Devil in a Pinstriped Suit

Okay, Devil. I am ready to deal. Take my soul for ten miiiiilion dollars in cash immediately. Give me the contract. I've got my pen in hand. Will use blood, if necessary.

Waiting...

I thought so. What a load of carp you are!

On the Serpent, Hell, Sheol

There is no hell in Judaism. "Sheol," mentioned in the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible, Bible, "OT") is not to be equated with hell.

The serpent in Genesis is neither "the Satan" (common noun) nor the later "Satan" (obstructionist, prosecuting attorney, accuser, challenger, etc.).

For a good introduction to the myth of the serpent, the serpent in Judaism (Genesis), the serpent in Christianity, see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serpent_(symbolism)

Examples of Satan at work amongst the Jews as noted in the OT???

Exodus 32: 3,000 Israelites killed by Moses for worshipping the golden calf.

Numbers 31: After killing all men, boys and married women among the Midianites, 32,000 virgins remain as booty for the Israelites. (If unmarried girls are a quarter of the population, then 96,000 people were killed.)

Joshua:

Joshua 8: 12,000 men and women, all the people of Ai, killed.

Joshua 10: Joshua completely destroys Gibeon ("larger than Ai"), Makeddah, Libnah, Lachish, Eglon, Hebron, Debir. "He left no survivors."

Joshua 11: Hazor destroyed. [Paul Johnson, A History of the Jews (1987), estimates the population of Hazor at ?> 50,000]
TOTAL: if Ai is average, 12,000 x 9 = 108,000 killed.

Judges 1: 10,000 Canaanites k. at Battle of Bezek. Jerusalem and Zephath destroyed.

Judges 3: ca. 10,000 Moabites k. at Jordan River.

Judges 8: 120,000 Midianite soldiers k. by Gideon

Judges 20: Benjamin attacked by other tribes. 25,000 killed.

1 Samuel 4: 4,000 Isrealites killed at 1st Battle of Ebenezer/Aphek. 30,000 Isr. k. at 2nd battle.

David:

2 Samuel 8: 22,000 Arameans of Damascus and 18,000 Edomites killed in 2 battles.

2 Samuel 10: 40,000 Aramean footsoldiers and 7,000 charioteers killed at Helam.

2 Samuel 18: 20,000 Israelites under Absalom killed at Ephraim.

1 Kings 20: 100,000 Arameans killed by Israelites at Battle of Aphek. Another 27,000 killed by collapsing wall.

2 Chron 13: Judah beat Israel and inflicted 500,000 casualties.

2 Chron 25: Amaziah, king of Judah, k. 10,000 from Seir in battle and executed 10,000 POWs. Discharged Judean soldiers pillaged and killed 3,000.

2 Chron 28: Pekah, king of Israel, slew 120,000 Judeans.

TOTAL: That comes to about 1,283,000 mass killings specifically enumerated in the OT.

Rev. Thistlewaite,

"From the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) to the New Testament, the Devil is a much more interesting figure than that. Sometimes the Devil is doing God's will, as in the book of Job. The Devil is also a figure used in the Hebrew bible to describe the division and destruction within Israel. Satan is blamed for inciting dissention and discord among the people."

One of the many translations of "the Satan" is "obstructionist." In the Hebrew Bible and in Judaism, Satan like everything else, is a creation of God. He represents the obstruction, the problems in all their myriad forms on the path to Tikkun Olam (healing, perfecting the world, which is the task of Jews). The principle of obstruction exists so that Human may have free will.

I'd like to second another blogger in his/her commending you for referring to the Tanakh as the Hebrew Bible. Although Jews prefer the former, the latter does avoid the hegemony implicit in "OT."

Since we are a little bit guilty we should let the major sinners off the hook?

