The Panic of '08
I suspect that there are many people out there who have a “Ha, good on those greedy bastards, they had it coming to them” feeling about the amazing collapse that has been ongoing in the financial sector for some time now. Here’s the real bad news: the greedy bastards are going to come out of this just fine. They always do. The people who are going to be screwed, as always, are those of us who are small-time investors trying to sock away enough money to live off of so we can retire while there’s few years left in our lives that we can enjoy. I don’t know about you, but I’d like to maximize the time between the end of work and the beginning of the tube-filled bedridden years where I stare at the lengthening rays of the sun and wonder what time the mailman is going to show up tomorrow.
It is amazing here in the West how we are brainwashed from the time we’re in college to the time the first shovelful of dirt hits the roof of the casket to trust an industry that is essentially filled with adrenaline-junky compulsive gamblers with the financial rewards of our toil. Now I’m not pulling all of my money out of the bank and shoving it into a mattress (yet) but watching several billion dollars of human labor vaporize into the ether in a single day does give me pause. I remember after the stock market collapse in the late 1980s the Village Voice did an investigative piece into how the popularity of cocaine in the Wall Street culture fueled the paranoia that led to that financial bloodbath. I wonder if there is any corollary recreational substance that can help explain the current meltdown.
It’s all so grim, isn’t it? Makes you think we’re in the end times of Western Civilization.
I wonder if it's just a coincidence that there was a near fistfight between some passengers and the driver of the bus I took home last night. The tiff started when the driver zoomed past the first stop after crossing the V-N bridge. Several passengers were standing in the aisle expecting to get off. The "stop request" bell was broken and there was a large sign at the front of the bus clearly indicating "NO BELL" which means that the passengers have to communicate their desire to disembark by yelling "next stop" or something like that. Apparently nobody had said anything to the driver because as the bus headed to the next stop the exchange went something like this:
Driver: "Nobody said they wanted to get off"
Woman: "But you see us standing here in the aisle!"
Driver: "I'm not looking there, I'm supposed to be driving the bus! How can I drive the bus if I'm looking in the other direction!"
Woman: "You should know that people always get off at that stop!"
And so on. This continued as the bus pulled into the next stop with the woman continuing to berate the driver but now she was blocking the aisle preventing her fellow passengers from leaving the bus. Naturally they all starting yelling "Getting off!" "Trying to leave!" "Excuse me!" et cetera but this woman wasn't letting anyone off the bus until she had her say. So we all wound up waiting until she deemed it proper to leave.
Scenes like that always leap to mind when I hear some newscaster or politician blather about how New Yorkers always help each other out in a time of crisis, how we pull together for the common good and grin and bear adversity. Funny how the more common "we turn on each other like a tank full of piranhas that someone forgot to feed" stories never quite make the front page.
It is amazing here in the West how we are brainwashed from the time we’re in college to the time the first shovelful of dirt hits the roof of the casket to trust an industry that is essentially filled with adrenaline-junky compulsive gamblers with the financial rewards of our toil. Now I’m not pulling all of my money out of the bank and shoving it into a mattress (yet) but watching several billion dollars of human labor vaporize into the ether in a single day does give me pause. I remember after the stock market collapse in the late 1980s the Village Voice did an investigative piece into how the popularity of cocaine in the Wall Street culture fueled the paranoia that led to that financial bloodbath. I wonder if there is any corollary recreational substance that can help explain the current meltdown.
It’s all so grim, isn’t it? Makes you think we’re in the end times of Western Civilization.
I wonder if it's just a coincidence that there was a near fistfight between some passengers and the driver of the bus I took home last night. The tiff started when the driver zoomed past the first stop after crossing the V-N bridge. Several passengers were standing in the aisle expecting to get off. The "stop request" bell was broken and there was a large sign at the front of the bus clearly indicating "NO BELL" which means that the passengers have to communicate their desire to disembark by yelling "next stop" or something like that. Apparently nobody had said anything to the driver because as the bus headed to the next stop the exchange went something like this:
Driver: "Nobody said they wanted to get off"
Woman: "But you see us standing here in the aisle!"
Driver: "I'm not looking there, I'm supposed to be driving the bus! How can I drive the bus if I'm looking in the other direction!"
Woman: "You should know that people always get off at that stop!"
And so on. This continued as the bus pulled into the next stop with the woman continuing to berate the driver but now she was blocking the aisle preventing her fellow passengers from leaving the bus. Naturally they all starting yelling "Getting off!" "Trying to leave!" "Excuse me!" et cetera but this woman wasn't letting anyone off the bus until she had her say. So we all wound up waiting until she deemed it proper to leave.
Scenes like that always leap to mind when I hear some newscaster or politician blather about how New Yorkers always help each other out in a time of crisis, how we pull together for the common good and grin and bear adversity. Funny how the more common "we turn on each other like a tank full of piranhas that someone forgot to feed" stories never quite make the front page.
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