I felt unusually recollected this morning, the oils flowing and the quill well lubricated. Things are happening out there, sometimes so fast it is nearly impossible to get to it all, as we slog through respective professions and occupations and vocations and the like. In America, you know, a person is equated with what he does–nay, he IS what he does! Thus why so much fanfare of self- promotion and extravagence even at the most shameless self-aggrandizement.
Before I get too far down the road I aim to say a word or two more about Kenneth Lewis and Bank Of America. It is inexcusable that this man will parachute out of Bank America with some $150 Million in gilded edged account books to record all his loot while the United States taxpayers–better explained as “America’s poor,” had to bail out his greedy and exceptionally wicked bank. I’ll never forget as I sat nearly spellbound, as LEHMAN BROTHERS HOLDINGS fought for its survival, and he turned a wickedly blind eye, while he coveted Merrill Lynch. LEHMAN deserved a bailout just as much as AIG or any other irresponsible financial institution, whose march had been quickened with greed and avarice, beginning in the 1990’s. I would have canned him when he walked in with Merrill Lynch and I surely would have canned him when the Old Rotten Bull of Greed ran up some $15 Billion in losses its first Quarter under the BofA Family Banner. I would have docked his pay, too, and taken my chances with a jury of angry taxpayers when he wanted to sue to enforce his self-aggrandizement contracts. No man today is properly, reasonably, or even morally able to declare himself worthy of hundreds of millions of dollars in an industry that is so enfeebled it is unable to stand on its own, without federal taxpayer milk and other financial intermediary babyfood, and could utterly collapse tomorrow! Indeed, …. I am saying outright that it will COLLAPSE. Sooner than we think, too.
I’ve written previously about Bank of America, while it was infused with taxpayer money its branch vice presidents were authorized and/or encouraged to “churn” for abusive checking account fees. Here’s how it works, among other similar schemes. You have Account A and B, the first Jointly held between parties A & B, the latter solely held by B. B makes a $9.21 error and goes over on four small purchases that are just under $9.21 in the aggregate. Inside of this is a shifting month-end date for accounts and Bank of America’s branches initiated an “early closing” on specified accounts., and those are defined as those ripe for churning, as in our scenario A&B. This puts say a service charge through on the 15th, of the month, say, rather than the 21st, as has been the practice. Now you see it clearly, $32.00 per item, including the service charge imposed early and then greedily and wickedly punished. Account B is NOW upside down by over $150.00 for under $9.00 in error–two rolls of Neccco wafers, a cup of coffee and a small anti-perspirant. If that doesn’t stink something aweful it is difficult to imagine what would.
To resolve it, Bank of America takes all the money to satisfy it from Account A, because its joint in legality, and it doubles its take because it NOW turns Account A upside down by over $200.00, by its own actions, not the account holder’s actiona. Thus the Bank generates nearly $500.00 in fees of punishment, for less than a $9.00 error, while it takes federal bailout money. This is a ravenous and voracious beast and it is precise;ly the beast that Bank of America built. I am going to make a prediction:
Bank of America will be brought to utter financial ruination within 10 years. It is just that it happen and I will rejoice when it does happen for she is being repaid for her wickedness, for her greed. I truly hope it happens sooner rather than later. I really, really do.
In the interim, it will strive to claw and rip at any blood it can drink and any flesh it can gulp down its monsterous maw, as it fights to maintain its survival. It never, ever saw any relationship between itself and the ancient Tower of Babel, its skyscrapers into the heavens and its desire to make a celebrated name for itself is not something Bank of America officers or directors equated with the worship of something that ought never to be worshipped–MONEY. And along with it –greed and every wicked thing under heaven. Less than 10 years. I pray for it earnestly. People just do not see how this is related to spiritual matters. One day they will–they ALL will. In Ezekiel’s prophecies alone Jehovah makes it clear some 20 times through his priest and prophet that “they shall have to know I am Jehovah.” And … oh my, they WILL come to know, they will surely come to know.
This morning my wife warned me about the Two Sawme’s and while she is so cute for saying it that way she was truly troubled about the enormous loss of life and the extreme hardship now being faced by people in Indonesia near Sumatra. Bloomberg.com is reporting with experts that the Mentawai patch is quite possibly going to light off numerous hard-hitting temblors, even in the immediate future and the Tsunami festival this could bring is horrific. While this is ongoing, typhoons are ravaging the Phillipines, with TS Ondoy (Ketsana) hitting first and a possible super typhoon Peping that may hit as early as this weekend.
What astounds me as natural fires burn and earthquakes hit and typhoons (Hurricanes) get larger and more powerful, as entire financial and economic and even whole political systems sit on the crevice of the abyss, people simply walk around as though this is either meaningless–aside from the individual events of their lives-of buying and selling and of marrying and being given in marriage–(Luke 17:22-30) ) or that it is simply something else for government to manage and for the poor to somehow endure as best they can. Bank of america can lose hundreds of billions and get bailed out but a disabled person in America could no more get actual relief for student loans he cannot repay, and other equitble considerations that properly portray the American government as the wicked entity it is.
