Three MBAs walk into a bar

and lose 7.9 billion dollars because they're a bunch of greedy morons!

Merril Lynch has done a "write-down" of 7.9 BILLION dollars. A "write-down" is not a loss or a mistake, mind you, because its a "write-down". For a real life example, my idiot roommate Hunter did not bounce a rent check, he simply had to "write-down" my bank account. A little confusion is all. He thought he had a thousand dollars in the bank, but apparently he only had forty-five cents and a mint from Thai House.

I think its pretty awesome when a company has a 94 percent loss on revenues in one year. It really makes me want to run out and buy some Merril Lynch stock! It can't get crappy! They have MBAs! Thousands of them! The good times will get rolling again!

Here's the deal; part of the reason why Merril Lynch has lost more money than any of us can comprehend, is because Merril Lynch insisted on carrying huge amounts of sub prime loans. Here's how a sub prime loan works:

Merril Lynch: Hey, I'm going to give you a house. With low interest rates!
Poor Person: Fantastic! This will really improve my life!
Merril Lynch: I know! Its awesome!
Poor Person: Are there any problems with this type of loan?
Merril Lynch: Oh not really. Other than the fact that we jack up your interest rate in three years to completely unsustainable levels, but at least our profit margins look kick ass this year!

Three years later.

Poor Person: I'm broke. My life is ruined. I have to default on my loan. Who knew I couldn't pay a 15% apr?
Merril Lynch: Not me, I promise.
Poor Person: What am I going to do? I'm homeless!
Merril Lynch: That sucks. You could stay in the guest room of my vacation house, I guess. I'll only charge you 200 a night.
Poor Person: My life is over. What's going to happen to you?
Merril Lynch: Nothing really. I'm going to "write-down" your loan, pretend it never happened. Then I'm going to blame you for being poor and unreliable. Then I'm going to snort coke off my diamond encrusted coke snorting table with iPod capabilities. Then I guess I'll whine about all the taxes I have to pay.


Okay, so maybe that's not the conversation verbatim. But still, IF YOU ARE A LOAN SHARK AND YOU'RE VICTIMS CAN'T PAY YOU HAVE TO JUMP OFF THE TOP FLOOR OF YOUR SKYSCRAPER YOU SOULESS, UNETHICAL DOUCHE!!!!!!

Sorry, I'm just sad I didn't get an MBA. They have way cooler terms for things. In government, we have to use "Revenues" and "Expenditures" and "Deficits".

Ugh.