Worst Person in the World

Have you seen Keith Olberman's show? He does this little feature of the top three worst people "in the world". The people that he feature have a wide variety of faults and failures that landed them on Keith's list -- from robbing banks, to corrupt politicians, to Keith himself for some TV flub or misquote that he might have made. Nobody is safe. Not even the President-elect. 

This morning I was listening to the news and I think I have found the worst person of the day. Heck, he might even be the worst person of the week or the month. 

Mr. John Thain is the co-CEO of the bank giant Merrill Lynch. His company had posted losses every quarter this year, totally BILLIONS of dollars. Hundreds of employees have lost their jobs and hundreds more probably will. It's a really bad situation.

Well, Mr. Fancy-Pants-John-Thain walked into work one day and got a BRILLIANT idea. He thought to himself (and then shared with his company's Compensation Committee) that he deserved a 10-MILLION-DOLLAR-BONUS this year. 

10 FREAKING MILLION DOLLARS FOR HELPING HIS COMPANY LOSE BILLIONS OF DOLLARS AND WATCHING HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE LOSE THEIR JOBS?!?!?!

Um, I'm sorry. All this time I thought that people got bonuses for doing GOOD things -- apparently I was wrong. 

Mr. Pant's defense was that he helped make the decisions that avoided even bigger losses for Merrill Lynch. Wouldn't common sense tell you that if your company almost had to be bailed out by the federal government that they are a little strapped for cash? Wouldn't you think to yourself, "hmmmm... maybe this year wouldn't be the year to be asking for that kind of money. Maybe I'll work really hard next year and see what happens."

So back to the story....Mr. Fancy Pants (and they probably are really fancy pants with all his millions of dollars he has) apparently got some heat (no, really?) from all the media and he has graciously removed his bonus request. 

Thank heavens. 

But in my opinion he's still the worst person in the world. 

P.S. Coming in second place for the worst person in the world are those auto industry CEO's that flew their corporate private jets to Congress to ask for bailout money. That's a whole other story I won't even get in to.