Large corporations hire CEOs due to the specific family lineage they inherited when they were born. These people did not grow up like the rest of us, and their value to a corporation is not the same as someone who actually does a job that requires skills or a good resume. These people have family and historical ties to other CEOs who run large corporations that the hiring company wants to partner with at some level. Approaching these partnerships with the proper representative at the helm is the only way that these elite tier partnerships and alliances can be formed.

I bring this up in this thread to illustrate that there is an American aristocracy, and its landed gentry are the CEOs and CFOs of the largest American corporations, as well as the intimate partnering business groups that control them. The sector that is most inhabited by these separated-from-the-herd individuals is the banking sector, since moving money is the fastest profit, least skilled profession - certainly compared to managing a large manufacturing enterprise. These bankers have no idea what a guy with a bulldozer as trying to tell them when he destroys his house. Maybe the local bank manager does, but not the bosses at the highest level. These people are simply unlike normal people, and this difference in lineage and inherent "breeding" is why they are the bosses.

In America, the average hard-working, capable individual can only rise to a certain level in a company. Even if s/he starts that company, that company can't get to a certain level of market prominence before the reins must be handed over to "professional management". What "professional management" means is that one of the scions of America's aristocracy must be in place or the company cannot join the ranks of the larger corporations. There are a few exceptions, but these are companies (like Microsoft and Apple) whose products have been so successful that they've survived and thrived in spite of the corporate governance, and not because of that governance.

It'll take a full frontal assault of Wall Street to even get these people to suspect that there's a problem, so don't be surprised if nothing changes. These are the classic "let them eat cake" aristocratic elites, and they just don't think like the rest of us.

Originally posted by randomname
he should have burnt the house down and collect the insurance that would have covered the mortgage and would have left him with a profit. mafia 101.

The !#$*&%$@! insurance company would probably have a clause in fine print on the back of a page somewhere that says they will only have to pay 1/2 of the present value. I've had my run in with insurance companies and If you think that going to your states insurance commissioner will help, then you are WRONG!!!

I wouldn't have bulldozed it. I would have sold off the fixtures, appliances, boards, etc piece by piece and stashed the money somewhere. Then I would've just let them foreclose on the rest.