Too much irony

I wanted to briefly mention that last week my company had an invited speaker come talk to us about "How People and Companies Succeed During an Economic Crisis". This in and of itself was not terribly strange. Yes, my company has been in its own little recession for several years now, and no, I don't know whether paying motivational speakers to come out and talk to us is the best use of our money right now. The real kicker to this talk was this that the speaker was a high-ranking investment banker for a large, possibly-insolvent bank we will call C.
All kinds of questions...ok, jokes...ran through my mind when I saw the announcement. I thought maybe it would prepare us for a barter economy, or suggest asking the government for some sort of rescue plan. One friend suggested I attend the talk and throw my shoe.
In reality, the talk was basically devoid of useful insight. The speaker comparing himself to Barack Obama and Chesley Sullenberger within the first 10 minutes or so, stressing that his prep school and Harvard education somehow constituted excellence in "times of despair". The general theme distilled to "work hard and you will be fine." The truth is that there are no good answers in times like this, when the events of the economy are beyond the control of most individuals.