Tidbits
After all that political drama over the bailout last week, there are rumblings now that the targeted financial institutions may not actually participate. Seems the big complaints are complaining about 1) The cap on executive salaries and 2) They don't like the increased regulations that accepting the money would entail.
So the financial institutions go to their buddy, SEC head and former Goldman Sachs CEO Henry Paulson, and ask for some help in the form of an injection of public funds. Did they expect that it would be given with nothing asked in return? Of course, there is also the possibility that this is all merely a bargaining ploy to sweeten the deal. Only time will tell.
It probably shouldn't come as a surprise that those whose institutional greed was a leading cause of some of this are now trying to protect their personal compensation packages. Then again I don't know what they're complaining about. Unless the Fed. has some sort of cool contract negating power we don't know about, the cap would only apply to successors, not to the current executives.
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A friend commented that there are now Dunkin Donuts popping up in Dallas. I hadn't really thought about it, but it does seem that this area is a Krispy Kreme stronghold.
I haven't been in the new Dunkin Donuts, but I'm sure it's nothing like the east coast ones I remember from way back in day: They always were housed in some dilapidated former gas station that was one strong wind away from collapsing. Inside it was dingy....grimy....poorly lit....with the same four old dudes in the corner drinking coffee and smoking like chimneys.
The new one in Hurst that I drove by the other day looked like a modern art masterpiece.
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This week in torts we'll be continuing our discussion of negligence. If your acts are negligent and you hurt someone then you "take the victim as they are." That is, you're responsible for the damages even if the act wouldn't have hurt the "normal" person. Thus leads me to the so called "thin skull" rule. That means that if the victim had a freakishly soft skull and you accidently lightly tap it in the right spot and the dude's head caves in causing death.....*Fonzy* Heeeyyyyy! *Fonzy* Yourestillliableforhisdeath.com.
So a companion rule to that (and the payout to mentioning the former) is the "Shabby millionaire". Suppose you're driving down the street and you run a red light and hit a dude dressed in rags and smelling like ass (we'll just go ahead and call him a bum). But hey ho! He wasn't a bum at all! He was really a millionaire that liked to roll around in rags and worn out shoes (emo?). Your restitution isn't based on bum levels (a refridgerator box and a bottle of wild turkey). You get to pay out at the "dead .com millionaire" rate ($$$).
So the end result is that you don't get to get out of responsibility for negligence just because they didn't "look" sick or poor or emo or whatever.
That last part really had nothing in common with the other stuff. I just thought it was amusing.
So the financial institutions go to their buddy, SEC head and former Goldman Sachs CEO Henry Paulson, and ask for some help in the form of an injection of public funds. Did they expect that it would be given with nothing asked in return? Of course, there is also the possibility that this is all merely a bargaining ploy to sweeten the deal. Only time will tell.
It probably shouldn't come as a surprise that those whose institutional greed was a leading cause of some of this are now trying to protect their personal compensation packages. Then again I don't know what they're complaining about. Unless the Fed. has some sort of cool contract negating power we don't know about, the cap would only apply to successors, not to the current executives.
----
A friend commented that there are now Dunkin Donuts popping up in Dallas. I hadn't really thought about it, but it does seem that this area is a Krispy Kreme stronghold.
I haven't been in the new Dunkin Donuts, but I'm sure it's nothing like the east coast ones I remember from way back in day: They always were housed in some dilapidated former gas station that was one strong wind away from collapsing. Inside it was dingy....grimy....poorly lit....with the same four old dudes in the corner drinking coffee and smoking like chimneys.
The new one in Hurst that I drove by the other day looked like a modern art masterpiece.
----
This week in torts we'll be continuing our discussion of negligence. If your acts are negligent and you hurt someone then you "take the victim as they are." That is, you're responsible for the damages even if the act wouldn't have hurt the "normal" person. Thus leads me to the so called "thin skull" rule. That means that if the victim had a freakishly soft skull and you accidently lightly tap it in the right spot and the dude's head caves in causing death.....*Fonzy* Heeeyyyyy! *Fonzy* Yourestillliableforhisdeath.com.
So a companion rule to that (and the payout to mentioning the former) is the "Shabby millionaire". Suppose you're driving down the street and you run a red light and hit a dude dressed in rags and smelling like ass (we'll just go ahead and call him a bum). But hey ho! He wasn't a bum at all! He was really a millionaire that liked to roll around in rags and worn out shoes (emo?). Your restitution isn't based on bum levels (a refridgerator box and a bottle of wild turkey). You get to pay out at the "dead .com millionaire" rate ($$$).
So the end result is that you don't get to get out of responsibility for negligence just because they didn't "look" sick or poor or emo or whatever.
That last part really had nothing in common with the other stuff. I just thought it was amusing.