Just the other day I saw the total disintegration of a professional relationship that I thought was important to both people involved, not just one. Boy was I wrong! Greed–and there really isn’t a better word for it than that–the other side consumed all the cream and when it was gone went into a wrath that was truly off-the-charts. My so-called “friend”–”J”–always had this indifference about him that troubled me but I tried to push through, to seek peace and to pursue it. At the outset I had observed a physical therapist I know walk away from him in abject disgust, and I asked about it and wondered about it even then. I saw it come full circle. All it takes is time for any REAL narcissist to finally reveal himself. Narcissists are emotional vampires~!! They actually feed upon the strife they build. They have to do that, it’s like air they breathe.
I brought this fellow over $77,000.00 hard money into his practice, between October of last year and September of this year. More– worked for him for free, 300 hours. When he ordered the wrong size pylon for a new C-Leg, I was expected to adjust my expectations and let him jury rig it by lengthening the socket post instead. Doing it right would have cost “J” money on his supply budget and his Supply Budget is related to his Bonus incentive program.
I can read a map as to what happened. I can add up the component parts.
J–all on his own, without my understanding or prior consent–ordered and billed insurance for a suction system for an AK socket. It’s never been done before by anyone that I am aware of and I have it on solid authority that current technology is such that it can’t be done for an AK case. He built it too small and his backup plan is to try and cram it all in and make it stick. It didn’t. Now, meanwhile–he got paid for the whole enchilada that did NOT WORK. Several thousand dollars to be exact. Now its time to build a socket that will work. Not much to ask for. It becamse clear that “J” was sorely distracted: He called me in for something that didn’t need to be done because we had an appointment and he hadn’t got to the hard work of the case–fabrication. It’s messy and hard work, plaster, to take a negative model and transform it into a positive model. And then it ccurred to me: “J” skipped casting! When I worked for him he said you never, ever skip casting, and you don’t use fiberglass, you do it the old fashioned way, you use plaster. We should talk to Mike about that. LOL No, fiberglass can’t ever be used. LOL
He went back numerous generations for a model to use in my case and this was his first error of magnitude, including and especially by his own standards. Its easy to lecture them as required for others and quite another to hold yourself to those same standards. That creates liability under products liability for my fall! It is what’s known as a Manufacturing Defect and when a manufacturer fails to follow his own standards and the defect causes precisely the type of injury such standards would protect against, strict liability in tort is properly imposed in a majority of jurisdictions, incluidng the one we live in. I really do want to sue this guy because I think he needs to have himself publicly humiliated. He needs a dose of humility soon. Americans–so proud, so selfish, so self-absorbed, always so very, very AGGRESSIVE for self.
He made it too tight and he made it too long. The first ones looked like a tube. It was truly unnerving, we’re getting nowhere, this guy is usually a very good prosthetist, and he’s just not performing anymore at all. I told him repeatedly–it is too tight. So from positive model to test socket “J” is just NOT paying attention. He wants it to work without his effort. He’s been overpaid and he wants it done so he can have his unjust profit. He wanted me to be able to order it off a shelf, make it easy for “J”, he had totally lost his edge as to making it work well for the patient, fairly or reasonably. This patient is 6′2″ and he’s got less than 4″ left to hold it on with. The Rule is simple–YOU HAVE TO GRAB EVERYTHING~!
He got me barely in this thing. I agreed to try it, but said it was too tight, too small, and was very concerned. He chopped the socket on th emedial side to “force” me into it farther, an odd thing to do if indeed the socket wasn’t too tight to begin with? It was so tight on tendons going in I couldn’t wear the set of “J Jaws” unless he did relieve the medial side. I told him open it up a little, get me deep into it and have pressure high up on the stump, not just on the distal end mostly, and to have me solidly on my ischeal tuberosity and not my remus. Simple Rx for those who know what this is all about. I’ve been fitting these things for nearly 40 years. I’ve learned something along the way too.
So now I fall and nearly fracture my hip at 53, and he knows–he sees it coming–he’s going to have to make a whole new socket, that he built this one wrong–because he was distracted, perhaps he had lost motivation due to issues with upper mananagement, maybe its just that he got paid already and he wanted the job done, I don’t know–and he goes ballistic on the phone! Nobody knows more than “J”. Not my orthopedic surgeon, not the ER doctor, not my own sympoms–nothing mattered; he had decided the socket he made was all he was going to make for me, that his Supply Budget didn’t allow otherwise, irrespective of what my insurance companies paid into that budget for what I never even got, his errors notwithstanding, and he set about with a hard headed and shameless diatribe about his expertise and the literature and what we didn’t know and the likes, to cover over the real issue–his supply budget is upside down and that’s money out of his Bonus Pocket. he has very big pockets, because what “J” considers he’s worth would stagger your mind–and he’s more likely than not just been told in the most disfavorable terms that his Supplies Budget is South and it is going to cost him this year. The deal is I know his regional manager and talked with him carefully about this and related matters.
