Bolshevik Musings
Walking home from work late last night I passed the Bank of America building on Federal Street. The cavernous entryway gleamed with polished brass and marble; a painting of a clipper ship in full sail hung above the security desk around which a half dozen cleaners shuffled. The thought went through my head: I want to see it burn to the ground.
With any luck, my business has a shot at modest profitability this year. We added a new person to headcount last month, and I have two more possibilities if the numbers stay where they are. The large banks are cutting jobs everywhere they can. GM promises more layoffs as they belly up for another helping at the taxpayer buffet. It will be decades, if ever, before any of these companies employs more people than they did this time a year ago. This year, my little company will create more jobs than both of them combined. Most of this, BTW, comes courtesy of my taking compensation in equity rather than salary, as I continue to be the lowest-paid worker in the company.
On top of this, I now see that the government wants to offer a lifeline to people who took out loans they cannot afford. Five years ago, I passed up a nice condo on the Fort Point channel because a $300k mortgage felt like too big a commitment on my then-105k salary. Since then I've continued to live in smaller rental apartments in less-delightful corners of the city, and gotten no tax write-offs from mortgage interest.
What I am told is that companies like Citibank, and people who thought it would never snow in March, must be backstopped, bailed out, infused, modified, or otherwise stimulated, lest the downdraft of their fall from grace pull me down with them. After all, business cannot survive without banks, even though my business has been financed entirely out of savings. Likewise, we can't have people getting foreclosed on left and right, even though this would mean the house might get purchased by a former renter who planned more carefully.
"Gimme the money, or the girl gets it!"
I don't want to see any more bankers or auto executives hauled down to grovel in front of Chris Dodd, Barney Frank, Maxine Waters, or even Orrin Hatch. I don't want executive pay caps, Gulfstreams put up on eBay, or an embargo on trips to Vegas. I want to see Jamie Dimon's bondholders force him to sell the Federal Street building and move regional HQ to Woburn. I want to see Rick Wagoner sent to retirement as GM is broken into smaller pieces so that the healthy ones can survive on their own.
Likewise, the structured-finance wizards who cooked up these convoluted securities tell us they're too complicated to undo. So long as the prospect exists of selling this problem to some sucker (and the US taxpayer will do nicely), they will insist that is the only viable option. What man hath securitized, man can unsecuritize, and though I do not doubt the process of unwinding will be considerably less enjoyable than what preceded it, I have almost infinite faith in the creativity and brilliance of the legions of Ivy League whizkids still employed by the financial sector. As Johnson said, "the prospect of hanging concentrates the mind wonderfully.
In fact, I can imagine nothing worse than what is being done right now, except what is likely to follow it if it does not succeed.
Walking home from work late last night I passed the Bank of America building on Federal Street. The cavernous entryway gleamed with polished brass and marble; a painting of a clipper ship in full sail hung above the security desk around which a half dozen cleaners shuffled. The thought went through my head: I want to see it burn to the ground.
With any luck, my business has a shot at modest profitability this year. We added a new person to headcount last month, and I have two more possibilities if the numbers stay where they are. The large banks are cutting jobs everywhere they can. GM promises more layoffs as they belly up for another helping at the taxpayer buffet. It will be decades, if ever, before any of these companies employs more people than they did this time a year ago. This year, my little company will create more jobs than both of them combined. Most of this, BTW, comes courtesy of my taking compensation in equity rather than salary, as I continue to be the lowest-paid worker in the company.
On top of this, I now see that the government wants to offer a lifeline to people who took out loans they cannot afford. Five years ago, I passed up a nice condo on the Fort Point channel because a $300k mortgage felt like too big a commitment on my then-105k salary. Since then I've continued to live in smaller rental apartments in less-delightful corners of the city, and gotten no tax write-offs from mortgage interest.
What I am told is that companies like Citibank, and people who thought it would never snow in March, must be backstopped, bailed out, infused, modified, or otherwise stimulated, lest the downdraft of their fall from grace pull me down with them. After all, business cannot survive without banks, even though my business has been financed entirely out of savings. Likewise, we can't have people getting foreclosed on left and right, even though this would mean the house might get purchased by a former renter who planned more carefully.
"Gimme the money, or the girl gets it!"
I don't want to see any more bankers or auto executives hauled down to grovel in front of Chris Dodd, Barney Frank, Maxine Waters, or even Orrin Hatch. I don't want executive pay caps, Gulfstreams put up on eBay, or an embargo on trips to Vegas. I want to see Jamie Dimon's bondholders force him to sell the Federal Street building and move regional HQ to Woburn. I want to see Rick Wagoner sent to retirement as GM is broken into smaller pieces so that the healthy ones can survive on their own.
Likewise, the structured-finance wizards who cooked up these convoluted securities tell us they're too complicated to undo. So long as the prospect exists of selling this problem to some sucker (and the US taxpayer will do nicely), they will insist that is the only viable option. What man hath securitized, man can unsecuritize, and though I do not doubt the process of unwinding will be considerably less enjoyable than what preceded it, I have almost infinite faith in the creativity and brilliance of the legions of Ivy League whizkids still employed by the financial sector. As Johnson said, "the prospect of hanging concentrates the mind wonderfully.
In fact, I can imagine nothing worse than what is being done right now, except what is likely to follow it if it does not succeed.
posted by The Snob at
11:14 AM
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