greed and its consequences. While many consumers and opportunistic mom-and-pop real estate speculators are paying for their excesses with ruined credit and homelessness, Bernie Madoff sweats it out in a swank co-op paid for with someone else's sweat equity, while John Thain licks his wounds in a country estate that spans three towns and sports five addresses. (His pied-a-terre is a two-bedroom $27.5 million Park Avenue duplex.) If it's business as usual, he will probably land his next CEO gig very soon. Although there are some who caution: beware the lynch mob.

(Also, what's up with John Thain's $1400 wastebasket? Trash cans, always the trash cans with these people!)