It’s simple. He made a socket too small and because for whatever reason –i.e., –he was not paying attention and he wasn’t motivated any longer. I had run over $77,000.00 into his business and from my end that was going to be it for a while, maybe that’s it with the Calculus of J! In any event, now that he had been paid for what I did not get and no one had ever delivered, he wasn’t going to deliver me a quality socket, he was , instead, going to cram his negligence and sloppy work literally up my arse, make it my fault, adding insult to actual injury, saying--”you’ll be wearing pads”! He ever tells me that again and I will sue him and his employer hard and fast just because I can~! In lieu of doing solid work he superimposed his unquestioned superior knowledge instead, all turned outward to abuse and disenfranchise and to prpotect J’s interests–no matter how debased or how unjust they had become! Would you tell a lawyer that after he brought you nearly $80,000.00 and worked for you for free in your shop doing grunt work for 300 hours? Only arrogance produces an ability to do something like this, the worst kind of arrogance, the kind that feels entitled to superiority becuse it has concluded it is superior.
You know what I would have done instead? I would have apologized for messing things up! “You’ve done a lot for me,” I would have told him, and “I’m absolutely going to make this right for you and I’m going to do it as quickly as humanly possible.” I would have cared. And I would have started right, casted him, and I would have built him the best socket of my life, as quickly as I could, making it a very, very high priority. I would have worked weekends for a guy like that! That’s what you do for people who do for you what I did for him and never asked him for anything inside of it. “J” is a huge TAKER. Takes, never gives.
My so-called “Friend–’J'”–Spirit of this World, and he doesn’t understand it, his own arrogance blinds him to it in himself, just as mine used to blind me to it in myself. I saw the old me in him, what I used to be. Inside my hurt I got to see how far I had come–where now I was giving in truth and not taking. I got to see what Paul meant when he wrote Ephesians chapter 2 by inspiration:
EPHESIANS 2:1-7
“Furthermore, [it is] YOU [God made alive] though YOU were dead in YOUR trespasses and sins, 2 in which YOU at one time walked according to the system of things of this world, according to the ruler of the authority of the air, the spirit that now operates in the sons of disobedience. 3 Yes, among them we all at one time conducted ourselves in harmony with the desires of our flesh, doing the things willed by the flesh and the thoughts, and we were naturally children of wrath even as the rest. 4 But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love with which he loved us, 5 made us alive together with the Christ, even when we were dead in trespasses—by undeserved kindness YOU have been saved— 6 and he raised us up together and seated us together in the heavenly places in union with Christ Jesus, 7 that in the coming systems of things there might be demonstrated the surpassing riches of his undeserved kindness in his graciousness toward us in union with Christ Jesus.”
I understood “J”s wrath on the phone, why he was so ready for war, for battle, come what may, because nobody tells him anything, nobody is permitted that option, to reprove or counsel or disciplne His Majesty “J”. He dictates terms of life for all others. I finally came to understand that this whole thing was more likely than not related to J’s inability to even obey his own superiors in what “J” had concluded was wrongly decided or unjustly enacted. He wanted a bonus and through no fault of mine he got clipped in that somehow, and he set about punishing others for his own misconduct and/or his own actions or mis-actions as a Practice Manager. He should be taking this up with his superiors and not his patients! And the fact remains that he did take it up with his patients, those he hurt–physically and otherwise–to boot.
I learned something precious about the difference of Christ–humility, and his chief adversary–Satan–Arrogance and Pride. I’m hurt. Bad. I’ve really been taken for a ride by someone I genuinely believe is a Malignant Narcissist. I will not ever be back because no matter how well he could serve me in the future I have been spit upon as I served another, unselfishly, with good will and cheer, and while I forgive for that, I won’t position myself in for another round of His majesty’s Royal Abuse! Apologies go many, many miles but arrogance sits roaring the RPM’s, wasting gasoline and getting nobody anywhere! One thing everyone needs to know about the Narcissist–make that TWO THINGS–(1) he never, ever gets better, and (2) He must be avoided at ALL COST. “J” must be avoided at all cost.
He told me to tell people the truth in writing. I did. I could tell it with the factual detail of a federal indictment and sometimes I reason to myself I ought to just do it and make that point. It might help him regain himself before it’s too late. “J” got me seriously hurt, he was paid well over and above what he actually provided, and he insulted that by layers over the injury he himself caused. He should be held accountable for serious misconduct towards patients as well!
If he worked for me I would terminate his employment in a red hot second. He is clearly unhappy where he is and he ought not to be deprived of finding true happiness elsewhere. I’m taking my cream and good will down the road like I should have done last year. I gave it a chance when I took it back from Phoenix. I did all the giving. That was a very bad lesson to teach a Narcissist and I strongly believe he needs to learn another one ASAP–it’s called HUMILITY. His ego has very, very bad eyesight. Nobody else’s sight is permitted to substitute for his. The only person in the universe that is so totally like that is Satan himself. Like John wrote:
1 John 3:10
“. . .The children of God and the children of the Devil are evident by this fact: Everyone who does not carry on righteousness does not originate with God, neither does he who does not love his brother.”
He would say, well, he’s not my brother. Well … then he better read about mine~! (Matthew 25:40)
