Four Words: John Sidney McCain III

The evil die old: Two-faced shitstain Charles Keating finally died this wk. He should have died in prison.

After all, Keating was such a devout Catholic that he donated more than $6 million to the saintly Mother Teresa, flying her around the country in his personal jet. He had hired respected economist Alan Greenspan, later chairman of the Federal Reserve, to say that Lincoln S&L’s managers were “expert” and their investments not harmful to the public at all. Keating was so well-thought of that he essentially bribed five U.S. senators – including a decorated war hero and a former astronaut — to pressure regulators to kill their investigation.

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But at least there were consequences. Close to 1,000 high-flying executives from the 1980s and 19990s received public trials and jail time. Keating himself was convicted on 73 counts of bankruptcy and wire fraud and sentenced to 12 years in prison, serving 4 ½ years of that sentence. He and other convicted executives were forced to disgorge their ill-gotten gains and their companies were punished by injunctions, fines and tighter examinations.

That’s a far cry from today, after the Crash, when chieftains and gonzopreneurs at financial institutions get raises after paying $17 billion in fines – or five times the amount that the villainous Keating lost in his era. S&Ls today are like mega-herbivores that once walked the earth feasting on leaves and grass. These dinosaurs may be practically extinct, but so is the practice of holding executives accountable.

Two words, people: Pitchforks & torches. Two others: Tumbrils & guillotines.

And not to miss the actual theme of the item: Catholicism's perversion of sexuality, as personified in the wretch Keating.

Yet, he spent decades cultivating a different side of his public persona. He was the man who’d headed up a drive to purge sexually explicit material from Cincinnati’s newsstands. In the 1950s, he had formed Citizens for Decent Literature, partly to shut down Larry Flynt’s Hustler magazine and club. That group grew to 300 chapters around the country and lifted the profile of the morally righteous Keating to the point where President Richard Nixon appointed him to head an anti-pornography commission. If there was such a thing as a decent businessman, he was Charlie Keating.

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They [Keating's female assistants] proudly admitted they had been hired for their good looks. Keating had spied one young woman from his limousine as she was crossing the parking lot. “She was very pretty and perfect like a model,” said a top secretary, Jackie Weaver. Never mind that the boss didn’t know anything about her intellect, her administrative skills or even whether she could type. He just pointed to her and said I want her, Weaver recalled. “So she went from nothing to the assistant of one of the top CEOs in the country, just like that.”

First, the young woman (who had asked to remain anonymous) had to go through a gauntlet of tests and interviews. “A lot of the male attorneys wanted to meet you to decide whether you should be hired. “It was almost ridiculous, it took so long,” said the lone brunette. But once you were in the power environment, you were golden. To keep their jobs, these women kept their heads down and always smiled. “You worked hard and were expected to act professionally at all times,” said one secretary. Even if you had a problem at home, you had to be sunny, happy, gorgeous and obedient. “You had to say yes with a smile.”

The rewards were worth it. One woman earned $65,000 as an executive assistant in 1988, the year she also received a $50,000 bonus. (That’s the equivalent of $253,000 today.) She used her bonus as a down payment on her custom-built house and when she got married, Keating paid for her lavish Canadian honeymoon. The woman who was spotted in the parking lot earned $100,000 the year she turned 24. “Basically, the shorter the skirt, the bigger the bonus,” Suzan Klumker told me. One year, 10 secretaries received clothing allowances of $5,000 and blew it all by shopping at Gucci’s and I. Magnin’s across the street. On casual Fridays, members of the blond squad wore miniskirts or shorts with crop-tops, lace anklets and high heels. “It was so weird to see these (scantily clad) women walking around,” said the former public relations manager, Trisha Johnson.

Nothing to add that wasn't sung almost 50 yrs. ago; why fucking bother when nothing ever changes?For old & forgetful ears:

A world of secret hungers
Perverting the men who make your laws
Every desire is hidden away
In a drawer in a desk by a Naugahyde® chair
On a rug where they walk and drool
Past the girls in the office