Take DeSantis who was clueless in AIG: What did he know, when did he know it? And if not, why not? Since he was a member of the Financial Products unit of AIG which had two offices and 300 employees and produced an outsized profit and refused to let the audit officers in, DeSantis needs to be able to provide reasonable answers to these questions before we can assume that his claim to simply a hard working and innocent geek is anything other than an exercise in blowing smoke.

This is a guy who disdains to return the taxpayer's money to the government because he finds the government too opaque.

He does have a legal entitlement to the retention bonus but his decision to work for AIG for one dollar plus the 'retention' bonus has to have been based on his assessment of two factors: that AIG would have the money to pay the bonus and that they would fulfil their legal obligation to do so. From the point that AIG was broke there was no one with the moral obligation to see that he got that money. There was, and is, a legal obligation for AIG to pay that money and since the government now owns 80% of the company the government now owns that legal obligation as well. This is a result of the separation of ownership in a corporation(shareholders and creditors) from running a corporation (managment). What distinguishes Obama's purchase of AIG from nationalization is that in most instances of nationalization the nationalizing government takes control of the running of the company as well as beneficial ownership similar to that held by stockholders who have only indirect control.

But since this is a legal obligation and not an equitable one, once the legal obligation of paying him is met there is little moral obligation preventing taxing the money back.

In general, I object to the discussions of the "Devil" because the use of the word conjures up (pun intended) the idea of an alternative deity, in dualistic opposition to the widely revered universal deity. I find the concept of such an alternative to be inherently false, or fictitious, and, as a result, the use of the term "Devil" seems unhelpful. In examining evil and forces of evil, one place to begin is by examining human selfishness. For example, lying in order to gain an advantage over someone else (whether by selling fraudulent investments or otherwise) seems highly likely to open the door to further wrong. I speculate that one of the most dangerous kinds of lying is when a person lies to him- or herself. A person who habitually lies to him- or herself may transition from not knowing who he or she is to not being who he or she is. Perhaps this presents a risk of closing the door to safeguards against evildoing which may be offered by religions and other systems of traditional values. Ultimately, in extreme cases, a person's internal life may become so twisted by selfishness and self-deceit that an easy transition is made to wrongdoing that is far more widely condemned than lying, such as murder and even genocide.

Societal wealth is based in productivity. It is not based on any one single part of the economy, like jobs, goods, or debt. It is the whole working efficiently and productively together.__Because humans are not smart enough...and governments are certainly not smart enough...our society usually decides to let the markets decide how to best balance our economy.___But markets are imperfect as well and are also prone to the same human "devils".___The markets have simply told us in this latest downturn that our economy is misbalanced and too much wealth has been concentrated in real estate and the stock market. The nature of the underlying debt is simply the mechanism that permitted this to happen. If we simply let the correction occur, the markets will correct this "evil".

It would be very interesting to find out among those "money changers" and other financial wizards who exactly attends a Christian church regularly.
Find them and then put them all in a room and have them comment on the following quote:
I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.

As each member of this exclusive club is ask to comment, focus the camera on their faces, zoom in and fill the screen with their facial twitches and other tell-tale signs of discomfort. And have them explain if they see any meaning in this quote (historically attributed to Jesus himself), and if they think it applies to their behavior.
I know! Let's give some of the TARP "money" to Michael Moore to finance this enterprise and see what he comes up with. It will probably be the funniest (and saddest) things since filming Bush reading excerpts of MY PET GOAT during the 9/11 disaster.

Well, the blame for the current economic downturn can be spread far and wide. Lenders, yes, but also borrowers, rating agencies, real estate agents, investment bankers and regulators all failed in some form or another. So Obama is, once again, correct, that we are all in this together and need to work to pull out of it together.

i hate to put it this simply but those who voted for the republicans (ie unbridled greed, NO busines OVERSIGHT whatsoever, etc) are the ones who put us in this position. those who wanted sensible regulation, resaonableness and decency, voted for democrats.

The Devil is a fabrication, made up so we don't have to take responsibility for the capacity that's inside each of us.

