The Narcissism of Great Powers, part two, KFC edition

To continue with the theme of connecting disparate items I'm reading, yesterday I read a piece, again in Slate, asking why capitalists are such a bunch pf pansies right now. Apparently, as part of the plan to rescue them from their own greed, Geithner will allow them to buy up the toxic assets for 84% of their value using loans from the government, guaranteed by Mister and Missus taxpayer, for 72 of that 84%. They would have to pitch in 6% and the government would match that with a 6% gift. Basically, they are risking only 7% of the assets' paper value, and stand to make a lot. We take all the rest of the risk. The article asks where the gutsy capitalists have gone.

The answer came in my mailbox, in the form of a coupon advertising KFC's "Bailout Buckets".



Sure, the former Wall Street masters of the universe may have lost faith in your average American's ability to pay off his or her home mortgage, but they still have confidence that we'll drown our collective sorrows in cleverly marketed buckets of greasy, mass produced, corporate chicken-death-camp yumminess. Combine this with our national tendency toward Narcisisstic Personality Disorder and you can see why America behaves like the big, fat, greasy bully pushing everybody else around on the playground: Why play nice in hopes of trading bag lunch items in the cafeteria when you know your corporate parents sent you to school with a Bailout Bucket full of KFC to keep all to yourself?