The depravity of banks knows no bounds

[cpxbrex]

Blame nebris for cluing me into this one: credit firms are making a habit of hitting up the relatives of the dead to pay their outstanding debtsI mean, what kind of sick motherfucker thinks this shit up? What kind of depraved, evil petty waste of oxygen kind of person says to themselves, "Self, what we need to do is play on the emotions of the grieving

Comments

[nebris]

I first posted that to the_recession I'm waiting to see how our resident Free Marketeers respond, if at all. It is a pretty repulsive paradigm.

~M~

[cpxbrex]

I'm almost too scared to click. ;)

[nebris]

I got a few bites, but it was the pro-union post that has provoked the most rabid response.

~M~

[narnarthinks]

This is a new york times article. I did not read it as sympathetic to the practice at all. If anything it was extremely dry satire. NYT tries very very carefully not to editorialize outside of the Opinion section. This is just like that "You try to live in this town on $500,000" article that caused a ruckus several weeks ago. I guarantee you the writer is inviting ridicule of this practice and not praise.

[cpxbrex]

News is not the place for dry satire. I mean, I think the NYT is just another useless hack of a newspaper, another pandering toadying sychophantic newspaper that's an organ to the corrupt and decadent political system around us. I can think of any number of times, such as in the run-up to the war in Iraq, where the NYT very much editorialized in news articles - indeed, served as out-and-out propaganda for the government. So, given that I'm sure how you can see that I do not take it as a given that this had a tongue-in-cheek element.

But, that aside, I mean, even if you're right - that's still lousy news. The news is not the place for satire. The Onion is the place for satire, blogs, plays, TV shows, movies, music, the Colbert Report . . . there are lots of places for satire. But the news isn't one of them

[narnarthinks]

Ok, well I thought this article was cool neutral, but I read a disapproving tone into it given the fact that it was appearing in the Times. You seem to have read an approving tone into it, which I don't perceive at all. I think the flatness of the delivery invites critique, especially when the entire mood of the moment is against unscrupulous bankers. Maybe it doesn't rise to the level of pointed satire. It's more like airing dirty laundry.