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American International Group Inc - Source: Reuters -
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Jon Stewart, the anchor of Comedy Central's fake news show The Daily Show recently 'reported' that AIG, the company which has come to symbolise the hubris and greed of the American financial collapse, had renamed itself Herpes.
If I need to explain why that's funny, then please stop reading here.
What makes the trope more tragic (and thus funnier) is that AIG company executives, or image makers, were already considering a version of what Stewart and his writers had envisaged as an agreeably barbed end for a monologue.
Three days ago, the company removed the name from the building that most often gets filmed for TV news pieces about AIG.
I found this out when the savvier part of TVNZ's operation in New York, my cameraman Nick, sent me these pictures with the message, 'What are we going to shoot now?'
You see, the actual AIG headquarters, which is closer to Wall Street is so monstrous and imposing, and so poorly signed, it doesn't make for good telly.
We were setting up there one night after the story first broke about the chicanery that AIG visited on the US financial system when a security guard approached.
I said to him that we weren't going to film him, we were just there to humiliate his corporate masters. He said what Americans often say when they hear my New Zealand accent, "Sorry?"
Nick translated what we were trying to do, and he said, benevolently, "Well, this isn't a good shot, the better shot is two blocks down, and two blocks left."
That's a measure of how televisual American society is (or how amateur your humble report is): Even the security guards know a good shot when they see one. "That guy is the most awesome security guard ever," said Nick, as we trudged through the freezing night.
He was. We got the shot.
Only now, it doesn't exist. There's no visual reference for AIG. The company, which has made itself the poster child for 'Arrogance, Ignorance and Greed', has effectively removing itself from the poster.
In one sense this is understandable, even desirable.
During the weekend, a bus tour was organised of the houses of AIG executives by a group of activists. Apparently the Lifestyles of the Rich and Infamous tour had more media people than civilians on it. And the AIG CEO told congress last week that the company had received emails wishing that its executives and families be hung with piano wire.
The specific nature of that hate letter gives pause, particularly when you remember that piano wire was favoured by the Gestapo for executing undesirables.
Nazism was built on populism, and class, as well as race hatreds that, while more virulent, still owe their sources to the kind of anger being shown in the US against those on Wall Street who are believed to have profited too much.
That's almost everyone by the way. Tawdry public anger is a broad brush.
But until that anger is appeased by the possibility that the
recession will ease (somewhat unlikely, todays stock market rally
notwithstanding), or a more public sacrifice, Herpes will be too
good for them.
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