Any "sin" is neither good nor bad, it's simply a thought or action that we've engaged in or considered for our own reasons.

That's the story of humans: do something until you're criticized for it by enough people. Then find someone else to blame.

These pinstripes are the worst devils to walk the earth

Basics of free market are 'one- There are no toxic assets two-when some one losses others gain, money does not vanish'.

In this case the losers and the gainers are same devils and cartel of crooks they
are part of
Money and media Mafia which controls America,

Federal Reserve likes of Bernanke, Geithner,

and regulators also belong to the same family of crooks

they helped their cronies, with so called toxic assets to cheats, loot and deposit trillions in their private banks in Israel and Europe.

now they are be-fooling America by shifting trillions into the accounts of same fraudsters in name of buying toxic assets

Americans and the world have caught on their con tricks and

demand return of looted trillions deposited in their private banks in Israel,
by Madoff, AIG, and bosses of Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs.. etc..

All these crooks are linked to same devil's cartel

these criminals should be prosecuted through a Grand Jury.

how about demonizing barney frank and congress? works for me.

We don't demonize Pinstriped Suit but we DEMAND Wall Street criminals and their bought and paid for corrupt government high officials in prison for corruption and financial crimes. Failure to put these white collar criminals behind bars only prove to the American people that rich and powerful elites are above the law.

THE WORLD IS NOT BLACK AND WHITE.

The author clearly said that there are some that are more to blame for creating this mess than others, but that does not by any means absolve us of all responsibility. Deregulation, the deletion of factory jobs, increasing taxes on the middle class while decreasing them on the upper class, all these things have been building to their current place for 30 years.

THIS IS OUR COUNTRY.
It is a democracy. WE decide how much regulation there should be, and what the tax rates should be. WE decided to what level a company is allowed to be leveraged, our what accounting practices they must use when reporting quarterly results. You may so, "I don't have anything to do with any of that. That's the politicians, so let's blame them!" Who gave the politicians the authority to do this? OH YEAH, it was us. Ronald Reagan won on the idea of lower taxes and less regulation, and Bush I won on continuing that course. He lost in large part because he didn't keep that promise, and raised taxes. He raised the highest marginal tax rate from 28 to 35%. Clinton won on deregulation and lower import taxes. Democrats lost Congress in 1994 due to raising taxes. Bush won twice on lower taxes and less regulations, with a side dish of "you're going to die if you don't vote for me." Even Obama won on the promise of lowering taxes for 95% of households.

So again, how are we not to blame? Every single election has been won or lost based on short term sloppy thinking. Our greed caused this. Admit your responsibility.

What a refreshing column. In some ways, Thistlethwaite's take on Satan, i.e. looking within oneself for the Devil, reflects much that is written in the Gnostic Gospels (e.g. The Book of Thomas). That is, it's a very philosophical and even Zen view, rather than a dogmatic religious one. For more, read Elaine Pagels', THE ORIGIN OF SATAN and THE GNOSTIC GOSPELS.
But back to the Satan within us and it's relation present circumstances. I think the 'what's mine is mine and what's yours ought to be mine' mentality started in the '80s with Ronald Reagan and the no new taxes montra. Essentially we were all told that sacrifice is passe'(poor Jimmy Carter) and that we could have everything we wanted and didn't have to pay for it. Only prob: the gov't kept spending. Bush II took the pledge and ran with it, and the Repubs in Congress still spent and spent, taking a decent surplus and turning it into a gigantic deficit. They were Repubs first, Americans second. Their president came first, the constitution and prudency second. Yet we still hear the mantra from present day conservatives who have all of a sudden rediscovered fiscal responsibility. I'm not absolving the Dems from guilt; they went along with it, of course, having been bludgeoned by the 'taxandspendliberal' label. Worst of all, most Americans went with the big lie. Let's all spend and spend; live for today, forget tomorrow or our grandkids. After all, that's what they're doing in Washington, righ. And hey, we elected those folks who were telling us that we don't have to pay for stuff. I can't help thinking that, if we all weren't so greedy, and so gullible, things would be a lot different now.

