Catching Up on Charlie Pierce

I always enjoy reading Charles Pierce if for nothing more than the colorful (and so apt) prose (although there is plenty of substance and reference to go with). For instance, in one post today he says, “Let us leave aside the fact that anyone's who's speculating about the 2016 presidential campaign at this point in the 2012 presidential campaign needs to find a decent saloon and stay there for several hours until they're sockless enough to forget what they do for a living. “

And this bit:

Well, there's no question about it now. Rick Santorum — and have I mentioned recently what a colossal dick he is? — loves Jesus, and Jesus loves him, and so do all the people who love Jesus, and whom Jesus loves, down in the deep old South, where once they thought all Catholics had cloven hooves, horns on their heads, and Notre Dame sweaters covering their black and evil Papist hearts.

[...]

Daring to be stupid is the highest form of courage to the people to whom Santorum is pitching his campaign.

[...]

"The dangers of carbon dioxide? Tell that to a plant, how dangerous carbon dioxide is," he said.

(I asked a tree in my front yard, Rick. It said it thought you were a colossal dick.)

  Charles Pierce

And there's this lead-in to the op-ed in the NY Times (Why I Am Leaving Goldman Sachs) by Greg Smith, who paints a picture we probably would have expected to see, if we could see for ourselves, but were not at all expecting to hear from a GS employee.

There's not much point in having a saloon here on the blocks of Blogistan if you're not going to make some mention of how a departing Goldman Sachs executive napalmed his bridges this morning in The New York Times. Here's about where the struts give out and the bridges plunge into the river:

"Today, many of these leaders display a Goldman Sachs culture quotient of exactly zero percent. I attend derivatives sales meetings where not one single minute is spent asking questions about how we can help clients. It's purely about how we can make the most possible money off of them. If you were an alien from Mars and sat in on one of these meetings, you would believe that a client's success or progress was not part of the thought process at all. It makes me ill how callously people talk about ripping their clients off. Over the last 12 months I have seen five different managing directors refer to their own clients as "muppets," sometimes over internal e-mail.... No humility? I mean, come on. Integrity? It is eroding. I don't know of any illegal behavior, but will people push the envelope and pitch lucrative and complicated products to clients even if they are not the simplest investments or the ones most directly aligned with the client's goals? Absolutely. Every day, in fact."

  Charles Pierce

And Charlie has some colorful advice for Mitt Romney, which he admits will not likely be taken, but frankly, I don't think I'd be all that surprised if it were.