Former 'Reader's Digest' Lady Tells Us How To Live
Former EIC of Reader's Digest, Family Circle, Consumer Reports, and Child Jacqueline Leo gets all shouty over at the HuffPo, that repository of nutjob rants, informed political discussion, and celebrity musings. We're sort of not sure what she's talking about, but she does call us out: in her list of "7 Debtly Sins" that humorously (we think?) suggests America tax the "sloppy, stupid and sinful" to get out of debt, we are at #4, under "Wrath: Working for Gawker or some other 'I'm young, angry and hateful' Internet site that contributes nothing to the society. Wasting one's talent is economically sinful." (Hey, it's not like anybody else could even handle all this talent. We can't all publish 12-page-long large-text versions of Grisham novels!) It only gets rantier:
1. Greed: GIST all who followed the herd on Wall Street into the sub-prime mess. We could start with Stanley O'Neal of Merrill Lynch who walked away with over $160 million of investors' money after tossing Merrill to the wolves. And Charles Prince of Citigroup, whose chairman, Bob Rubin, had to go hat-in-hand to Dubai to get some oil money to bail out Citi after they nearly went bankrupt, got over $30 million to say "sayonara." Citigroup will lay off 24,000, increasing the government's unemployment insurance pay-outs and reducing the taxes collected from those individuals. GIST should include the golden parachute payouts, the houses, the cars, the boats, the Rolex watches, and the titanium finished Sub-zero refrigerators of all CEO's who played in the sub-prime sandbox.
If I could follow this, I think I might actually agree.
2. Gluttony: Making Medicare or Medicaid pay for your diabetes because you overeat.
Whoa! Chill the fuck out.
6. Sloth: Living at home with your parents after age 23.
7. Pride: Taking steroids so that your biceps would look like Sammy Sosa's. The steroid scandal is costing the U.S. mega dollars — hearings, special prosecutors endless discovery and testimony. And, of course, the rise of the role model as "cheater."
In conclusion: ???
Stupid and Sinful: How America Can be Number One Again [Huffington Post]