This particular woman and theologian could not be farther off the mark. What an insipid and patronizing article!

For the record, I DID make comments about the greed and unsustainable real estate when the Dow was 14,000, as did many others. However, the captains of finance, along with a right-wing Ayn Rand economic philosophy (greed is good as long as I get mine) have created this debacle - that hurt all of us.

To quote SamD2,
"I bought a house, saved my money in a 401 k, and lived within my means. Now I am 30% poorer. But no-one ever offered me a defined benefit pension. No-one offered me subsidized housing or free health care. I was just doing the best I could and saving as much as I could within the economic system we have. The enormous risks taken by a few large financial institutions brought us all down. End of story."

AMEN.

In his book, The Tangled Wing, Melvin Konner describes the (often empty) grandiosely tacky mansions of Malibu as a reflection of "our own lives write large." It seems to me that Ms. Thistlethwaite is making the same point here. The vehemence of reaction indicates that it's struck a raw nerve, near to 'the heart of the matter,' or 'the truth.'

To echo others:

You seem to think that the common man's greed is on the same level as the greed shown by the "captains of industry." Simply apples and oranges. And what about all of us who played by the rules?

While I agree as a general matter that demonizing others does not absolve anyone from their own sins, you rant here appears to ignore the fact that these demons broke the economy and walked away with millions. Of course, they will answer in hell/purgatory, but this is not a matter of glass houses and stones. The "captains of capitalism" truly broke the system and this article seems to provide an apologia for their actions. And ignores that the common man who was greedy and over extended his credit is being punished in this world; those oh so sensitive captains have run off with the cookie jar. I suppose they will answer to a higher authority--but this does not mean that they should not be publicly condemned.

I think that the attempt to blame the "average American" for our economic collapse might be theologically interesting but it is factually ridiculous. I bought a house, saved my money in a 401 k, and lived within my means. Now I am 30% poorer. But no-one ever offered me a defined benefit pension. No-one offered me subsidized housing or free health care. I was just doing the best I could and saving as much as I could within the economic system we have. The enormous risks taken by a few large financial institutions brought us all down. End of story.

Envy? Oh boy, I'm bored. How about a genuine disgust with a system that is out of control? We've certainly let it happen by allowing for massive deregulation and no accountability, but to try to paper over this insanity with a palaver-laden sermon on envy is ridiculous.

So now we are going to bring religion into the business class? Honesty, fairness, respect, and love did not begin with the Bible. They are human emotions that have fallen by the wayside. These are normally learned at home not in church.

I don't know of anyone who is envious. This must be a projection on your side, a Freudian slip....I do know of people who are upset because these people have a different set of rules. No matter how incompetent they are entitled to a "bonus", reward. In most other business areas, a "bonus" is given for performance leading to growth and the creation of wealth, but in Wall ST. it is part of pay.

You make some good points. However, there is a significant difference between the average person and those on Wall Street and on Capitol Hill. The people on Wall Street and Capitol have the "power" and the "resources" to indulge their greed. The average American citizen has only small amount of power and resources, and in some cases neither.

The Bible also says that "to whom much is given, much is required". Those with the power and the resources that caused this financial meltdown were missing, and still are missing, two key ingredients. Those two ingredients are personal integrity and accountability.

Finally, keep in mind that those in power and with the vast resources within the financial system, were using everyone else's money to make "big bucks" for themselves. Now that they are being asked to return or to forfeit bonuses, it is a huge problem for them. They had no problem taking extreme risks with other peoples' money, but now that it is hitting them directly in their pockets they are crying "unfair".

What a hypochristian! How many times is "thou shall not covet" in your 10 commandments? What camel do you know will pass through the eye of a needle?

Wall Street was a con from the beginning and like all good cons (and this is perhaps, after religion, the biggest con of all) it can only work by appealing to the greed of the conned.

