on march 2, 2009, the insurance conglomerate american international group reported a fourth quarter 2008 loss of 61.7 billion dollars, bringing its total losses for 2008 to 99.3 billion. on march 14, the company announced the payment of 165 million dollars in “non-negotiable” bonuses to some high executives. this generated some outrage, as the company had previously received 170 billion dollars in bailout funds from the united states government.
march 25 was the twentieth anniversary of johnny wilson’s first promotion to foreman at wal-mart. he had not actually held the position continually for the twenty years, as he had lost it for seven months when moving to the new location down the road in 1998. nobody except johnny himself noticed the date, and when he informed jenny of it she congratulated him and told him she was proud of him.
johnny decided to celebrate the anniversary by buying a large chocolate cake he saw at the bakery in the local supermarket. he ate the whole thing himself, washing it down with cups of decaf, while scrolling through long threads of patriotic outrage and rhetoric on reddit.
on june 25, michael jackson, “the king of pop”, died suddenly at the age of 50. he had been a famous popular music star since he was about 10 years old.
on june 30, united states troops withdrew from baghdad and other iraqi cities, though over 100,000 remained in the country. iraqi prime minister nuri kamal al-maliki declared june 30 “national sovereignty day” and a public holiday.
on october 1, u s president barack obama signed an executive order prohibiting federal employees from texting while driving.
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