This is such a classic tale.
It fits so nicely with a great deal of what I observe about modern North American culture … can’t talk about the negative aspects of what’s really happening (and no, not everything is negative, but it sure as shit ain’t all happy-clappy either). We must stay positive and upbeat because after all, people don’t want to hear and don’t respond to the negative.
Via the NY Times … read the full piece here
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Virginia Heffernan, September 26, 2008
In my imagination, a bank — a real bank — is suffused with a hush, which is interrupted, rarely, by the low gong of a massive vault slamming shut. The sole personnel are the huissiers of Geneva fortresses, those solemn openers and closers of locked doors. Clients dress in bespoke suits and stand reverent before the ramparts that secure their annuities in gold bars and serve as bulwarks against their ruin.
A bank’s own practice of borrowing and lending on its clients’ fortunes is not spoken of too directly, lest it cloud the illusion that when the money is out of sight, it’s in the vaults.
In my fantasies, banks are never financial-services firms, and Bill Clinton did not sign the 1999 law that repealed the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, allowing commercial and investment banks to merge.
It seems that the once-glorious Wall Street investment banks — Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns — don’t share my fantasy. Even as they were sick, dying or dead, their Web sites had a chipper, customer-service vibe. They were still babbling about helping me realize my dreams. And money, when I could follow it on these silly sites, tripped around the globe, becoming euros and yen only to spread subprime stardust on razed fields where enchanted condos grew.
It was a missed opportunity. After all, it might have been an excellent time to shore up the confidence of those who wondered what American banks were up to, if not protecting our money. But the banks were sticking with their goofy bravado.
[ Snip … ]
Over at Lehman.com, I came upon an audio file of a Sept. 10 “investor call” by Richard S. Fuld Jr., the chairman and chief executive of Lehman Brothers. In his remarks, Fuld unfurled “a substantial de-risking of our balance sheet” that he said would “allow the firm to return to future profitability.”
It’s perversely interesting to hear a C.E.O. whose firm was just a few days away from flat-out bankruptcy evince unruffled self-assurance. Whether the plane is going down or just bumping in turbulence, the captain apparently always says the same thing.
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Mind-blowing !
Bring to mind the lyrics of Leonard Cohen’s "Everybody Knows" …
Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows that the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
Thats how it goes
Everybody knows
Everybody knows that the boat is leaking
Everybody knows that the captain lied
Everybody got this broken feeling
Like their father or their dog just died
Everybody talking to their pockets
Everybody wants a box of chocolates
And a long stem rose
Everybody knows
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