That precious dough the vulgar wealthy fear parting with was stolen from working/middle class folks forced to save this way. People with better things to do than try and unravel the purposely obfuscated laws written by.....lawyers who dominate a goverment that was supposed to be "for and of the people."

There is no shortage of tax free church holdings in real estate, of palatial buildings and corpulent pigs like John Hagey, wearing thousand dollar suits and pushing hate agendas.

The world is doomed because no one will address the origins of starvation and the degradation of the planet...that there are too many people on it. And who is it that is churning out the short sighted polluters? Those more radical adherents to the Bronze Age beliefs, the misogynist hasidics, papists and polygamist moslems and mormons.

The human race runs out of time to evolve and the earth will shake us off of it.

The mischief afoot in this world is breathtaking. Fools at the top of the food chain, the Queen of England, the Queen of the Netherlands, the Royals throughout Europe and Asia and The Middle East and their minions in our nation, the neocons, the Bush family, the Henry Kissinger crowd with his friend Maurice Greenberg of AIG, with the Senators and Congressmen who think they can fool the people are failing because of this world wide web. The cat is out of the bag. The destruction of our nation is the last phase of creating a one world government whereby the royals on the planet regain their control over the land, the water, the air and the fire of the alchemy that created them in the first place.

Humanity is incidental to these despots.

How about the Devil Wears Prada? This is not the banking industry...it's the 5th Avenue, NY marketing industry that brought on the desire for greed in the American people. Put it in a cute little package, and they will buy it, no matter what it cost.

What else could one expect ? We live in a cursed world ( because of sin ) and we humans are born depraved, sinful, self centered, greedy, lustful, decietful and idolotrous. We are, like Satan, by nature enemies of God through wicked works.

You might have thought that those priests
abused boys because they were fixated at
age 12 themselves as a result of their
childhood indoctrination, and when Libido
broke through it, they sought partners of
their own psycho-sexual age, but here is a rival hypothesis:

LACK OF FISH ON FRIDAY OPENS DOOR FOR
LUST DEMON:

I am called Asmodeus among mortals . . . I transport men into fits of madness and desire when they have wives of their own, so that they leave them and go off by night and day to others that belong to other men; with the result that they commit sin and fall into murderous deeds."
Solomon obtained the further information that it was the archangel Raphael who could render Asmodeus innocuous, and that the latter could be put to flight by smoke from a certain fish's gall (compare Tobit viii. 2). The king availed himself of this knowledge, and by means of the smoke from the liver and gall he frustrated the "unbearable malice" of this demon. Asmodeus then was compelled to help in the building of the Temple; and, fettered in chains, he worked clay with his reet, and drewwater. Solomon would not give him his liberty "because that fierce demon Asmodeus knew even the future" (ib. p. 21).

http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=2019&letter=A&search=asmodeus

Why do these women who have studied a litte theology think they know it all? They should stick to kniting. Posted by Ravitchn

Ravitchn, women have every right to express their opinions on theology or any matter. Men certainly have made a mess out of everything. Just what do you know that makes you such an authority on what women should do? Crawl back into your cave, you dunce. That is where you belong.

Why do these women who have studied a litte theology think they know it all? They should stick to kniting.

Didn't millions of Americans binge on goods they didn't need and could not afford, not just Wall Street? Aren't millions of Americans in debt as a result of their own spending? Didn't Americans who live on credit decide to do so? Aren't millions of Americans playing the blame game, that they made me do it?

Rev. Thistlewaite,
I like seeing that you call the Old Testament with his correct name: Hebrew Bible and the New Testament is the name of the other Sacred Book. I know that is common to use the name Bible for either ones but I prefer your way.

I've felt for my entire career history, since the mid nineties, that we have been living in excess and it ws going to bite us back big time. I puposefully stayed out of the stock market and didn't invest in a 401K for just that reason.

When the first dot com bubble burst, I felt like we were starting to head in a better direction. However, I was still questioning the stock market value and skyrocketing home prices. I again chose to remain out of the stock market and had put my money into a simple savings account at a local credit union associated with my school district where I teach. I haven't made a lot of money in savings, but I didn't lose any either, which made me feel better about my choices to stay away from the stock market and real estate at this time.

Now the stock market and real estate market are finally correcting themselves and I still think they need to drop lower for me to be able to invest confidently.

I will be most confident when we move away from creating money by shifting money around to making money by creating real goods and services again. Hopefully I will get to invest in the stock market/retirement funds/real estate one day when it becomes based in reality again.

I do have to say all along I struggled with not investing in retirement accounts, real estate and the stock market like most people I know. However, they have all lost their money and are facing some serious problems. I'm still just plodding along, still living as I have since I started working. No impressive gains, but especially no major losses either.

One does not have to be religious to hold ethical and rational values. Religion offers a frame of reference that is more dramatic by framing it as a struggle between God and the devil, good and evil.

The financial conundrum the world faces today is a result of the ethics gone amok. The rise of a class of manipulative players fashioned by the business schools as masters of the universe. In that role they became exempt from the norms. Their nihilistic excesses were touted as the virtues of unbridled capitalism. This class abrogated huge portions of the global enterprise through manipulations of currencies, stocks, bonds, credit default swaps, shorting, etc. because they held the levers of power to control monetary flow. They unleashed a binge that may have religious precedence but is unique to the age. There are very few people who would castigate the likes of Bill Gates, Buffet, Larry Ellison, the founders of Yahoo, Google and the like, for their enormous riches. These guys earned it by building things tangible. The devils of the modern age are the financial manipulators and executives of companies who padded their payrolls with perks to morally outrageous degrees. Religion has little to do with it. By all accounts, Madoff and many of his partners were highly observant orthodox Jews.

Based on all the greed, war, bloodshed, suffering, torture and clamoring for power among the agents of his three religious derivatives, I'm convinced Abraham is Satan.

Counterww,

"That is the biggest bs statement I have ever heard. Wars come from people's desire for power and money. It has absolutely nothing to do- directly- with religion."

That is as simplistic an idea as adrienne's. Of course many wars have roots in religion, just as they are initiated by the desire for resources and territory. Ideological roots are common in war, and religion plays a large role in a culture or tribes ideologies.

To Adrienne

How do you define rational thinking? Does it factor in human emotional vectors, psychological factors (genetic and conditiond)? How does it factor in the unknown, like mob behavior, what the weather conditions might be in the future, or whether a particular event may or may not have happened 2500 years ago? There is a great deal we don't have empirical information on, and we will always be living in a state of at least partial unknowing. Becoming comfortable with those uncertainties requires rational thinking, constantly evolving awareness, and an ability to listen to the subconscious, which is often not rational.

Religion is one mode for trying to explain the unknown, and is as flawed as humans are. Rational thinking is equally limited, though in different ways. Therefore, rationalist absolutes, like "throw the religious bums out" are not particularly useful.

Let's instead endeavor to work together to support everyone in raising their awareness, tolerance for uncertainty and in practicing of compassion and kindness.

Thank you, Adrienne!!!

And poppycock to you, CounterWW

Poppycock to you Adrienne.

"Every calamaty, every war, every injustice ever perpetrated in the entire history of humanity has its ultimate roots in this nonsense"

Really? Every war and every injustice is because of religion?

That is the biggest bs statement I have ever heard. Wars come from people's desire for power and money. It has absolutely nothing to do- directly- with religion.

Like God, the Devil is just a metaphor.

What is a theologian doing att he Center for American Progress? Well make progress once we exorcise ourselves of these idiotic religious beliefs. Every calamaty, every war, every injustice ever perpetrated in the entire history of humanity has its ultimate roots in this nonsense. The sooner we replace religion with rational thinking, the better. Think about it.